Street Fighter II designer opens up about the cancelling 'bug'

- Akira Nishitani, the original lead game designer on Street Fighter II, has finally given insight into the cancelling "bug" from the iconic fighting game. For many years now, it has not been entirely clear whether the act of cancelling moves in Street Fighter II in order to perform combos -- a feature that quickly became a staple of fighting games -- was intentional or a bug. Talking on Twitter, and as translated by veteran journalist and translator Nick Des Barres, Nishitani had the following to say on the topic. "It originated with a system designed to make executing specials easier: 'If players press the button too fast, the move won't activate.'" "After implementing that leniency, we discovered a side effect: It became possible to execute specials after hitting with normals," he continued. This turned out to be a pretty interesting mechanic, which the team decided to leave in the game. "It wasn't something we anticipated, but since we decided to incorporate it into the game during development, I wouldn't call it a bug," he added.