3 points
Alpha games had characters unlockable from the select screen with codes, usually intentionally unbalanced ones. I guess I wasn’t thinking of CVS or Marvel in that bucket as well, and EX was from a different developer. The real model for unlocking new characters in the old Street Fighter games was to put out a new edition of it, like Hyper Fighting or Super Turbo, that came with balance and mechanics changes, which meant you had to buy the entire game over again instead of just the characters.
5 points
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Alpha 3 on Playstation made you work a bit on the tour mode to unlock Guile, Evil Ryu, Shin Akuma (raise a character to level xyz). Shin Bison might also have only been selectable after beating him somewhere.
2 points