Street Fighter IV was a huge hit for Capcom, but it was almost released in a totally different form, as the producer originally wanted it to be a turn-based fighting game.
Street Fighter IV was released on home consoles in 2009 to an overwhelmingly positive reception. The game helped to revitalize the series and brought it back to mainstream attention. Street Fighter IV and its updated versions would go on to sell over nine million copies across various different platforms.
The success of Street Fighter IV might not have come to pass if producer Yoshinori Ono would have had his way. Ono was recently interviewed during EGX 2019 about his career and involvement with the Street Fighter series. According to Event Hubs, Ono had wanted Street Fighter IV to be a totally different game.
"I did have an idea though that I thought may be revolutionary to turn the game into a turn-based simulation, so you would take the moves you wanted to do and put them together like blocks," said Ono during the interview. "Then they would run automatically, but obviously we didn't make that in the end."
A turn-based Street Fighter IV would certainly have been a huge departure for the series. There have been attempts to toy with the formula of fighting games like this in the past, but it sounds as if Ono was more interested in creating a competitive JRPG than a true fighting game.
The Street Fighter series is one of Capcom's most recognizable franchises and its characters have appeared in numerous crossovers, including turn-based RPGs. The Namco x Capcom tactical RPG games featured playable versions of characters like Cammy, Chun-Li, Ryu, and Ken. These crossover appearances have always just been cameos and switching the genre of the Street Fighter series to anything other than a fighting game would likely cause a huge backlash from the community.
Street Fighter IV turned out to be a huge success for Capcom, but it would have been interesting to see Ono's original concept brought to life, even if just for the fun of seeing how the fans would have revolted against it.
Source: Event Hubs