to commemorate the disc version of Capcom Belt Action Collection, Capcom posted an interview with planner Akira Nishitani, designer Akiman & dotters S.Y. (Satoru Yamashita) & Nissui (Asae Nishitsuji) about the making of Final Fight game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/column…🇯🇵
just one page from Final Fight's 85-page planning document; the "Street Fighter sequel" project was assigned at a time when ROM chips were scarce due to the rise of the Famicom, so Akiman had little else to do but keep drawing while they waited for sufficient ROM to be available 
producer Okamoto was resistant to the idea of adding a playable ninja character but relented at the insistence of president Tsujimoto, who told them the iron rule: "when it comes to the USA, players always go nuts for ninjas and dinosaurs"
as for Haggar, apparently Akiman was going through a Les Miserables phase at the time(?!) & was inspired by Jean Valjean's mayor turn (looking it up, Toho produced the first JP stage productions in '87)
the other inspiration was more obvious: John "Sleepy" Estes from Mad Bull 34
the other inspiration was more obvious: John "Sleepy" Estes from Mad Bull 34
this image is from SF2 but it demonstrates the memory management techniques pioneered during the making of Final Fight, where the artists would have to figure out how to fit the graphics data within the available memory, often by physically assembling them on paper like a puzzle
there's more in there that I won't summarise, but I will point out that this interview was excerpted from this book, which comes out in Japan today
one more thing, Capcom USA just published a translation of the SF2 interview, I'm sure the Final Fight interview will follow in due time game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/column…
I wasn't going to summarise anything else—Capcom usually translates these interviews themselves, so why bother?—but since y'all love this memory map, here's a few more tidbits from the interview (cont'd)
during the making of Final Fight, their graphics software could only display sprites as big as 32x32 dots but character sprites averaged at 128x64 dots, so mapping everything out on paper also served the dual purpose of letting them visualise the complete composited sprites
their method for monitoring ROM allocation was literally a big stack of paper maps like the one shown above—no blank sheets on the stack = no memory left
towards the end of development, there was a period where the four dotters were extremely stressed trying to find extra (1/2)
towards the end of development, there was a period where the four dotters were extremely stressed trying to find extra (1/2)
...ROM, to the point where two dotters got into a fistfight and Akiman didn't sleep for days as he worked to cover for their absence… and then they found a lost memory sheet that had fallen behind a desk, giving them the crucial extra memory they needed & causing Akiman to faint
