While we all love classic fighting games, there’s one area where modern fighting games are undoubtedly superior — and that’s balance. A large part of this is that older games tended to be released as they were, since patches weren’t really a thing, and making revisions was expensive and required consumers to buy an entirely new cartridge or disc. Conversely, when a modern fighting game ends up unbalanced, it tends to get fixed before too long.
Today, it’s a much simpler prospect for fighting game developers to simply patch the game to address any unintended bugs or even just to shake things up. It’s basically become an expectation for modern fighting games to have a steady stream of patches not just with content, but with rebalancing as well. Now, Akira Nishitani has voiced interest in going back to one of the most classic fighting games of all time and tinkering with its balance.
If you’re a fan of fighting games, it’s unlikely you don’t know the name Akira Nishitani at least in passing. As the original designer of Street Fighter 2 and Final Fight, he had a storied history at Capcom before leaving in 1995 to found Arika, where he continued to work with Capcom for the Street Fighter EX series.
In recent years, perhaps what Nishitani is best known for is the being the producer on Fighting EX Layer which brought the Street Fighter EX-exclusive characters back to a fighting game.
The other day on X, Nishitani mused on if it might be possible to rebalance Super Street Fighter 2. One thing worth mentioning is that while Nishitani was the director of the original Street Fighter 2 and also the Street Fighter 2: Turbo revision, he actually had little involvement in the final version, Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo.
Super Street Fighter 2 is definitely the most beloved entry of the Street Fighter 2 series and is regularly played at tournaments across the world even today, more than 30 years after its original release back in 1994.
However, like many older fighting games, one area where even Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo struggles somewhat is in its balance.
There are some big cliffs between certain characters and while that’s simply something to be expected from an older title, in today’s climate revisions could be made if companies showed interest.
We already have direct examples of this with SNK announcing that they are both adding new characters and rebalancing Art of Fighting 3 with the upcoming Art of Fighting 3 R.
The original Art of Fighting 3 released back in 1996, so this is an exact example of what Nishitani is talking about and possibly also what sparked the idea for him in the first place.
Now, as to what Nishitani actually said, he made a post on X where he deliberated on it. Of course, it’s in Japanese but thankfully I’m here to translate the contents for you.
“Would it be possible to rebalance Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo?” Nishitani asks at the start of his post.
He continues to say “I was barely involved in that one actually, but if there’s a chance to do that I’d really like a shot at it”. Finally, he ends his post with something most people well-versed in Super Turbo were probably expecting. “I’m sorry if it ends up being a nerf festival, haha”.
You can see the original post in Japanese below.
スパⅡXを再調整するのアリですか？
私はほとんど関わっていなかったのですが、もし可能ならやってみたいなぁ。
ナーフ祭りになったらすみませんw— 西谷 亮 (@nin_arika) September 3, 2026
As someone who’s worked on fighting games for more than 30 years and was heavily involved in laying the groundwork for Street Fighter 2, it’s definitely interesting to consider what Akira Nishitani would like to do with Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo to, in his mind, improve the game.
Regardless, though, given how long of a history it has and how many dedicated fans still play it today, it seems unlikely such an endeavor would be embraced by the fanbase.
In fact, back in 2008 we saw the release of Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo HD Remix and although the title did sell at a stellar level at the time, it simply never took off in the way Capcom likely hoped and most definitely did not replace Super Street Fighte 2: Turbo as intended.
Even if Capcom did decide they wanted to do revisions to older titles at some point, the fact that Akira Nishitani doesn’t even work at Capcom anymore makes it feel unlikely that he’d be involved. But hey, at least he put it out there, so who knows?
If we were to get balance adjustments to a classic like this, what would you hope to see? Let us know in the comments.
