Early fighting game scene

We hear alot about the early street fighter scene but how was the scene for other fighters? was there ever a decent scene for the early kofs fatal fury mortal kombats and tekkens from mid 90s and so on? i would like to try to find old footage of tourneys from 90s of other fighting games being played in arcades

I know for old Gamepro magazines that MKII was kind of big (tournament wise) in the USA, even had an official community in California (CMKA) but I would love to read more in detail too.

MK and MK2 were huge where I lived (Norcal). I was a little too young to travel or even know the hotspots but once in a while I’d see killers using Jax etc. Same goes for KI; there were crowds around the cabinet, even my dad was enthralled lol.

For SNK games, I’m guessing that people played early KOF competitively, and I know a guy who played World Heroes 2 super competitive. At my local arcade though, I was the best at KOF94 and SS2, which probably meant everyone sucked.

yeah i love hearing about the old scene all you hear about is sf scene would be awesome to see some old vids of guys playing before there was internet to learn stuff its crazy to me how people got so good back then without owning the games and practice mode like learning how to tick spd with gief lol i would never figure that out in a arcade alone

Who was the old MK monster that made the animated icons everybody used for AIM? I think @EWAShock‌ maybe? He’d probably know if there was any good footage of the old MK scene at the least. :\

In my area (Chicago) there was a big scene for Samurai Shodown when it came out, also World Heroes 1 and 2 were very popular. MK and MK2 also had strong scenes.

my arcade had good games till 2000 kof 97 was my fav game there sadly nobody played the fighting games besides marvel we always had a good tekken scene though in the arcades i think tekken and soul calibur were the biggest competativly in usa after the year 2000

You weren’t completely on your own. It was usually an open conversation among players at arcades. However since there wasn’t training mode and internet resources, players experimented themselves much more to find things. Experimented as they were playing matches. It was exciting when you found something new, or thought you did (someone else you didn’t know might already have figured this out).

It was a special time back then. I think I probably have this video still in storage somewhere.