Road to Street Fighter (2026) - Street Fighter Alpha: Generations Review

 

I'm back on the Road to Street Fighter (2026) and we're almost at the finish line folks. So far the animated Street Fighter movies have been doing well. Will this one be any different?

Street Fighter Alpha: Generations is an anime film that's based on the video game Street Fighter Alpha 2. Unlike the previous anime films this one was made specifically for the English market and didn't receive an official Japanese release until it was a bonus feature in the Japanese DVD & Blu-Ray release of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Production was done by A.P.P.P.P. and Manga Entertainment was the distributor. The movie was written by Takashi Nishiyama and Mitsuhiro Yamada and the director was Ikuo Kuwana.

The story is, Ryu travels to his old dojo to visit his master's grave. During this visit he's challenged by Gouki aka Akuma to a fight, which Ryu later accepts. But this won't just be a fight to see who's the strongest, it'll be a fight to see if Ryu will fall to the darkness of the Dark Hadou just like Gouki did before him.

• Negatives 

I've got nothing.

• Mix

There's quite a lot of mix this time around. One of them being the art style. Some characters look fine, others generic but nothing insulting, but others times they look hideous.

But art can be subjective, what about the fights? Well, they were okay. While they have creative touches, most of the time they don't seem to have the same fluid motion as the last Alpha movie or Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

There's also the dubbing this time around. Now some are really good like Simon Prescott as the Old Master/Grandpa. He brought a nice world-weary delivery to a character who's role is a wise mentor. Some take time to get use to like Richard Cansino as Ryu. He has a stoic intensity that's good for Ryu, but sometimes he can be a little stiff. But the worst is definitely Steve Cassling as Ken. Now I fully admit I'm not familiar with Cassling's work but he didn't fit Ken at all. Ken this time around sounded very flat and he sounds older, like an old man kinda of old. Which is because if I remember correctly in the games Ken is a year younger than Ryu.

Then lastly there's the story. So far none of these animated Street Fighter films have particularly strong stories, but they're was at an effort. Here, it's just a match up between Ryu and Gouki/Akuma. Which isn't a bad thing, I enjoyed the build up between these two. And it's also nice to see Akuma's backstory. But everything else is pretty thin. My biggest problem being we already seen Ryu struggle with the Dark Hadou in the last Alpha movie and it was done better there. The only difference is the villain didn't want to weaponize his powers he just wanted a fight.

• Positives

I also got nothing here either.

So yeah, this wasn't disappointing but it's definitely not something you immediately need to watch. Not unless you're a hardcore Street Fighter fan and even then you don't really need to rush to watch this on streaming or get a physical copy.

My final rating is, a low Okay.

That's all for now. Come back on Thursday, Aug 6th, for a brand new Cinematic Disasters review. I'm gonna have a lot of fun with that one. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.