Street Fighter Alpha 3 has four initial modes - Single mode, versus mode (link cable required), training mode, and score ranking. Later players can unlock Dramatic Battle to team up with a CPU to fight, and Final Battle to fight bosses. The GBA packs more than 30 characters, including Juli and Juni, henchmen of Bison and Balrog that were hidden characters in the arcade version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper.

The GBA version includes all the tiny intro animations for every character. Maki jumps off her wrestling ring to enter the match, Cody sits on the ground before the match, and Dan shows off his arm flex. The animations are also surprisingly faithful to the arcade version. The sprites have been a bit redrawn and shrunken, but the character movements look just as slick as they did on the big screen. The backgrounds hold their own with good detail and dual scrolling layers.

The sounds come off well from the GBA speaker. Not all of them are there – characters seem to have one yelp and certain win quips have been taken out. The announcer is also out of the picture. But most moves have their appropriate cry latched on. The music is full of beeps and chimes that aren’t all that spectacular, but it’s not a big deal.

The biggest problem with Alpha 3 are the controls. The player control itself is very tight. But the GBA is difficult for fighting games with its tiny D-pad and two face buttons. To pull of the third set of the attack buttons players need to hold trigger while hitting a face button – try pulling off a combo with that. To ease things a bit players can set Alpha specials to "easy" in options and do simplified motions like forward then back, or fireball to pull them off.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 is a fantastic port on the GBA, but the controls hold it back from being a great title on the system. If you just want to mess around with Alpha 3 on the GBA for a few minutes the controls aren’t a big deal. But if you’re a fight fan that wants the whole experience on the road, use the PSone instead.