One of Street Fighter 2's Original Designers Wants to Rebalance Super Turbo 3 Decades After Its Release
Akira Nishitani, one of the original designers for Street Fighter 2 and Final Fight, expressed an interest in rebalancing Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo — over 30 years after its release.
In September 2026 — 32 years after Super Turbo hit arcades in 1994 — Akira Nishitani, a legend in the fighting game world and a veteran of the industry, shared a post on X/Twitter with the wild concept of rebalancing the game after so many years.
“Is it okay to tweak [Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo] again?” he wrote, as spotted and translated by EventHubs. “I wasn't really involved much, but if it's possible, I'd kinda like to give it a shot. Sorry if it turns into a nerf fest, lol.”
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
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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
While Capcom has re-released a slew of its older fighting games over the years for various retro collections, we can’t imagine we’d get a totally rebalanced version of the original SSF2T, one of the most iconic titles in the Street Fighter 2 series. That being said, Nishitani himself believes that it deserves a second pass, though some members of the fighting game community aren’t so sure they agree with him.
For instance, James Chen, a longtime fighting game commentator and fighting game community (FGC) historian, believes such changes wouldn’t be well-received by players, given how beloved the title is and how fondly it's remembered.
“It’s dangerous, as so many love Super Turbo as it is. Many logical changes would be bad, to be honest. Removing, for example, Chun’s ability to store her Super would make her less interesting, while removing Honda’s stored Oicho Throw makes him more interesting (to fight, that is),” he explained.
“SSF2X, despite all the unbalanced stuff, is still a pretty loved game with a pretty active scene despite being +30 years old, so even if you want to balance it, you should be pretty careful with what to change,” another player warned.
It’s also worth noting that Nishitani no longer works at Capcom; he founded his own game development company, Arika, in 1995, where he continues to make games to this day. Fighting game fans might know the studio best for Fighting EX Layer, a spiritual successor to the Street Fighter EX series of the mid-90s.
Capcom has pulled off a few new spins on Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo over the years; in 2008, the company released Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, which was well-received by critics at the time. And in 2017, it released Ultra Street Fighter 2 for the Nintendo Switch, a remixed version of the game with updated graphics, additional characters, and balance changes — but with the current success of Street Fighter 6, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether or not Capcom is interested in overhauling its original older games once again.