The AI was pretty stupid in SF2 for the SNES, especially because combos weren’t a thing when the game was being developed, I guess.
In SF2T the CPU learned some basic combos, Ryu even does a st.HP xx DP when you’re dizzy or something. The sad thing was that those combos were predefined, so the CPU kept attempting them even when they weren’t possible because you were blocking or on whiff
Apparently, AI for FG is not a easy or cheap thing to do, so the hardest difficulties always rely on reading your input and immediately reacting with something or worse, just stupid damage like ST.
BTW, in ST the CPU does a lot of combos, I stopped playing against it in the arcades when I first saw CPU Dee Jay reacting at the start of the round to Ryu’s fireball and doing j.HK > cr.LP > full MGU into dizzy and repeating the same combo for the victory, back in 94 or 95. Or try facing Akuma in ST… it’s on the same level of SNK-Boss-hard…
To this day, the AI in ST is one of the most difficulty and annoying things in videogames to me. Even on HDR it’s the same if you’re playing on ST mode, unless you play Arcade on HDR mode, then the difficulty is really tonned down.