It's interesting to think back to late 2003, when it was announced at the Amusement Machine "JAMMA" arcade show that Sammy Corporation & Capcom would be producing a crossover game titled... Sammy vs. Capcom. Unfortunately, that collaboration would never go any further, so you can consider this Vs. Battle to be the closest approximation. Anyway, British studio Crawfish Interactive took on the challenge of porting Street Fighter Alpha to the Game Boy Color back in late 1999/early 2000 for Virgin Interactive, and the result was an amazing port. The sales were also good, so Crawfish was able to convince Capcom to let them do something even more grandiose: Port Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, the updated version, to the Game Boy Advance. Crawfish was definitely super ambitious with this port, as I'll get to later, & Capcom only added to that ambition, which sadly would wind up costing Crawfish dearly. As revealed in an interview with Nintendo Life back in 2013, when the original planned release date of Christmas 2001 was seen to not be possible anymore, Capcom decided to stop paying the advance that it was giving Crawfish, and revoked the royalties the company was set to earn from sales. While Crawfish did manage to finish the port for the end of 2002, the company wouldn't be able to recover form its various other financial woes, and come 2003 Crawfish was dead. Still, the port of Alpha 3 was celebrated upon release, & today is looked at as one of the most iconic "miracle ports" in the history of gaming, right up there with something like Resident Evil 2 for the Nintendo 64.
While all of that was going on, though, Daisuke Ishiwatari & his team at Arc System Works would release Guilty Gear X, the sequel to their breakout PS1 fighting game, to arcades in mid-2000. After that would come ports to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, & Windows PC up through the end of 2001, but it would be the final port that may be the most interesting one of all. Originally released at the very beginning of 2002 in Japan, Guilty Gear X Advance Edition was just as the tin advertised, GGX on the go, and unlike Crawfish's endeavor this port was done completely in-house at ArcSys. In fact, Advance Edition was kind of the spiritual successor to the two Guilty Gear Petit games for the WonderSwan, which were SD-stylized original-ish games for Bandai's little handheld that tried (which even featured an original character [Fanny, a nurse who fights with a giant syringe] who has yet to return to the franchise), because Kazuya Yukino was the director for all three games. Sammy Entertainment would release Advance Edition internationally in mid-2002, still a few months before Crawfish's Alpha 3 port, but would receive more mixed reviews upon release. Still, where the GBA would be home more to remixed versions of fighting games, like the two King of Fighters EX games, Tekken Advance, or Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Revival, Guilty Gear X Advance Edition & Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper are pretty much the only two direct ports of fighting games to the handheld, and both are arguably "miracle ports" in their own rights.
Therefore... When Sammy finally takes on Capcom, who will be the victor?
Round 1 - Roster:
Guilty Gear X Advance Edition differs form the Petit games before it by advertising itself as being the same game that was released in arcades, and that means that the entire 16-character roster is found here. Sol Badguy, Ky Kiske, May, Baiken, Faust, Potemkin, Chipp Zanuff, Millia Rage, Zato-1, Jam Kuradoberi, Johnny, Anji Mito, Venom, & Axl Low are all available at the very start, with bosses Testament & Dizzy being unlockable. The only missing characters are Kliff Undersn, Justice, & Robo-Ky, who were added to the Japan-only Guilty Gear X Plus just a couple of months prior to the GBA port's release, which is completely understandable; this isn't GGX Plus Advance Edition, after all. This puts the game at around the same size of the other fighting games that were out at the time on the GBA, like Super Turbo: Revival's fellow 16 or KOF EX's 18 (plus two bosses), which is more than fair, to be honest, and it's still a large improvement over the prior generation's offerings, which tended to cut characters out due to lack of power or storage space.
Then we have Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper... Which is downright insane, to put it simply. First of all, the original arcade version from 1998 had 28 characters, with the original console ports (which the Upper arcade update took from) added another six to up the ante to 34. In between the original Upper & this GBA port, there was Capcom vs. SNK 2, which reintroduced fighting game fans to Eagle (from the original Street Fighter) & Maki (from Final Fight 2), as well giving Street Fighter III's Yun a new sprite base. I bring this up because not only does the GBA port include all 28 of the original characters, & not only does it also include the six added in later, but it also includes the CvS2 versions of Eagle, Maki, & Yun, giving this handheld version a total of 37 characters! In fact, the GBA port of Alpha 3 Upper would be the version of the game to have the most amount of characters in it for a little over three years, until Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max (Double Upper in Japan) would come out on the PSP in early 2006, which would add Ingrid from 2004's Capcom Fighting Evolution, finalizing the game's roster at 38. Obviously, at that many characters, I will refrain from listing them all, and instead I'll just give you a Wikipedia link for that.
Winner: Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper
Obviously, this was a forgone conclusion, though one can argue that it's closer than you'd think. While Alpha 3 Upper does have more than twice as many characters as Guilty Gear X AE, it can't be denied that there is a good amount of copy-catting to be found. For example, there are seven "shotoclones" to be found (Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Sakura, Dan, Evil Ryu, & Shin Akuma), both Charlie Nash & Guile, & the trio of Cammy, Juli, & Juni. In comparison, all of the characters in GGX are pretty different from each other, for the most part, which helps keep the roster feeling fresh. Still, Alpha 3 Upper still wins out in the end simply because of the sheer girth of a roster it gives the player to choose from, and the fact that the GBA port not only matches the original arcade & console versions, but actually exceeds them is amazing.
Round 2 - Presentation:
For this round, I'll be looking at what each game offers in terms of stages, music, game modes, etc.; I won't be judging the quality of the stages or music, though, as those come later. GGX AE comes in with all 10 stages & a large majority of the music featured in the original arcade game. Every character has their iconic themes, the various end credits songs are included, the various jingles (character select, versus screen, win screen, etc.), & even the same-character-battle song "No Mercy" is included; even boss themes "Bloodstained Lineage" & "Awe of She" include their extended intros. Really, the only truly notable exclusions would be the two special battles themes, "Fatal Duel" (Sol vs. Ky) & "Still in the Dark" (Millia vs. Zato), which is a little disappointing, especially since the latter has become one of the most iconic songs in the entire franchise. In terms of gameplay, you have the standard Arcade, Versus, Survival, & Training, but this port actually includes two extra modes that are completely exclusive to this version: Tag Match & 3-on-3. The latter is pretty self-explanatory, in which both sides choose three characters & fight in the vein of King of Fighters, while the former has its own twist. Instead of simply pressing two buttons to tag out, as you would in pretty much any other tag team fighting game, this 2-on-2 variant only allows tagging once you have at leave a half-full tension gauge & to do a quarter-circle motion with Hard Slash & Kick; also, since there is no actual tagging animation, your characters simply swap via a quick flash of light. Add in a fully-featured Color Edit mode in the Options menu, and this game is not just (mostly) fully-featured, but even outdoes its console counterparts with some exclusive extra modes.
Moving on to Alpha 3 Upper, while all of the characters are found here, plus three extra, only 15 of the original game's 30 made the transition, and that also applies to the music, with a number of character themes being excised. Obviously, this is due primarily to a lack of storage space on a GBA cartridge, but it's still noteworthy. In terms of gameplay modes, you have "Single" (a.k.a. Arcade), Versus, Training, & Survival, as well as two unlockable modes: The 2-on-1 Dramatic Battle & Final Battle. Unfortunately, Dramatic Battle is a bit limited, as you're auto-selected a second character based on who you choose (for example, choosing Ryu always gives you Ken), and you always get the same six-man ladder to fight (Adon, Akuma, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, & M. Bison). Also, there isn't any option for Reverse Dramatic Battle, where you take on two opponents simultaneously by yourself. That being said, you can technically use any pairing in a Dramatic Battle, but only via Survival Mode, which is bizarre. Finally, while there is text in the code for the fan-favorite World Tour mode, where you can level up & customize a character, it was never actually implemented, likely due to lack of cartridge space.
Winner: Guilty Gear X Advance Edition
Honestly, this one was very close, so much so that I almost went with a Draw. That being said, I still have to give the advantage to GGX AE, simply because it manages to include more of what was in the original game when it comes things like stages & music. Yes, Alpha 3 Upper was held back by storage space more than anything, so it's not exactly a fair fight, but then you take into consideration the fact that GGX AE also includes two handheld-exclusive gameplay modes & a Color Edit option. Again, it's amazing what Crawfish managed to include considering the sheer size of the game the team was dealing with, but from a general perspective of "Which version has more of the original game intact", Kazuya Yukino's team not only brought more of ArcSys' original game over, but also included more.
Round 3 - Graphics:
Guilty Gear X Advance Edition takes an interesting direction when it comes to the visuals. First of all, everything is accurately scaled to how it was in the original arcade version when it comes to the stage & characters. Of course, the character sprites aren't anywhere near as detailed as they were in the arcades, so ArcSys made sure the characters only go about 1/3 of the height of the GBA's screen, compared to the 2/3 screen height that characters were in the arcade, or 1/2 when they're on opposite sides of the screen. Again, though, since everything is scaled accurately, this results in you seeing more of the environments than you do in the arcade. In the original version, you normally only see half of the stage environment at any given point, but in Advance Edition you can see roughly 2/3 of the stage at any point. While this does result in the characters looking smaller than you'd normally want, it must be stated that the character sprites are still easily recognizable, and they honestly maintain a large majority of the smooth animation that they originally had; they're all missing their facial features completely, though. Similarly, user interface elements (health gauge, tension gauge, on-screen text, etc.) aren't quite as detailed but otherwise look like their arcade originals, and the larger character artwork has been transferred over excellently. The only real consolation to be made here is with the stage environments, though, as they are simplified, especially as none of them feature any sort of proper skyscape; all you get is a single, solid color for each stage. Sure, today the port might look a bit compromised, but considering the NAOMI architecture that it ran on, which was effectively the same as the Sega Dreamcast, the fact that ArcSys managed to make Guilty Gear X look as good as it does on the GBA is astounding.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper is itself an impressive conversion, and through some clever character placement gives off the illusion of having larger sprites. In reality, though, characters in this GBA port are about the same size as that of GGX AE, but since the environments rise them up about a fifth of the screen, and the backgrounds don't take up as much real estate, they actually look slightly taller. Regardless, however, Crawfish's staff definitely did some magic here, because characters definitely look absolutely recognizable, and they even have some minor details to give off faces. Not just that, but you can actually notice the extra animation that the CvS2 carryover characters have in comparison to the Alpha 3 originals, which is extremely impressive. Stages also are brought over in excellent detail, with only more minor details, like background animations, being excised. Still, Crawfish did sneak in at least one bit of minor animation in most stages, like a bystander flexing in the Hong Kong stage, which you might not notice in the heat of battle but is still appreciated. Likewise, UI elements are accurate, and the character portraits are obviously traced over as pixel art, but transition over well. Really, there isn't much to say here, because it's simple to explain: Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper on the Game Boy Advance looks like Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, only with completely understandable limitations.
Winner: Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper
Let me preface this with a simple thing to bring up: Guilty Gear X had the larger hill to climb here, no doubt. Not to downplay the look of Alpha 3 in any way, but when it first appeared in arcades back in 1998, the CPS-II architecture was already five years old, and this was during a time where gaming technology was moving forward very quickly. In fact, that same year saw the first public demonstration of the NAOMI architecture at the Amusement Machine Show, and the CPS-III had already debuted two years prior in 1996. All I'm trying to get at is that Guilty Gear X was undeniably the harder game to port over to the weaker Game Boy Advance, and I think that ArcSys managed to deliver impressive results, in that regard; it still deserves respect for looking as good as it does. In the end, though, it is also undeniable that Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper looks absolutely amazing on the Game Boy Advance. You look at GGX AE, strictly from of a purely visual standpoint, and you see an intensely valiant effort to port over a game to a handheld that really was not meant to display it. You look at SFA3 Upper on the GBA, however, and you see SFA3 Upper, no doubt about it. The fact that Crawfish managed to make that possible is a miracle all its own.
Round 4 - Sound:
The Game Boy Advance's dual 8-bit DAC, alongside the legacy channels from the original Game Boy, was obviously a bit outdated by the time the system launched in 2001, but many game composers managed to make the system sing excellently during the course of the handheld's life. When it came to bringing over pre-existing music & converting it over to the GBA's sound hardware, though, it's only natural that concessions would have to be made, and Guilty Gear X is definitely an example of that. In charge of that job for this port were the duo of "Tutti" & "Nakataka", who had to take series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari's amazing compositions & convert them into 8-bit renditions. If you go & take a listen to the OST for yourself, you'll see a fair number of comments that pretty much harp on the end product, but I think that's being a little harsh, honestly. Part of that is because I'm almost positive people are comparing them not to their original GGX versions, but instead their GGXX arrangements. The problem there is that those later arrangements were done with a full band & and sound much fuller than the original NAOMI renditions, which do sound notably different & more restricted, in terms of available instruments. For example, listen to Ky's theme "Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead)" as it's generally known in the GGXX games, & then listen to how it sounds in GGX, and you'll get what I'm talking about; it's still awesome, but notably different. Then listen to how it sounds on the GBA, and you'll definitely see what I mean in that people are a bit too harsh on the conversions done here. Also, these were meant to be heard through the GBA's single speaker, or a pair of headphones, not a modern-day display, so there's that to take into consideration, too. Now, to be fair, I do agree that some songs don't survive to transition as well as some others, but overall I think it's still amazing that Tutti & Nakataka managed to not only include nearly every song from the original game, with only a few omissions (as mentioned in Round 2), but also made them sound completely recognizable, even though they're now in chiptune form; these two really did what they could to replicate some of the more bassy songs, which is commended. Finally, though there are some voice clips to be found, they are pretty muffled & tend to get drown out by the music & sound effects, which are done okay.
As for Alpha 3 Upper on the GBA, you get a bit of a trade-off here, because while the overall sound performance is very good, there really isn't much of it, when you really get down to it. First of all, when it comes to the OST, there are only about 10 or so songs in total, which is only about a 1/4 of the original game. In fact, some of Alpha 3's most iconic songs, like "Who'll Be Your Double?" (character select) & "Brave or Grave" (Final M. Bison's theme), aren't anywhere to be found in the GBA version! Still, the songs that are found here are all converted into chiptunes extremely well, so props to Steve "Rockett" Collett, a veteran of the gaming industry ever since the early 90s, for doing a great job with the little that was actually brought over. As for voice work, there is a good amount of it to be found here, but the trick is that only a small number of character voices were actually utilized. So, for example, Sakura has the same voice work as Ken in this port, with the only change being that her clips are pitched higher, so as to make Ken's lines sound more girlish; because of this, though, she actually screams "Shoryuken!", instead of her usual "Shou-ouken!". Also, only a small amount of voice work from the original characters utilized were actually brought over, so don't expect to hear any of the "shoto" characters screaming "Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku!", because that line was excised, likely to allow more shorter phrases to be included. Sadly, all of Greg Irwin's iconic voice work as the announcer is nowhere to be found here, so you'll have to scream out "Leeeet's Party!", "It All Depends on Your Skill!", "Go For Broke!", "Triumph or Die!!", "You Have Fists of God!", or "KO!" at your own leisure. At the very least, said voice clips are in excellent quality, making them very easy to hear & understand. Likewise, the sound effects made the transition over well, too, sounding only slightly muffled from how they sound in the arcade.
Winner: Draw
What it comes down to here is that each game offers something different in terms of sound. Guilty Gear X Advance Edition may offer the lower-quality 8-bit renditions & voice clips that are a bit hard to hear in normal play, but it does include nearly the entire soundtrack. In comparison, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper does offer higher-quality 8-bit renditions & better voice clips, but it's also missing out on nearly 75% of the music, while the voice clip pitching, though a clever way to work around things, does result in some inaccurate character lines. One also has to take into consideration that Tutti & Nakataka had the the harder hill to climb, compared to Steve Collett. The NAOMI utilized a Yamaha AICA chip running at 45 MHz, while the CPS-II used a chip similar to the Zilog Z80 running at 8 MHz, so there's no doubt that the music from Guilty Gear X was likely more difficult to truly arrange into chiptune form than the music from Street Fighter Alpha 3. Really, though, it all comes down to what you want more of in a situation like this: Quantity vs. Quality. I won't make that decision for anyone, so I'm calling this a Double-KO.
Final Round - Gameplay:
Okay, enough of the minutiae of these games, because now we're down to brass tacks: How do these games actually play on a Game Boy Advance? When it comes to Guilty Gear X Advance Edition, it's all here: All four attack buttons, dashing in either direction, air jumping, the tension gauge (which increases with any sort of offensive action, including walking forwards), Overdrive Attacks (a.k.a. super moves), Faultless Defense, Roman Cancels, air launchers/dust attacks, & even the iconic Instant Kills. You also have every single special move for every single character, so personal gameplay systems, like Jam's power ups or Johnny's coins, are also accounted for, making this into easily the most complex fighting game to play on the GBA. In fact, GGX is a perfect example for how unsuitable the GBA could be for some fighting games, and it all comes down to the shoulder buttons. Admittedly, this is primarily a personal gripe, but I could never get used to using an L button, or any left-sided shoulder button, for a traditional fighting game, and that carries over to the GBA. By default, the controls are mapped as such: L is Punch, B is Kick, R is Slash, & A is Hard Slash. Though there is a three-button control scheme, that kind of defeats the purpose of the port, which aims to deliver the GGX experience unaltered, and while the default scheme does work fine, trying to consistently use L to do combos or perform special moves can be awkward, especially on a GBA SP. Also, activating the ability to perform Instant Kills, which requires all four buttons to be pressed simultaneously, is surprisingly hard to do on a GBA (SP). At least the controls are nice & responsive, making even the more complex motions for Overdrives easy to pull off consistently.
Unfortunately, what kills all of the gameplay options & variety here is the computer AI... Or lack thereof. Simply put, the computer opponents are downright idiotic, and putting the difficulty to the highest only makes them ever-so-slightly more aggressive. This pretty much makes it pointless to play as certain characters that rely on countering or catching the opponent off guard, like Baiken, since the AI barely does anything to react to, and don't even bother trying to go crazy with Roman Cancels on an opponent that doesn't feel worthy of it. Of course, if you were to play this with a friend via the link cable then you wouldn't notice this, but playing Guilty Gear X Advance Edition by yourself is impressive on a technical level, but really depressing on a challenge level.
As for Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, the same is true, for the most part. First, you have access to all three of the game's "Isms" (X, A (Z in Japan), & V), which change up how a character plays; X-ism is like Super Turbo, A/Z-ism has a 3-level meter, & V-ism is all about the Custom Combo. You can also unlock the three extra game mechanic styles that were added to the original console ports: Mazi, a variant of the word "maji/really?", forces X-ism, increases offense, decreases defense, & has you lose in one round; Saikyo, based on Dan Hibiki's fighting style, pretty much makes you weaker in all regards; & Classic, which is based on early SFII, so you play with no super meter, guard gauge, Alpha Counters, etc. The variety of gameplay styles helps make Alpha 3 feel like such a large game, though hardcore players say that only V-ism is the way to play (because of "dem Custom Combos"), and this GBA port is all the more impressive for allowing all of that customization. Still, Street Fighter games are six-button affairs, yet the GBA only have four "face" buttons, so how did Crawfish handle things? By default, L & R are Light Punch/Kick, while B & A are Hard Punch/Kick, with Medium Punch/Kick being done by combo presses of L+B & R+A. It works okay, though not exactly ideal, and is admittedly a bit of an odd choice. For example, Capcom itself reworked Super Turbo to use press length to differentiate between LP/LK & MP/MK for its GBA port the year prior, so Crawfish going with combo presses is weird. Crawfish also gives you the option to use "Simple Combos", but where's the fun in that? Regardless, the gameplay is generally solid, though double motions for supers aren't always as tight as they should be, and the AI here is not just good, but really damn competitive, so single-player is fun to play with.
Winner: Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper
If all things were truly equal between these ports in this category, then I'd easily have to give this another Draw, because Guilty Gear X & Street Fighter Alpha 3 are both outstanding fighting games, and, from a simple technical perspective, both of these ports manage to be the complex fighting games that they originally were in the arcades & home consoles. Likewise, from a personal perspective, they both suffer from required use of the L button, which hinders some aspect of playability, unfortunately. Still, there is one major different between GGX AE & SFA3 Upper, and it's the simple fact that ArcSys botched the AI beyond belief. It's astounding how stupid the computer is in combat, because it really makes all of those cool mechanics, like Roman Cancels & Faultless Defense, pointless to perform; also, on another personal note, Baiken's appeal is removed, since her counters are never seen. In comparison, Alpha 3 Upper actually delivers a legitimate fight when playing by yourself, which definitely helps make it a game worth going back to every now & then for the fun of it.
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So, with a final result of 2-4, the winner of this Vs. Battle is Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper! Honestly, that's not so surprising, and really just verifies the general consensus of Crawfish Interactive's company-killing effort as one of the greatest "miracle ports" ever done, but that's not to say that what Arc System Works delivered is bad, by any means. Alpha 3 Upper has the larger roster, but it's still impressive that each & every one of Guilty Gear X's characters play notably different from each other. It's also important to note that, where Crawfish had to (understandably) remove a lot of stages, music, & even game modes in order to fit what was ported over to a GBA cartridge, ArcSys managed to not only include at least 90% of its original game to the same handheld, with the only notable removals being a handful of music, but also included two exclusive game modes; while 3-on-3 did get included in some GGXX games, tag battle has yet to return to Guilty Gear. Finally, from a purely technical perspective, both games are simply amazing in how they managed to be recognizably the games they were in the arcades. However, I'd argue that what put Crawfish's endeavor ahead was pretty much the fact that the British studio had to work from a four-year old game that worked off of hardware that was nearly a decade old, come 2002, while ArcSys was pretty much trying to port over a game from much more powerful tech, and some of that came back to bite the team. Really, both ports are more than worth owning for any GBA owner, but SFA3 Upper is indeed the better game.
Guilty Gear X Advance Edition © Sammy Corporation 2002 © 1998-2002 Arc System Works Co., Ltd.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper © Capcom Co., Ltd. 1998, 2002 © Capcom USA, Inc. 1998, 2002
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