An old interview has surfaced in which Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi P) recounts his fighting game career, particularly with the Street Fighter character Zangief.
In the 4Gamer interview, Yoshi P recounts a story from an old business trip, in which he got to try a local test version of the in-development Street Fighter EX.
“When Street Fighter EX was exhibited at the AOU Show (now JAEPO) a long time ago, I went to play it on a business trip and won 57 consecutive games using Zangief. Afterwards, a staff member who was nearby said to me, ‘The development team wants to fight, can you help us?’ “, he explains.
Just as Smash producer Masahiro Sakurai seemingly showed no mercy to a couple on a date at the arcade, Yoshi P made sure to put on full display his prowess at Zangief for the developers.
“I was so happy that I said, “Of course! I did it seriously and beat the three developers to a pulp… and Zangief became very weak in the released version (laughs)”, he adds on.
The event would apparently go on to be discussed at Arika, the developers of the Street Figher EX series, as Yoshi P heard stories of his Zangief even in the next game.
“I was told that when I was playing Street Fighter EX2. I happened to have a chance to meet someone from Arika at the time, and when I told him about it, he said, ‘I’ve heard that before! There was a guy at the AOU show who had a huge winning streak, and they said something was wrong with Zangief, so they fixed it’ “, he says, taking responsibility for the version of Zangief that shipped with the finished game.
“I am really sorry about that, Zangief”, he laughs.
This interview was actually from 2020, but the story had resurfaced following a post on the FFXIV reddit, with screenshots of Twitter user Gosokkyu discussing the interview.
The event is even referenced in an older FFXIV blog, with a photo of Yoshi P being suplexed and referencing people being mad about nerfs:
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