Athanasy; Garou all-nighters. Those memories are golden.
same here:nunchuck:
Back in middle school I wanted to be like the Filipino gang dudes at my school (they didn’t bang hard like they could do anything to a real street gang, but they got all the girls and made all the preppy kids run for cover whenever they were around)… so what were they all doing after (and sometimes during) school? Playing SFII…
I saw some game with a freaky yellow guy jumping around the screen at an AmPm gas station, but I didn’t know what the big deal was… then one day at my local pizza parlor’s game room, they replaced the TMNT arcade machine (that I worshiped everyday after school) with SFII… I was like WTF??? at first, but I saw all the cool gang kids playing it so it was validated in my eyes.
The first character I played was Dhalsim… I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing or why there wasn’t a jump button. SFII didn’t really make sense to me until EGM had this huge blowout breaking down all the strategies… I didn’t even learn to do special moves until CE came out…
Actually the first time I threw a fireball successfully was on one of my birthdays… maybe my 12th… I had my party at that same pizza place… and I picked Ken because my dad was there and yup his name is Ken too… I just kept fooling around with the controls, and I was like “HOLY SHIT I DID IT”… it was like losing my virginity, almost.
After that I started getting competitively decent, and learning all the SFII WW glitches like Handcuffs and Blanka vs Blanka and etc.
All this took place at Graziano’s pizza and Megacade, for anybody who was in San Diego/Carmel Mountain in the early 90s…
SFII was just always there when I was growing up. I took an interest when my cousin showed me his stuff (if only if he didn’t quit so soon)
Earliest memory of myself playing: imagine a 7 year old scrub spamming low kicks and high punches with Dhalsim and almost a dozen challengers waiting to get pissed on at a Pizza Hut
Good thing I was big kid, too 
I also loved seeing backgrounds in the KoF and Eternal Champion games
My first experiences weren’t Arcade related but rather SNES. Most arcades where I lived were (and the ones that still stand still are) hangouts for gangs and other kids my folks didn’t want me falling with.
But the SNES version was the solution to any problem.
Friends arguing over which Power Ranger would win in a fight?
Duke it out with Street Fighter
Who’s better at _________?
Duke it out with Street Fighter
Friend pissed you off by stealing your lunch/pushing you down/talking shit about you?
Duke it out with Street Fighter
Hell my brother would play D&D and instead of going with Dice to battle, they’d use Street Fighter.
I remember someone doing the sonic boom glitch and Guile going up and up and up through the screen without getting hit and winning with a time-over. I was hooked by a glitch. My first character was Chun Li.
I used to play fighting games all the time but I never took them as seriously and competitively until…
"ARE YOU READY TRUE BELIEVERS?! CAPCOM AND MARVEL HAVE JOINED FORCES ONCE AGAIN TO BRING YOU…"
i started playing games and watching anime out of boredom when i was a freshman in college. didn’t have interest in any of that during high school.
now that i’ve graduated and have a stable job, and other things to tend to in life… i feel myself slowly getting detached from the scene.
i basically played so many n64 games when i was younger that i became bored with all games in general.
until like a year later i played guilty gear X
SF2, like almost everyone else. Karate champ before that actually, but seeing dhalsim stretch his limbs blew my mind when i saw it an arcade…
I played SF2, SFA, marvel vs, MK off and on for years at arcades and on consoles after that. having tons of fun, but not really that good.
Then I bought SFEX +Alpha for the ps1. The practice mode (where you have to completel a move/combo/or some kind of odd action) helped me realize how to realy play fighting games.
So to summarize: SF2 got me into fighting games, SFEX trained me into a decent player.
Fun times…
Guess im really different (and young)
Born in 1990
Started on MK1. Then went to tekken 1. Played tekken ever since (loved Armor King). MK till 4 when I realized that the 3d series sucked (yet i still own 3 of the 5 3d MK games). First competitive SF game was CvS2.
A couple of friends on my street had a SNES way before I did. I remember going over to play F-Zero or some junk and their older brother was like ‘fuck this’, he threw the game across the room and popped in SF2.
It was friggen on from that point foward.
Like someone else said, I couldn’t believe how BIG the characters were. Zangief vs Honda was just silly to me at that point.
We played for a few hours and they were heading up to go out. I was like, ‘You mind if I just stay here and play this for a while?’
Beat the game with ChunLi on 1 Star my first time. lol
(that’s a lie, Vega beat my ass once…)
even though my first fighter was like sf2, i knew i really liked fighting games after i started playing sfa3
now i hate the game with all my heart :7)
Some guy that played MK called Tom Brady.
I’ve never played MK more than 6 times in my life.
sf2
Me and some other dude kept firing hadokens at each other - they kept cancelling out for about 2 mins then we decided to fight.
i was already back then into fightin stuff like wrestling and cartoons like turtles and thundercats…along with van dam movies lol…when i seen ken and ryu hurricane kick i was sold…then i seen chunli helicopter kick (what i used to call it) move i was like wow this game is awesome
SF2 in arcade, then on Snes even though I didn’t know nothing about how to play.
I only started playing seriously and practicing when I got my Saturn (Vampire Savior, XvS, MvS, SFZ3). Then I left all other kind of games for 2D fighting when the Dreamcast blew away my brain.
Pit Fighter and Street Fighter 2 were my introduction into the fighting world. My mom was single when i was younger and used to take me with her when she had her hair appointments. Luckily for me there was a Diversions arcade next door and for the low price of a quarter I could whore the roundhouse button with ken and beat up on the older guys that came around. Not too many years later I talked my mom’s boyfriend (who ran an arcade box rental business) to park a copy of SFII n my garage for the summer. I still consider it one of the best summers of my life.
Killer Instinct for the SNES got me hooked. Back in the day I couldn’t believe the looks of the game. It handled pretty good too in my opinion. G’times…
the after school bowling alley had a SF2 machine and me and my friends were always in awe of the game. we all played ehonda or blanka because of all the mash moves.
i still remember the 92’ issue of EGM that had ken on the cover and went into detail about the game.