Street Fighter Alpha EX

Enhanced version

Game

Street Fighter Zero (Japan 950727)

Hardware

Capcom CPS-2

Version

rc1

Updated

2026-10-26

Title screens

About

Street Fighter Alpha EX aims to be the definitive version of the first Alpha, bringing together features from its console releases and the CPS-1 Changer version. It builds on the regional restoration, with Akuma, Dan and M. Bison on the visible select screen and six colors per fighter: the original two plus four from Alpha 2.

CONSOLE mode adds a green title and a cycling mode menu: Arcade, Versus, Training, Dramatic Battle, Survival, Akuma and Options. Versus returns to fighter selection after each match. Training has recording and replay, computer behavior, stage and gauge controls, and health that refills after a combo while stopping at 1 HP.

Dramatic Battle offers the original Ryu and Ken encounter and an EX route against Adon, Sagat, M. Bison and Akuma. Play with a computer teammate or a second player, and choose your team in EX. Survival follows Alpha Anthology's opponent order and health recovery. Akuma mode goes straight to the original boss challenge.

OPTIONS covers difficulty, timer, rounds, damage, speed and sound. The operator menu adds CONSOLE or ARCADE game mode, six or original colors, extended Turbo and slow speeds, and optional CPS Changer route choices in Arcade. ARCADE mode retains the arcade title and coin handling.

The USA build is Street Fighter Alpha EX, with the regional restoration's English story, quotes and endings. Japan is Street Fighter Zero EX, in Japanese; Asia retains the Zero title with English text. The MiSTer MRAs start in CONSOLE mode; MAME and HBMAME start in ARCADE mode. It runs in MAME and HBMAME and on MiSTer.

This is a release candidate.

What's included

• Akuma, Dan, M. Bison and Random on the expanded character-select screen
• Six colors per fighter, selected with the six attack buttons; the four extra colors come from Alpha 2
• CONSOLE mode with a green title and Arcade, Versus, Training, Dramatic Battle, Survival, Akuma and Options
• Training with recording and replay, computer behavior, stage and gauge controls, delayed health refill and a 1 HP minimum
• Classic Dramatic Battle and a four-opponent EX route, with a computer teammate or two human players
• Survival with Alpha Anthology's opponent order and health recovery, animated during FIGHT
• Direct access to the original Akuma challenge, named Gouki in Japan
• Versus rematches return to character selection, with shared win counters in Versus and Survival
• Coin or a START hold opens pause in Console fights; Quit returns directly to the title
• OPTIONS for difficulty, timer, rounds, damage, speed and sound; extended Turbo and slow speeds in operator configuration
• Optional CPS Changer route choices after character and speed selection in Arcade
• USA, Japan and Asia builds, with the regional restoration underneath

Screenshots

How it's distributed

Each build is put together on your own machine from files you already own. You need:

• Your own original Street Fighter Zero (Japan 950727) arcade romset: sfzj.

The patch tool verifies your original ROMs, applies the selected EX edition, and writes the MAME and HBMAME archives and MiSTer MRAs. No console disc is needed.

Downloads

You need your own dump of Street Fighter Zero (Japan 950727) as the MAME set sfzj.zip. Every build is made from that one set. Each zip includes a readme.txt with full instructions.

Merged, split and complete sets work, including nested or renamed ROMs. Use --rompath /path/to/roms to search a collection (repeatable), and --check to check inputs before building. ZIPs and extracted folders need no extra software; 7z archives require 7-Zip. QSound can stay in your emulator's ROM path; valid firmware already embedded in a source set is kept in complete outputs.

The builds

How to apply

unzip sfa-ex-rc1-ips.zip -d sfzj-patch
cd sfzj-patch
python3 apply.py /path/to/sfzj.zip --out-dir out

The script checks every file against the checksums below, applies the patches, checks the result, and writes the files for every platform in one go: (add --variant usa to make just one build)

USA (English):
  out/mame/usa/sfzj.zip
  out/hbmame/sfaexu.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Enhanced Versions/Street Fighter Alpha EX (USA).mra
Japan (Japanese):
  out/mame/japan/sfzj.zip
  out/hbmame/sfzexj.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Enhanced Versions/_Japan/Street Fighter Zero EX (Japan).mra
Asia (English):
  out/mame/asia/sfzj.zip
  out/hbmame/sfzexa.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Enhanced Versions/_Asia/Street Fighter Zero EX (Asia).mra

MAME and original hardware. Put the zip from out/mame/ ahead of the stock set in your MAME rompath (it keeps the name sfzj.zip, so use one build at a time), or burn its ROM files. MAME's game menu won't start a set with patched ROMs, so start it from the command line: mame sfzj. MAME shows checksum warnings for the patched ROMs. That's expected, and the game runs normally. To start it from a menu, use the HBMAME build.

HBMAME. Put the zip from out/hbmame/ in HBMAME's roms/ folder together with qsound.zip; it holds the complete set. It loads with no checksum warnings. The HBMAME set definition (sfaexu, sfzexj and sfzexa) is generated with the edition; an upstream submission is pending, so for now you add it to your own HBMAME build.

MiSTer. Copy the _Arcade folder from out/mister/ to the root of your SD card, and keep the stock, unmodified romset at games/mame/sfzj.zip (split MAME sets also need qsound.zip). You need Jotego's jtcps2 core, which update_all installs. The MRA applies the edition in memory as the game loads, so nothing on your card is modified, and each build keeps its own settings and saves under its own setname. The MiSTer-only download holds the same MRAs, ready to copy.

Any IPS patcher. Apply each file in ips/<variant>/ (Flips, Lunar IPS, …) to the ROM file of the same name and re-zip the set yourself.

Changed ROMs

Shared by every build:

sfz.05a (512 KB, original CRC32 0810544d) differs per build:

sfz.06 (512 KB, original CRC32 806e8f38) differs per build:

sfz.14m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 90fefdb3) differs per build:

sfz.16m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 5354c948) differs per build:

sfz.18m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 41a1e790) differs per build:

sfz.20m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 a549df98) differs per build:

sfzj.03c (512 KB, original CRC32 f5444120) differs per build:

Release history

rc1 (2026-10-26)

• First public release candidate.

Related projects

• Street Fighter Alpha regional restoration, the regional foundation EX builds on

Notes

• To open the mode menu in MAME or HBMAME, set GAME MODE to CONSOLE in SYSTEM CONFIGURATION, then save and exit.
• You need your own Japanese sfzj arcade set and QSound device ROMs. The downloads contain patches and portable application tools, not complete game ROMs.
• Fan work, unaffiliated with Capcom.