Anyone else like to read this thread (Especially Jcale’s stuff) sometimes? BUMP for GOOD MEASURE! 
I do. I grew up with SF, its in my blood 
Ive actually got a bunch of CDs that have all the old songs on em, including remixes!
One of my favorite games of all time, thats saying a lot as Ive been doing this gaming thing for almost my entire life lol.
Another BUMP for the unenlightened Ive gotta get this thread saved on my computer just in case it ever gets deleted.
I started reading this thread around a month+ ago and only finished it a few weeks ago. I am so grateful to have found it.
I wasn’t old enough to have taken full part in the old school arcade experience.
But my older brother did.
He did the whole “after school, 7-11” thing and even remembers the EGM Sheng Long April Fool’s. By the time I was old enough to tag along with him, it was normally at home on our SNES. As much as I wish I could have experienced the Golden Age of Street Fighter, I have only the tales and memories left to me by my brother. I did not realize until I was a teenager just how big the competitive world can be. At the same time, I see that I am blessed to even have an older brother to at least tell me his share about the old days. Some people younger or the same age as I don’t even have that.
However, we all have SRK. It was so incredible to read such detailed stories of a time before my time. It must have been even wilder to have experienced it firsthand. And so I give my thanks to those of you who reached deep into your memory box to pull out some old nostalgia, dusted it off, and showed the rest of us it still shines, and will continue to.
Thank you for being our “older brothers”.
This is my own way of adding to the thread, since I can’t talk about having seen 20+ kids crowding around a SF II machine. Tomorrow, I’ll be leaving on a solo trip to my very first EVO, and only second-ever “official” SF tournament event. Tomorrow, I’ll be leaving to claim my birthright and be with my brothers from other places.
…Actually, I’ve got one little story of my own. It’s not exactly old school, but I think it certainly adds to the legend.
My Junior year of high school (Two years ago), there was a senior named Allen Chiu. We shared a Journalism class. One day, he says almost loud enough for everyone to hear:
"I bet I can beat anyone at this school at Street Fighter II."
I overheard him. I thought he was being really arrogant. That’s the way a lot of players can seem to me, I guess. Even my own brother likes his share of shit-talking.
Anyway, I figured I could take him on. It had been years since I had played Street Fighter II on SNES. So we eventually got around to playing in Mr. Nguyen’s class at lunch. Allen was there with a few of his other older friends, adding to the shit-talking scene and overall hype of the game. Yep, this is Street Fighter, all right. Everyone was so excited, playing casuals such a classic game. The bet was $5, I believe. One game. My Ryu faced off against his Guile. He did his little sonic boom factory complete with flash kicks and backbreaking air throws. Let’s not forget the double sweeps. I was amazed at how slow the game was and also trying to figure out how I used to play. I lost, of course.
Fast-forward a couple months. I told my brother, who lives out of state, I wanted a SNES for Christmas. He pulled through and shipped me a used one and I went out and bought SF II cheap. I was going to get my groove back. I eventually got around to issuing a challenge back to Allen. He says he wants to play for $20. I tell him I only want to play for fun. He won’t do it. I give it a lot of thought, and reluctantly agree to play for a “dub”, as he put it. $20 on one game. Only a few people are watching. Ryu VS Guile in Spain, I think it was. We go a round a piece until the third round. He was rusty. We both get down to low health and I manage to get a throw in. I relax after throwing him, thinking the match was over. I noticed the screen didn’t slow down like it always does when a round is over and I see Guile getting up, thinking “That throw should’ve killed him!” But I remember that Allen liked to play on one-star damage, so the game would last longer, I guess. I *did * manage to finish him, though.
Lunch ends and we’re cleaning up, I confront Allen about the $20 and ask him to step outside with me. As he’s explaining about how he’s “going to get it” for me, I tell him to keep his money. I only wanted to play for fun, and I meant it. I could not get him to agree to playing me any other way, so I took a $20 risk. I think I got lucky he was rusty and I was in good shape again. In the lamest way you can think of, he says to me:
“You’re a true street fighter.”
I set up this endeavor for myself to get a good experience out of it, and I did.
That’s just my little tale. Hopefully I’ll have more in the future. Better ones, even.
Thanks again for sharing, guys.
I remeber those were my days and when the competion got good the only few that were unstoppable were the ones that knew how to invisble slam with guile or knew how to use zangief with the super fast short then switch buttons to the jab and it would do a super fast short kick plus he also had this combo that was unstoppable you would jump in with foward then c.forward, spinning pile driver almost imposible to counter WOW. I remeber dhalsim had a pause glitch that was good too. I recenlty played an OG SF2 game and i was doin all those it brought back memory’s. :karate:
That is too good. haha
^^I was just about to say the same thing lol. a true street fighter, that IS classic:lol::tup:
That was deep.
This thread IS SRK.
Yup the quarter trick was top tier. Did I mention that these two guys played on 50 cents and kept on drawing the game until like Round 14 Fight!. That’s why Champ had Final Round Fight. Also me and this kid busted open a Galaga machine and stole all the quarters in it. Split it in half. Half of mine went into the Final Fight game at the time and then I spent the other half over a few weeks. After that the Pizza Hut put those iron bars with masterlocks across every game. LOL
Okay, gotta add a tale, as recounted to me by my close friend (and only other friend that still plays sf). He in fact, just got back from Japan, where he went for no reason other than to to find the comp (yes, relive the good ol’ days) that he misses so much. Myself, I didn’t get heavily into SF until alpha 2. I recall a high school friend getting SF2 on SNES, but of course all the moves were in the manual, so know magical mystery there, like there was in the original days. I recall playing one game of sf1, at the Family Fun Center in Escondido, CA (now Boomer’s). It was a six-button setup, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I recall it was on a big-screen setup, with spacious flat panel controls. I was getting served by the computer, when a dude came over, put his coin in, watched me continue to get served, then saved me right before death (you remember that: “come on, dude, get in here before I die”)…only to hand me an equal serving. I remember just trying to grasp everything on the screen (such as the life bars and the little circles that represented lives), and fathom what could possibly be the use of all six buttons. Hey, I was used to Atari 2600 single button joysticks at that point in time. My next recollection (aside from SNES SF2, as previously mentioned) was playing at the Megacade which was right up the hill from Rancho Bernardo High School (from where I had already graduated by that time). I usually played SS (2, I think), Addam’s Family pinball, and a handful of other non-lasting games. There was a hole wall of SF’s, which I’m pretty sure were SSF2, because I recall Cammy being a character. There was maybe 8-10 cabs in the Megacade, and all but maybe 1 or 2 were empty. I put my quarter in one in the middle of the non-played cabs (in all honesty, hoping to be left to play by myself), thinking “hey, I used to know a few moves on that SNES SF2”…and got whooped on by the computer. I couldn’t even react without the computer hitting me. I think again, somebody came up, put their quarter in, soundly destroyed me, and I walked away disgustedly.
I could go into further detail about when there were two Nickel City’s within 10 minutes drive of each other, here in S.D., and when the SFA3’s showed up, and the comp that was still existent on them, oh, some 7 or so years ago now…but we are focusing strictly on the o.g., so I would like to recount what I have been told by my friend Darren, what I have listened to in nostalgic awe many times, each time he tells the story, getting just a little bit more of a true image of the scene as it was then.
Darren was at Round Table the day they wheeled in SF2. He saw it come in on a dolly. He recalls playing Final Fight while it was being wheeled in, and leaving his FF game in progress, to be the first to put his quarter in. He chose Guile for some reason, of course had no real idea what he was doing, but Final Fight and other Capcom games of the time did have special moves (qcf moves, that is), so he was no stranger to the pricinciples. He remembered thinking, passively “this is pretty cool”. He soon picked up Zangief, for what reason he can’t even recall now, but has recounted how damn near impossible the SPD was, and being sure you could only do it one direction (i.e. clockwise), because he had never pulled it off the other direction. He has recounted to me all the ridiculous rumors that were flying around about the game, back when it was still new and magical. Of course, there has been talk of Shen Long, but there was also the rumor that the rock in Chun Li’s stage (in the foreground) could be picked up and thrown…and there were those that would swear they had seen it. He has told me of playing at some seedy arcade in L.A., where essays got all huffy and puffy over getting repeatedly beaten, threatened him, and he left in the middle of game to avoid getting jumped, stabbed or worse. He has told me of endless win streaks at Round Table and other arcades, with 20+ dudes crowded around that or another single cab, and being gleeked on by some cowardly hater. He also recalls going into some random arcade, in the search for comp, again going up against some seedy hispanics, but they were very good, and welcomed the challenge of new competition.
I could go on and on in the same theme as those that have already very eloquently described the scene (mad props to the o.g. bards, and thank you for sharing your tales), but what I recall is it was new. It was magical. There was a whole world of possibilities, just waiting to be discovered.
:edit: Upon further consideration, getting back to why the scene declined, I don’t think consoles, bootlegs, Capcom’s decisions, or any other factor were really to blame. I think the decline of SF came because of the boom. It was new, it was fresh, and essentially it was a fad. And just like all fads (rubik’s cube, pet rock, swizzle sticks anyone? :D), it passed. But the greatness of SF is in the fact that while the fad of it passed, it nonentheless has staying power. Assumedly, plenty were the number that played and eventually came to the realization that they weren’t going to be great at it…or just didn’t care to be. They all fell by the wayside, while the likes of Tomo and Valle and other greats mentioned herein stuck with the game. And of course there’s even those of us who may not be as good as the greats but still play and enjoy the competition, and welcome the challenge of playing someone better. That is the greatness, imho, that is Street Fighter.
Co fucking sign.
SRK needs to enshrine this thread in gold somewhere so when they crash and lose their archives as they have about three times in the past, this thread will still remain.
this thread is a taste of what old school is something that we must never forget becuase it where SF is born and thus SRK itself.
I have to acknowledge my old-schoolness. I’m a little over thirty and I used to haunt the arcades in Penn Station in NYC. Not too seedy, so my parents allowed me to spend plenty of Saturdays there (anybody here remember Playland in Times Square? Now that was seedy).
I came across SF1 when it had pads: two huge pads that you had to pound to correspond to jab, strong, fierce. I remember little kids used to come by and beat everybody pounding on it with their elbows. Used to beg for 2 quarters just to bust your ass.
I didn’t play it too much, but I do remember first seeing SF2. It was in the back of the same arcade, 4-in-a-row lined up. And you would see bunched of quarters stacked on top and a queue of people milling about. It’s true, before that games were only single player, so I became addicted to the competition, man. I was about twelve and I would get an adrenaline rush just pulling off a shoryuken (I didn’t know the movement; I just knew if I rotated the joystick in a semi-circle and mash the buttons it would magically come out sometimes lol).
Nowadays the arcade scene is dead. Too bad. You used to see the same players around the fighting games and a little community built up around it: VF. SF. MK. Even Killer Instinct had fans. Now the only way to play SF competitively is to play online and have someone cheese you with lag. Too bad. At least I witnessed the birth of this SF thing…
I wouldnt say its dead at all. Sure its not what it used to be but look at how many people post here. I guess it just depends on where you live, theres tons of comp around me, lots of familiar faces and communities around the different games.
But I agree its not what it used to be. Thats for sure.
I have to wonder what the hell it is that these people do to be able to go to the other side of the planet to play SF.
Not that I wouldn’t want to go… but damn. That’s a lot of loot.
Apoc did you ever find that page where you said you would tell me what the 20 playeers are doing.
Also whats Jeff Schauer and Mike Watson doing now ?
i used to live in sunnyvale in the early 90’s. i was only about 5 or 6, but i remember going to SVGL and seeing the arcade so full, that you couldnt even walk around in there. i wish i could go back in time.
svgl is still pack on some nights, but its the hardcore that shows up not random people anymore.
Mike Watson? He’s challenging TFGM to a game of SF4 in the parking lot…
Sup man, what do you play on XBox Live nowadays?
Also I know good and damned well I had a few posts on here back in 2002 