Are the graphics of Street Fighter Alpha kind of sloppy?

[NPham2005]

I like games that have characters drawn in an art style comparable to an animated film, especially fighting games, my favorite genre. So yes, I'm fond of games like Guilty Gear xrd. I played a Street Fighter Alpha game (It was the second or third Alpha game) in an arcade recently. The character art of Guilty Gear xrd makes the game have the look of a professionally animated film. However, the character art of Street Fighter Alpha did not give me the same impression. As a few of the most extreme examples, look at how Chun-Li and Gen are drawn; doesn't look very detailed to me. Do you think Street Fighter Alpha's graphics are a bit sloppy?

[FieryReign]

You're comparing a current gen game to a CPS2 game from the late 90s. Not sure what you would expect from a 14+ year old game? The graphics and animation are fine considering when it was released. Though I prefer the SFII art style, instead of the cartoony overly anime style of the Alpha series and beyond.

[Tanooki]

They're not sloppy, quite beautiful for the time. It's the style they chose to use, and it is what the hardware was made for at the time. There's nothing sloppy about it. They're not poorly drawn, animated, detailed or colorized, nor are the backgrounds or attacks.

[celerystalker]

Arcade boards don't have unlimited power. Street Fighter Alpha came out 20 years ago in 1995. At the time, its anime-style characters were fairly unique, and much more colorful and well-animated than what was out at the time. Guilty Gear X didn't bring high-res sprites to the genre until 2000, five years later. This is like calling Super Mario 3's graphics sloppy because it doesn't use as many colors as Super Mario Galaxy. Compare Street Fighter Alpha to the original Guilty Gear, which came out in 1998. It's blockier and doesn't have as many frames of animation than a game that came out three years prior. It's still an awesome game, but Street Fighter Alpha looked better.

If you want to say antiquated, maybe from your perspective that's true. Sloppy, though, is an ill-informed insult. Considering how well SFA holds up against modern fighters like Arcana Heart, Melty Blood, etc. is a testament to how excellent it was and is. If fighters are your thing, play more of them and get some perspective. You can call Way of the Warrior or Kasumi Ninja or Street Combat sloppy, and no one is likely to argue, but seriously... Street Fighter Alpha?

[Tanooki]

Hah good point, aged it has, sloppy never. Hell have you ever seen SF Alpha 1 on the GBC? Some would call that sloppy too, but given the weakness of the old Gameboy hardware it actually is solid, but if you're making wide poorly made comparisons it's very sloppy against the real SFA arcade game. :)

[Tron 2.0]

I like games that have characters drawn in an art style comparable to an animated film, especially fighting games, my favorite genre. So yes, I'm fond of games like Guilty Gear xrd. I played a Street Fighter Alpha game (It was the second or third Alpha game) in an arcade recently. The character art of Guilty Gear xrd makes the game have the look of a professionally animated film. However, the character art of Street Fighter Alpha did not give me the same impression. As a few of the most extreme examples, look at how Chun-Li and Gen are drawn; doesn't look very detailed to me. Do you think Street Fighter Alpha's graphics are a bit sloppy?
Uhh how can you compare ggxrd to sfa !? SFA came out in the 90's using hand drawn sprites while ggxrd is 3D,using cell shading.For it's looks i still think SFA looks fine.If any thing i think it's a shame capcom has abandoned the use of sprites for it's fighters.

[NPham2005]

Arcade boards don't have unlimited power. Street Fighter Alpha came out 20 years ago in 1995. At the time, its anime-style characters were fairly unique, and much more colorful and well-animated than what was out at the time. Guilty Gear X didn't bring high-res sprites to the genre until 2000, five years later. This is like calling Super Mario 3's graphics sloppy because it doesn't use as many colors as Super Mario Galaxy. Compare Street Fighter Alpha to the original Guilty Gear, which came out in 1998. It's blockier and doesn't have as many frames of animation than a game that came out three years prior. It's still an awesome game, but Street Fighter Alpha looked better.

If you want to say antiquated, maybe from your perspective that's true. Sloppy, though, is an ill-informed insult. Considering how well SFA holds up against modern fighters like Arcana Heart, Melty Blood, etc. is a testament to how excellent it was and is. If fighters are your thing, play more of them and get some perspective. You can call Way of the Warrior or Kasumi Ninja or Street Combat sloppy, and no one is likely to argue, but seriously... Street Fighter Alpha?

Well I gotta admit, I do think the backgrounds of Street Fighter Alpha are beautiful, but I feel that some of the character sprites could be a little better. All the character sprites of Guilty Gear X definitely look like they've come straight out of a cartoon. Street Fighter Alpha might have to polish it's character sprites just a little bit more though. Chun-Li's sprite looks more to me like it came out of a painting than a cartoon. Clearly, Street Fighter Alpha's sprites were meant to look like cartoons, but don't you think some of the sprites kind of lack that look (especially Chun Li's sprite)? I don't think they're on the exact same level as those of Guilty Gear X.

Here's a video of the Street Fighter Alpha sprites for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0UVDduUOwI

[Tanooki]

Alpha doesn't need to polish anything, it didn't when it came out, and I'm sure Capcom won't be going back to do that for you either 20 years later. Clearly you don't either get or like the art style and have this tunnel vision thing going on with guilty gear which came years later using entirely different art design, hardware, and software capabilities. They're incomparable.

[HardcoreOtaku]

I like games that have characters drawn in an art style comparable to an animated film, especially fighting games, my favorite genre. So yes, I'm fond of games like Guilty Gear xrd. I played a Street Fighter Alpha game (It was the second or third Alpha game) in an arcade recently. The character art of Guilty Gear xrd makes the game have the look of a professionally animated film. However, the character art of Street Fighter Alpha did not give me the same impression. As a few of the most extreme examples, look at how Chun-Li and Gen are drawn; doesn't look very detailed to me. Do you think Street Fighter Alpha's graphics are a bit sloppy?

I had completely the opposite experience. When I played the first Guilty Gear game on the PlayStation I thought the fighter sprites looked really pixelated, blocky and not very detailed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoba8ZhDl6s And this Guilty Gear game came out 3 years after the first Street Fighter Alpha.
Street Fighter Alpha is known for it's smooth graphics, I always thought that was whole point of the Alpha series, which is Street Fighter redone with smooth, anime cartoon graphics.

[celerystalker]

Well I gotta admit, I do think the backgrounds of Street Fighter Alpha are beautiful, but I feel that some of the character sprites could be a little better. All the character sprites of Guilty Gear X definitely look like they've come straight out of a cartoon. Street Fighter Alpha might have to polish it's character sprites just a little bit more though. Chun-Li's sprite looks more to me like it came out of a painting than a cartoon. Clearly, Street Fighter Alpha's sprites were meant to look like cartoons, but don't you think some of the sprites kind of lack that look (especially Chun Li's sprite)? I don't think they're on the exact same level as those of Guilty Gear X.

Here's a video of the Street Fighter Alpha sprites for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0UVDduUOwI

I'm not sure you're getting it. It's a difference in the technology available, not sub-standard artists. If you wanted to compare Guilty Gear X to its contemporaries, games like Melty Blood, The Rumble Fish, Arcana Heart, Street Fighter III, etc, go ahead. Street Fighter Alpha was running on hardware only slightly more powerful than Neo Geo hardware. Compare it to King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, The Last Blade, or Real Bout Fatal Fury if you want to make legitimate quality comparisons. In its time in the arcades, its other competition was Mortal Kombat 3, Primal Rage, and burgeoning 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter and Toshinden.

This will be the douchiest thing I say on this forum, but I don't need comparison sprites or videos. I have them both. I've had them since they were new, in their original context. If you don't read any other words, read those two: original context. Does Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves look like crap because it isn't hi-res like BlazBlue, or is it a marvel running on what was at the time 10 year old hardware? Criticizing stylistic choices made to get the most out of old hardware is grossly unfair and an insult to the designers who worked hard on them. I'm glad you have enthusiasm for the genre, but you seem to lack experience with it to make these sorts of comparisons. The fighters of the '90s made a lot of innovations and still have a lot of unique experiences to offer, like Savage Reign with its interactive backgrounds, World Heroes with its death matches and early parry system, King of Fighters with its fun character crossovers, Dark Legend or Waku Waku 7 with their goofy characters, Power Instinct with its bizarren um, everything... Fighting games are more than graphics and combo systems, or we'd all be playing Super Variable Geo and Flash Hiders instead of Super Street Fighter II. Allow games to exist in their context and enjoy what they accomplished therein, and you may find they're a little more timeless than that for which you're giving them credit.

[Eternal Champion]

Comparing a PS3 game to a 90s 2D arcade game and judging it purely on the standard of PS3 graphics. Uhhhh, OK.

[Emperor Megas]

I won't rehash what everyone has already said, but I'll just add that I was absolutely blown away by Street Fighter Alpha when it came out. The same with Dark Stalkers before it. I really loved the new cartoon like art direction that CAPCOM was going with.