SF2 on the snes was where it started, but it wasn’t until Tekken Tag that my interest in fighters ossified into an obsession. Good times.
I think the first time I played a fighting game was when I was either 5 or 6 years old, and my older cousins had Street Fighter II: World Warrior for SNES.
I would generally play some other fighting games in the arcades and on Sega Genesis throughout the years. When I first discovered emulators and roms I got back into again in 2001, I was playing fighting games I couldn’t afford as a kid and learning about SNK games. Then I got a PS2 around 2005, and mostly played SNK vs. Capcom 2, Guilty Gear 1 & 2, KOF: MI, I couldn’t play Marvel vs. Capcom 2 since it was so rare to find and expensive even used. I would only use gamepads at home at the time. I lost interest in video games in 2006. It was Super Street Fighter IV that got me into using arcade joysticks at home in 2011, and spending more money on other fighting game controllers. Heck, I even based my laptop purchase on the video card’s ability to play SF IV on full details. Fighting games has helped me spend more money 
When I was a junior in high school, my younger brother’s friend sat down by me and started babbling excitedly about this new game, Street Fighter II. Eventually I had the chance to try it out. I picked Blanka. I had no idea how to block or jump, much less do any moves. My first opponent was Ryu. You can guess how that turned out.
Later another friend and I played it at the local arcade while everyone else was distracted by Champion Edition. We figured we sucked enough not to care what version we were playing. Heh! Those days were crazy. There was constantly a crowd around Champion Edition to the point you couldn’t see the screen unless you fought your way forward. There was a row of quarters designating the next player’s game all the way across the bottom of the screen. I mostly remember hearing those damn elephants from all across the arcade the whole time we were there, though.
When the SNES version came out, my brother’s friend talked my brother into getting it, but he needed me to pay for half. There was a phone conversation that involved a lot of begging that went on, and I finally relented. Well, I feel it was money well-spent. I’m a fan to this day, and I don’t want to think of how many hours I’ve put into fighting games.
sf1 @ my local laundrymat…and black belt on sega master system. just the story mode. boss fights were like classic fighting game. i dunno if it had 2p options
Beavith
54
My friend had a Sega Genesis back in the day and had the games MK2, and Deadly Moves. We’d spend hours on those games, using the 1 or maybe 2 specials we knew per fighter.Once I was around 8 or so, I went to our mall nearby and my parents showed me the arcade that was there. I spent a lot of time playing Tekken, but it just didn’t do it for me. In the back of my head I knew I would rather be playing a 2d fighter. So I stumbled upon a MvC2 cab. Now, I grew up in southern Minnesota, so it wasn’t like the people at this mall were anything special, but I would whoop on them. Later on in life(I was still playing MvC2) I was surfing the web and decided to look up becoming a pro at the game. I then found out about groups like EMP, and was amazed at how godlike the players were. Doing combos like I had never seen before. I remember being filled with such determination to get to their level, and to beat them and join EMP. Sadly, the arcade closed down, and I forgot about the game. Crushed over the fact that I would never play that game again(I didn’t understand how to buy newer consoles) I decided to buy SFA3 and CvS1 for my playstation. Those games were godlike in their own ways, but my friends had no interest in playing whatsoever. Arcade mode just doesn’t have the same feel as beating on somebody who just walked up to your machine with a handful of quarters. Now I play SF4, and MvC3, which are fun and all, but nothing will beat going to the arcade.
TL;DR: Arcades are cool. MvC2 is cool.
Tu101uk
55
My first fighting game experience was actually the VS mode in Double Dragon I on the NES… XD
My older bro is mainly responsible for my interest in the fighting game genre. We got SFII at the same time as when we got our SNES, before he imported SFII Turbo (with the massive slot-in adaptor) from Japan. He got me into playing Tekken (from Tekken II on PSX to present, minus Tag as I wasn’t any good at it) and Soul Calibur (SCI on DC to present) seriously. Actually, most of my early experience with fighting games comes from Namco fighters, though while my older bro went to arcades during this time, I was mainly a shut-in who stayed at home and either lost bad to my older bro or beasted on my more-casual friends (on a side note, my older bro doesn’t really play fighting games all too much anymore, though he is still partial to a bit of SCIV once in a while)…
During my time playing 3D fighting games, I did play the occasional 2D title (SFA3 and KOF98 on the PSX, CvS2 and KOF 2K/2K1 on the PS2), but I didn’t take them too seriously until Arcana Heart Full! (my first animu fighter, I only touched GG once or twice beforehand) and that’s where I learned about double-jumps, air dashes and other animu-fighting fundamentals.
So yeah, a predominantly 3D, slightly mixed, home-console heritage for me… :S
O-O~
I used to spend every summer in Korea visiting with my mom’s side of the family and every summer I went to the arcades every chance I got. I remember Final Fight being cool as hell when I was 5 or 6 and then Street Fighter 2 came out and EVERYBODY played that. In college I played a lot of 3rd Strike with a couple of my buddies but we could NEVER get a scene going. I’m playing against most of the cast by people who actually play them for the first time now on OE.
I owe everything I’m into now (including fighting games) to my cousin, Seth.
Every summer we’d go to Arkansas to visit my family. Well, my cousin who was a lot older than me (I think he was 10 or so. I was probably 5 or 6)
Well, every time I’d go to his house we would play Champion Edition, MK2 and TMNT: Tournament Fighters on SNES. And he would constantly destroy me at them. It got to the point where I was determined to get better than him and all my other cousins who played. I finally did. I was hooked on the competitive feel and the atmosphere of it all ever since
Also, when I was teenager and was finally able to go to the mall by myself I basically lived in the arcade. I went every Friday, Saturday and Sunday until I moved when I was 20.
I used to go the arcades when i was little and play some fighters. Then when i got older i kinda got into SC4 and here i am now. 
7 years old. Summer 93 I walked quite a few blocks for my size with one quarter in my pocket to play WW. Timer ran as I was skimming through the characters. I wanted Ken and ended up with Dhalsim.
when i was 6, we moved to a new city and the local next to the house was an arcade owned by a uncle, good times
The arcade at the mall near me had a MvC1 machine and a MvC2 machine. I knew that the games had Megaman in them, so I started playing and I loved it! I was introduced to Ryu through that game as well, which sparked my interest in the Street Fighter games. I got into SFA2 a little, switching to Ken once I found that I liked his style more than Ryu’s. I later met a friend in HS who had CvS2 for the GC, so I got into that, as well as 3rd Strike for the PS2. I’ve been a fan ever since!
SNES had some amazing games.
I remember when Brooklyn had a SF2 cab on almost every block and some blocks would have even several arcade spots. It didn’t matter if it was a pizza place, laundromat, random space in a random store, whatever. Can’t believe how much times have changed. The fact everyone played made it even better. Now you have so many games that player base is too spread out.
my friends and i used to beat up each other up a lot so as soon as we found out we could do it without actually injuring ourselves we were immediately sold
Started when I played Tekken at a friends house on the PSX. I mained King back then. I found out about Street Fighter and Marvel when someone lent me Street Fighter Alpha 3 and my cousin bought me Marvel 1 for the PSX for my birthday. Cammy was main in Alpha and I went Wolvie/America in MvC. Good stuff. I miss the traditional 1 partner in MvC and pretty stoked that it came back in SF x Tekken.
buddy had SNES SF2 WW when it was new. I was 9 or something, then started going to arcade soon after, and got SF2SCE on Genesis the XMAS it came out.
Funny, I almost dont even give a fuck about FG’s anymore; thank you SFIV, MVC3, the sheep, how nerdy the scene has become, Capcom’s gouging (SF3OE+colorpacks WTF).
My first serious fighter was DoA4. I played it and got pretty good over time when I was probably from ages 10-13 or so.Then one of my friends I played that with got me into SF4 been hooked ever since.
My dad owned and operated a whole bunch of various arcade machines around the Bronx when I was a kid.
I had a rainbow edition cabinet in my basement and my cousins were ALWAYS over, so we played allt he time
