Three and a half decades of development have clued creators in to how to balance their rosters more effectively than ever before, but the lessons that were learned came in the form of some of the most overpowered characters the franchise has ever seen.
When one such character emerges and starts winning way too much, however, developers are naturally inclined to nerf them down a good bit. Sometimes this regulating force is a tad too much, and thus we arrive at JM Crofts’ latest video wherein he counts down the top 10 Street Fighter characters who fell off.
The first character on the list is Sean Matsuda from Street Fighter 3. Many know Sean as a joke character, akin to the likes of Dan Hibiki, because of how conspicuously bad he was in Third Strike.
Not as many people know that Sean was actually one of the strongest characters in Street Fighter 3: Second Impact. JM Crofts covers precisely why Mr. Matsuda enjoyed a brief stint near the top of the tier charts, and then shows us how far he fell when developers nerfed him for Third Strike.
We won’t spoil it, but will say that there is one character in particular who absolutely dominated one of the earliest Street Fighter games. Said character was indeed nerfed, and has appeared many times since this initial tear, but it seems as though Capcom has conclusively decided to err on the side of caution with them.
As such, this character has almost never been much better than mid-tier in their many subsequent appearances. While others have been exceptionally strong, been nerfed, and have returned to top tier status in other games, this fighter seems to have learned the hard way for everyone else.
Give Crofts’ video a watch and let us know in the comments if there are any other characters who could have made this list.