If you pre-order the Japanese release of Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max you’ll receive a free D-pad cover for the shoddy diagonal-fearing PSP D-pad. If you don’t you’ll have to play with the analogue nub and if you do that you’ll have to learn how to use yet another input device (after the D-pad and arcade stick that you’ve used on other versions). It takes time to learn a new input method.

Anyway we didn’t get a D-pad cover, so we played with the nub and decided that it sucks a bit, but you might get used to it in time. It’s just annoying to have to readjust all your combos and timings and putting up with the guess-work caused by the nub. This is especially galling for something like Street Fighter where timing and accuracy are paramount. All those moves that you’ve honed to perfection over years of practice are suddenly beyond your highly trained fingers. What was once second-nature becomes a painful learning curb. Frankly, we didn’t have the patience.

It’s such a shame too because this is the biggest conversion of Street Fighter Alpha 3 and there’s a lot to enjoy; it’s got loads of modes, extra characters, wireless LAN, three isms, tag battles even. And yet it’s pretty unplayable at the start.

Oh and you can’t parry either because it’s not Third Strike. What you can do though are Variable Battles, take part in a World Tour and level up your character to include the other special stuff (cancels, rolls, dashes) from the other isms, the Dramatic Battles return along with the Reverse Dramatic Battle (two on you). Then there are all the usual modes like Team Battles, Survival mode and the new 100 Vs Kumite Mode which is like Survival with a limit. But playing against the computer isn’t much fun – it never has been in Street Fighter games – especially as it doesn’t have to use the nub, and when you miss your super and get one in the face in return it makes it tough to carry on.

If the D-pad attachment works add on another 20 per cent to the score, if we ever get one in we’ll let you know if it works in a future issue. If it doesn’t then there’s little point in missing combos continuously.

Tim Empey