Capcom Censored “Street Fighter II”, One of the Greatest Games of All Time

Posted on February 21, 2021 by R 5 comments

Last week, Capcom released Capcom Arcade Stadium on the Nintendo Switch, which includes a number of classic games from Capcom’s arcade library.

However, it did not take long for gamers to notice that two key alterations had been made to the latest version of Street Fighter II, likely due to modern-day political concerns.

Twitter user @pomegd posted screenshots of the differences, the first highlighting the removal of the “Rising Sun” motif from E. Honda’s stage. The stage background originally featured a large rising sun behind Mount Fuji which animated when the match was over. Now, the sun is completely removed with a dull, blank space left in its place.

That’s some inspired design right there. Not at all objectively worse.

The obvious speculation is that the rising sun image was removed due to its use as the official flag of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy until 1945 (which were disbanded after World War II). Since that time, Japan’s military has been replaced by the Japanese Self-Defense Force, which still uses the Rising Sun motif on their flags to this day.

In addition, a small change has been made to the character select screen. The flag under Hong Kong-native Fei Long has been changed. In the 1993 release, the flag was that of Hong Kong under British rule. However, now the flag has been replaced with the same red and yellow flag as mainland China (the communist one).

Fei Long’s Hong Kong flag has actually been changed in other releases of Street Fighter II, such as the change to the red and white Bauhinia flag in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection in 2018.

It would be easy to dismiss the change as “updating” the game to fit modern geopolitical realities, except Zangief still clearly hails from the U.S.S.R., complete with a Soviet flag.

It’s hard not to assume that Capcom changed the Hong Kong flag to a Chinese one to appease Communist China’s ruling class, who have taken intense steps to reign in Hong Kong’s independent identity and crack down on anti-Beijing protests over the past couple of years.

For the record, the Communist Soviets were responsible for far more death and misery than the World War II-era Japanese military, but the USSR flag gets to stay, I guess.

There you have it, gamers. If an unparalleled classic like Street Fighter II isn’t safe from censorship and Chinese propaganda, it’s safe to bet that nothing is. Don’t get rid of your physical media, folks…

On a brighter note, you can always pick up our own “rising sun” shirt design at our TeeSpring store for as long as we are allowed to sell it!

Source: Niche Gamer

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