Street Fighter Alpha 2

English restoration

Game

Street Fighter Zero 2 (Japan 960430)

Hardware

Capcom CPS-2

MAME set

sfz2j

Version

rc1

Updated

2026-10-11

Screenshots

About this patch

Street Fighter Alpha 2 wasn't the same game everywhere. In Japan, each fighter's win quote depends on who they beat and how much health they had left, and you can pick one by holding buttons. The English versions draw a few quotes at random. They also trimmed some story and ending pages, show only the country on the next-stage map, turned the blood white and left the Manual guard panel blank.

The English Restoration is the Japanese game, in English. Every win quote is back, chosen the Japanese way, and so is the button pick. The story and endings follow Japan's pages and timing, the map names the place you're headed, and the blood is red. Birdie's third victory pose and Dan's spoken line in his ending return too.

The USA version's secret fighters stay: Evil Ryu, EX Dhalsim and EX Zangief are selectable by code. The computer opponents, two-player damage and factory settings follow the Japanese version, and Charlie's Sonic Boom and Chun-Li's Kikoken get the fix from Capcom's later revision. An operator setting switches the blood to white.

There are three builds. The USA build is Street Fighter Alpha 2 in English. The Asia build is Street Fighter Zero 2 in English, with Asia's own stage details. The Japan build keeps its Japanese text and gets the same fixes and settings. All three run in MAME and HBMAME and on MiSTer.

This is a release candidate.

What's changed

• Every win quote from the Japanese game, in English, picked by opponent and remaining health
• Win-quote pick by holding buttons, as in Japan
• Story and ending pages in Japan's order and timing, including the pages the English versions cut
• English place names on the next-stage map
• Red blood, with a REGULATION setting for white (off by default)
• Birdie's third victory pose, Dan's ending voice and a Manual guard panel that explains itself
• Evil Ryu, EX Dhalsim and EX Zangief by code in the USA build; an operator setting adds them to the Japan and Asia builds
• Computer opponents, two-player damage and factory settings as in the Japanese version
• USA, Asia and Japan builds

Compared with the arcade versions

How the USA build of the English Restoration compares with the Japanese and US versions.

Spot a difference we missed?

A restoration is only as complete as its list of differences. If the Japanese version does something this one still doesn't, whether a line of text, a scene, a screen or a small detail, please let us know. Anything you find goes into the next release.

Downloads

You need your own dump of Street Fighter Zero 2 (Japan 960430) as the MAME set sfz2j.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 sfa2-restoration-rc1-ips.zip -d sfz2j-patch
cd sfz2j-patch
python3 apply.py /path/to/sfz2j.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/sfz2j.zip
  out/hbmame/sfa2ru.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Restorations/Street Fighter Alpha 2 (USA) [English Restoration].mra
Asia (English):
  out/mame/asia/sfz2j.zip
  out/hbmame/sfz2ra.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Restorations/_Asia/Street Fighter Zero 2 (Asia) [English Restoration].mra
Japan (Japanese):
  out/mame/japan/sfz2j.zip
  out/hbmame/sfz2rj.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Restorations/_Japan/Street Fighter Zero 2 (Japan) [Restoration].mra

MAME and original hardware. Put the zip from out/mame/ ahead of the stock set in your MAME rompath (it keeps the name sfz2j.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 sfz2j. 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 next to your stock sfz2j.zip. It loads with no checksum warnings. The HBMAME set definition (sfa2ru, sfz2ra and sfz2rj) is generated with the restoration; 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/sfz2j.zip (split MAME sets also need qsound.zip). You need Jotego's jtcps2 core, which update_all installs. The MRA applies the restoration 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:

sz2j.03b (512 KB, original CRC32 3e1e2e85) differs per build:

Release history

rc1 (2026-10-11)

• First public release.

Related projects

• Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, the later revision, restored in English the same way
• Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, the PlayStation 2 edition rebuilt for CPS-2
• Street Fighter Alpha 2 EX, the enhanced edition

Notes

• MAME shows checksum warnings for the patched files. That's expected; the game plays normally. HBMAME with the matching set definitions loads them without them.
• Fan work, unaffiliated with Capcom. The patch contains no ROM data; you need your own dump of the Japanese set.