Final Fantasy 16's producer once got a Street Fighter EX character nerfed because he was simply too good at playing him.
Earlier this week, the Final Fantasy 14 and Street Fighter 6-dedicated subreddits began to pick up on a story from 2020. In a conversation with Tekken creative director Katsuhiro Harada, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida revealed he once beat 57 opponents in a row while playing Zangief, so the Street Fighter EX devs nerfed the character.
"Yoshi-P was too good with Zangief they had to tone him down" by TheHollyBoihttps://t.co/Wv5Z8iSEp9 pic.twitter.com/wWRXTYxFWBDecember 22, 2022
In fact, the 57 challengers to Yoshida's Zangief included staff from developer Arika, who were all summarily beaten by Yoshida. Given that the play session this took place at was a pre-release test for Street Fighter EX, developers at Arika then went back and "toned down" Zangief due to Yoshida's absolute thrashing of everyone.
What a wild series of events. These days, Yoshida is known as the creative director behind Final Fantasy 14, beloved by fans worldwide, and also the producer behind the eagerly anticipated Final Fantasy 16. He's not exactly known as an avid fighting game fan, always having voiced his love for the Dragon Quest series growing up.
So, next time you lament any disadvantage grappler mains have in Street Fighter games, you might want to spare a thought for Yoshida. We'll have to wait and see whether any of Street Fighter 6's grappler characters are similarly overpowered when the new fighting game releases next year on June 2, 2023.
If you're a fan of the Yoshida-led MMO though, you should probably know that Final Fantasy 14's controversial housing demolition is restarting early next year in January.