This is a game that I see everywhere I look. It's one of those that keep on coming back, refusing to disappear into the gaming Hall of Fame despite being nearly a decade old. Every time it reappears, it's been polished and improved, but it's still essentially the same game. It's recently been reintroduced to the world on the PSP (demanding a good thirty pounds for the right to own) and also as part of the Street Fighter Alpha compilation on the PS2. This suggests that this has to be a classic game - how else would it be capable of so many repeat appearances, without driving Capcom into bankruptcy? Without a doubt, the Alpha series is one of the finest moments in 2D beat 'em up history, and anyone with a vague memory of how awesome the Street Fighter series was will lap it up. But does this version hold the torch high, or let it drop unceremoniously and, uh, burn our toes?

This reviewer is a massive Street Fighter fan, so please try your best to excuse any gushing bias that might leak from my fandom. Alongside Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Capcom Vs. SNK 2, this is one of the highest points in the whole series to date. Being the third incarnation and tweaking of the Alpha engine, the game has been tuned perfectly via its predecessors and plays smoothly with very few flaws. This is, of course, provided you are accepting of the 2D beat 'em up genre's in-built limitations. All of the combo systems are here, as well as the classic special moves and the gigantic character line-up.

The roster is bulky and overloaded, featuring the entire Street Fighter II line-up, plus a host of stars from the original Street Fighter arcade game, Capcom's side-scrolling beat 'em up Final Fight and a number of Alpha exclusives. It's nice to see so many old faces showing up for the ride (remember T Hawk? Rolento? It's like being back in a dirty arcade in the early Nineties). The downside is that the number of characters is so high now (there's over thirty) and there's so very little to tell most of them apart that it doesn't really matter how many there are. It just means you'll feel less attached to them. Remember the original Street Fighter II: World Warrior's eight characters? The balance between them was a bit off but each one was clearly different from the others, and each had their own unique fighting style (apart from Ryu and Ken, of course). There's none of that here - just a load of wannabes cut from Ryu's cookie cutter. Each character has been watered down by those surrounding him, and the new additions are no way near as fun to master as the originals.

Bearing in mind that this was originally a PlayStation game, the fact that it has been squeezed into a Gameboy Advance cartridge is impressive. Capcom have somehow managed to cram a near-perfect console port into the handheld - a system which had, at the time this game was released, been showing off with mere SNES ports. The fact that they had practically duplicated the PS1 game was enough, without considering that they've thrown in a couple of new characters, thus improving on the original. Even today, this is one of the technically superior games on the portable wonder.

Unfortunately, the Gameboy version falls down in one respect in comparison to the original - the controls. The control system is not kind to this port, which is a fairly horrible flaw. The Street Fighter games are accustomed to control pads which can utilise up to eight buttons, and the Gameboy can only offer four at a stretch. Combined with the awkward D-Pad, both this version and the recent PSP remix have serious control issues. They have attempted to adapt the controls to fit, making this an unnatural and awkward experience. Many moves are difficult, if not impossible, to pull off. Clearly, Street Fighter Alpha 3 is not at home on handhelds.

There are nearly zero beat 'em ups available on the handheld market (as a genre, it just doesn't seem to transfer very well). This limited competition works in this game's favour. Presuming you've only got a GBA or DS to hand, this is by far the strongest fighter you're going to find. The only real alternative is Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers, which is pretty miserable. In addition, this also wins against its direct competitors in affordability - why pick up the £30 PSP version, when you can get this for around a tenner? Granted, the PSP has an awesome multiplayer mode, but is this worth tripling the price? Especially as, if you're the kind of Street Fighter fan who would buy these titles, you've probably already got one of the Alpha games already.

If you're desperate for some Street Fighter action on the move, you can't go wrong with this game. Everyone else might want to stick to the PS2 or, if you're real hardcore, the Dreamcast.

As a post script, it might be worth noting that you can also find (if you look hard enough), a second Street Fighter game on the GBA - Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival. This wonderfully long-named alternative is an update to an earlier Street Fighter game, one that's still played in tournaments in Japan. Although it's an older game than this one, and all of the characters from it have been restored for Alpha 3, it's worth checking out if you're desperate to let rip Yoga Fires on the bus to work. As I'm sure so many of you are.