(PS2 Anthology 60fps) SFA3↑ secret VS #1 - hidden mode, max difficulty, flash FX off, fights only!
5How to access Street Fighter Alpha 3 ↑ ("Upper") and its secret VS mode in Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on PS2:
1) In Anthology, beat Street Fighter Alpha 3. This unlocks Alpha 3 Upper (I suggest you save your progress to a memory card after this so you won't need to unlock it again in the future. : ).
2) From the main game select menu in Anthology, highlight Alpha 3, press and hold the Select button, and select Alpha 3. This loads Alpha 3 Upper, which resembles Alpha 3 (even the title screen logo looks identical, but you can change it to the slightly altered Upper logo in the secret options "star" menu--see below), but has more characters.
3) In Upper's main menu, highlight VERSUS. (If you want to play vs the CPU, first go to OPTIONS - GAME OPTIONS and set "VS MODE (2P)" to "COM.")
4) With VERSUS highlighted, press and hold X, and IMMEDIATELY also press R2 and Triangle.
== If you got that button sequence correct, the game will immediately go into a random character VS match, instead of going to the regular VERSUS mode's character selection screen. This is the secret VERSUS mode, where it goes from randomized character fight to fight automatically, through a pre-set sequence of the particular game's stages. To control which characters and play modes it chooses from, use the Pause screen menus.
All the games in Anthology have this mode; I play the one in Upper specifically because it has the less-flash-FX-intensive mode I want (Classic), more characters than Alpha 3, and better backgrounds than Hyper. What you see in this video is me playing Street Fighter Alpha 3 ↑'s secret VERSUS mode against the difficulty 8 CPU, both 1P and 2P set to X-ism & Classic mode only, with flash-FX-heavy characters omitted, and the flashing sequences between fights edited out.
Secret Option menu settings: go to a game's OPTION menu, hold R2, and select GAME OPTIONS to open the SECRET OPTION "dip switch" options menu. In Alpha 3 Upper, I enable row 1, star 12 (turns off counter hit flash FX), row 2, star 6 (turns on blood FX), and row 2, star 7 (turns on the ↑ swoosh graphic on Upper's logo).
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I may have found a way to play the Street Fighter Alpha series! : D And it's thanks to Street Fighter Alpha Anthology's hidden VERSUS mode.
I've found recently that I'm prone to getting migraines from flashing effects, and as far as video games go, the Alpha games are some of the worst for flashes, with full-screen flashes triggered by counter hits, guard crushes, supers--plus, they're just laced throughout the UI of the games, from character select to inter, pre, and post-fight sequences.
But the games in Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on PS2 have been given a hidden VS mode where character and stage select is handled automatically, and where, in Alpha 3 and Alpha 3 ↑ ("Upper"), the expanded version of Alpha 3 that unlocks when you beat Alpha 3's arcade mode, you can use the pause screen menus to set both player 1 and player 2 to use only "Classic" mode, which removes guard crushes and super moves, and their subsequent flashing FX--and you can remove flash-FX-heavy characters, like M.Bison, from the random character selection.
And you can turn off counter hit flashes in the games' "Secret Option" menu--hold R2 while selecting GAME OPTIONS under OPTIONS, then, in Upper (0:17), enable the twelfth star in row 1. (I also enable two stars in row 2: stars 6 (blood) and 7 (the ↑ graphic on the title screen logo).)
That leaves pretty much just the flashing FX in the pre, post, and inter-fight sequences. Since those go by automatically, I can pause the recording, look away from the screen, and come back when I hear the announcer starting the next fight. So what you get in this video is me playing vs the CPU (you set 2P to be CPU in the normal GAME OPTIONS (0:14); you'll still need a controller in controller port 2 for some menus and stuff though) in SFA3↑'s hidden VERSUS mode (highlight VERSUS in Upper's main menu, press and hold X, and then immediately also press and hold R2 and Triangle), editing out the between-fight stuff, so it's just fight after fight, with random character selection (flashy characters removed), 1 round each, HP scaling to max to extend the round length, marching through the pre-set sequence of stages--oh, and editing out fights 10 and 17 in the stage rotation, since those take place in that lightning-flashy wind-swept field stage.
I rather ambitiously set to the difficulty to max, level 8--despite the fact that I don't know the Alpha games very well, and really don't know how to play as or against some of the characters at all. : o So it's, uh, challenging. : ooo And the hit FX are a bit flashy. 8o But I love how colorful the characters and stages are, so I'm going to try to persevere! ^_^
Recorded 9/18/19 w/ PS2, OSSC, Framemeister, Elgato HD60.
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