Friday, August 7, 2015

Street Fighter Alpha 2 for Super NES (1996)


Original print advertisement published in the December 1996 issue of Tips and Tricks (no.27)

Press to download or view in higher resolution.

Hand-drawn artwork for one of the rarer games on the Super NES


Just some days ago I concentrated on the Street Fighter Alpha 2 for Sony's PlayStation and Sega's Saturn, one of the best 2-D fighters ever made. I only touched on the SNES version. Out of the blue I discovered a very old copy of Tips and Tricks magazine (bonus point: published by Larry Flint) and stumbled upon the advertisement you see above. Undoubtably, it is one of the best printed advertisements I have seen since I started this blog.  

I won't repeat the same things I said about the game just some days ago. This is an excellent fighting game, but its best version is the Saturn release. The Super NES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 was marred by loading times between fights, character selection screens and other critical moments that made this a sort of a hard buy, considering it came out at the very tail-end of Nintendo's machine timeline. Those load times were caused by a special chip integrated in the cartridge that made possible the graphical prowess this game required. The chip was called S-DD1 and was only used in this game and Star Ocean. The technical stuff related to the functioning of the chip is very complex indeed. It served to better decompress the heavy data streams transferred between cartridge and console. This makes this itineration of Street Fighter one of the most expensive games for collectors of SNES titles.


It's not common for video games to feature a hand-made portrait of one of its most iconic characters as an advertisement. This is of course Chun-Li, and incredibly popular female character in popular culture. Still, the only element of the editorial layout centres around a simple hand-drawn close-up that monopolises the entire page. There are no game-screens and just a small photograph of the box of the actual game. Copy is juvenile and, fortunately, sparse. Chun-Li is featured in the actual background of the image, the text functioning as the foreground. A simple red wall gives the ad three-dimensional feeling that is rarely, if ever, seen in the video game world. 

Another cool aspect of the ad is the artist framed Chun-Li so her eyes hit the central part of the rule of thirds cross-grid. Formally, it could have been just a little bit to the right or left, so her eyes hit the exact point of intersection between lines. That becomes irrelevant when you consider the lower part of the ad and realise the graphic artists did take into account the rules of thirds...and placed the lower intersection of the rule of thirds grid closely to Chun-Li's breast, beside the game box and the white "Teen" ESBR rating (the whitest part of the image, were your eyes naturally flow). Really astute, Capcom.



Street Fighter Alpha 2 for Super NES print ad copy


We dare you to ask her to dance

We're sure Chun-Li would love to show you a few of her dance moves, but step lively. She's been known to step on a few toes. And heads. With Street Fighter Alpha 2 for your Super NES, maybe you can teach hear a thing or two. You can even bust out your favorite Super Move or Custom Combo, just like in the hit arcade game. But don't even think about trying that Macarena thing. We heard she hates that.

Street Fighter Alpha 2

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

No comments:

Post a Comment

Leave a comment!