10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Street Fighter

3. Combo System In Street Fighter II Originally Treated As A Bug

Street Fighter II's combo system was originally considered a bug and was at one stage removed. Developers initially labelled the ability to hit several times in succession as unfair and replaced it with a system in which the second successive blow would always miss. Designer Akira Nishitani demanded it be changed back because without it the game became dull. The measures put in place against the combo system can still be seen in certain moves such as E. Honda's hundred-hand slaps and Chun Li's lightning kicks, the moves will often fail to hit past the first blow allowing the opponent to escape. The accidental combo system in Street Fighter II changed the landscape of fighting games instantly, it soon became a staple of subsequent fighting games as evident in Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, The King of Fighters, Tekken and Virtua Fighter. While some regard the story of Street Fighter II's combo system as common knowledge, it's undoubtedly the most important fact about Street Fighter's production process as it's a crucial element in almost every subsequent fighting game to date, the genre simply would not have existed without it.