a few months ago or so, while chatting on discord, someone sent a link to some translated SF3 Q&A pages on gamest mook that was fairly interesting [big ol' shoutouts to scotia834 on twitter] which, of course, contained some interesting information-from SF3 being set around the late 90's to 2000's [which makes SFV 2000's too kinda], ryu being straight actually and not a man who gives no fuck about romantic relationships or being attracted [honestly i imagine he still doesn't care that much about romance], the mental image of dudley driving with gloves on, and the ominous comment about bison being still alive in new generation. i wonder where that went, they probably didn't think about that comment that much. while this was a neat read, it made me wonder what other interesting things to pry out of Q&As there are...so i went to try and collect anything i could find-and with this journey in mind, i cannot thank enough the efforts of people who are responsible for all of this being out there online, you're doing god's work and are the sole reason why this site can exist. this also might be a article like the pocketstation one where this would have to wait and will get updated when i get the neccessary information-thankfully, i did find some interviews that are translated to english, and i hope that's enough to work with.
so, y'know that grafitti in birdie's stage citing a man named 'bill cravens'? the story might be well-known, but that was referring to a real person working at capcom. he passed away in his sleep in 2007, so the grafitti ended up being a unintentional memorial for him. he also had a enemy in final fight based on him, and from what i hear-bill was once a kindly, warm man. and how did street fighter open in the U.S.? why, capcom rented out the cambria boxing club and put the game in there with a elaborate show-bill, too, was responsible for that.
this part may end up tangling a little with the tiny retrospective i made on SF2's story, but that's what happens when this is effectively intertwined with SF2's outcome. during the very, very beginning of SF2's development, akira nishitani brainstormed a wealth of what the sequel to the first street fighter game could be-from a underwater stage with limited oxygen supply acting as the timer, to networked cabinets involving 10 players, or a tower stage where you could fall to your death, the tarkus fight from phantom blood...but capcom stopped him dead in his tracks, merely just asking for a simple sequel-especially with ROM prices spiking. now, did you know that zangief was originally called 'vodka gorbovsky'? yeah, the brother of soda popinski. how about dhalsim being 'indo'? or M. bison straight up being called 'washizaki' alongside balrog being 'tyson'? they were fearless back then. and chun-li was intended to be just a simple cute chinese girl before they went with the idea of her being a cop. there were also going to be entrance animations instead of them just plainly standing there....but alas, they were working with 48MB back then. do you know how much 48MB is now? because with the rising sizes of games nowadays, including memory, that's not a whole lot. surely lesser than my computer's 2GB of memory. the stages too were going to have hazards all over-including kanon statues stoning you [in the final game the only stage hazard there ever was is vega in his stage], and the game was going to be far more dynamic with specific weakpoints for everyone on their heads arms legs torsos, special K.O. animations, the AI was going to be more sophisticated, zangief was going to be anti-communist, and vega was originally going to be a crusader. like, a religious crusader. and guile was going to be a even worse character. can you imagine? (source: https://shmuplations.com/streetfighterii/)
at one point, street fighter alpha was theorized to be a AU of sorts, but haruo murata confirmed that street fighter as a whole should be thought of as this vague canon with some concrete events, something soft rather than something with a form-that was the idea backing street fighter alpha, that is. this also kinda means that with this intention, every headcanon or fanfic you can have is and/or could be canon in a way and therefore the street fighter series was going to follow the same logic as the nier/drakengard series-infact, the memes bleeding into the games and such is kind of a example and result of that. street fighter is a series made by the fans of it, isn't that beautiful? (source: https://itsfantastic.moe/all-about-street-fighter-alpha-developer-interview/)
there's more. remy, being the out of place bugger that he is, was literally created last. he exists purely because the team working on third strike wanted a thinly 'bikei' man and to fill out some slots missing in the roster for fighting styles. he was also going to be a priest! meanwhile, the judgement girls were going to be far more strict, and you were going to be able to bomb people in third strike once upon a time. (source: https://shmuplations.com/sfiii/)
SF3 also apparently had it's own 'sheng long'-with a usenet newsgroup detailing...this. from a polygon article:
the style of the game was born because they wanted to interpet the art that has been made for street fighter over the years into a renderer that can make the game look like that. the thing is, i don't remember the previous art for street fighter prior to SF4 making everyone except the women look like That. there's literally nothing i could find that's interesting about SF4 to note because every interview i found is kinda just talking about the game itself and what already came out rather than what was the thinking behind it or what things were cut-but what i found funny was that juri's theme kinda just permeated every single interview video i found about this game.
ah, this game. what has been said about it that hasn't already been said? banana hair. ass system. ass story. ass everything apparently. ass ass. rushed for e-sports. and the V in the V system stands for variable. it was also gonna have six seasons! that doesn't quite fit with the V themeing, but imagine it for a moment. also, one of the interviews i was looking through for this portion of the article, the person asking yoshinori ono [the producer of SFV] asks him if the game would open up with a smooth online experience. do you think it did?
no SF6 again, purely because it's too recent-we basically know everything.