Wow, great thread. I didn’t really get into fighting games until CvS2 and GGXX but I still got a bit misty eyed reading some of these posts. There’s nothing like playing someone at the arcade. Online just doesn’t have the atmosphere of tension. I’m just glad I’ve had a chance to get in some matches here in Japan. My first match I played a Japanese guy who used Ryu and beat him out with my Ken. He walked over and did the fist pound thing that they do in their match intros in some games. I was all smiles.
What a great thread.
It brought back A LOT of memories. I’ve been in love with SF ever since SF1, and I also mourned the death of the arcade scene, which happened in my area around 2000.
I played on consoles after but still sorely missed the arcade scene. I think I will always miss it. If I ever make a trip to Cali or any major city, I’mma hit up one of the arcades and hope they have at least 1 SF2. Hopefully ST or CE, but ANY SF2 will do.
These days I’m loving the online experience. ESPECIALLY remixed ST’s multiplayer lobbies. That’s the closest thing to the arcade experience available in this day and age. Waiting in line to take on the “Champ” is what the arcade was all about. Even though online is missing the socializing aspect of the arcade, it’s the next best thing IMO.
I remember SF2 back when it first showed up in US arcades, I was 18. But, I wasn’t around any areas with any real arcade enthusiast in numbers. My first real exposure to that world was years later, in 1995 at the Namco arcade in the Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City, OK.
For a couple of years at least, that was a nice arcade that at the height of its fighting game collection, presented front and center, well maintained units for:
Super SF2 Turbo
SF2 Hyper Fighting
SFIII
SF Alpha
SF Alpha 2
KOF95 and 96
Virtua Fighter 2
Virtua Fighter 3
Tekken 2
Tekken 3
Street Fighter vs X-Men
X-Men: CotA
Soul Edge
Mortal Kombat II
Mortal Kombat 3
Plus lots of the epic beat-em ups, including Aliens Vs Predator and both Dungeons & Dragons games.
They also held a few small competitions, including a Soul Edge tourny, IIRC.
It was a year before that I started really playing fighting games with any seriousness, got pretty good at SFA and SFA2, and also Soul Edge. I played a few guys regularly at the arcade, we’d meet up every weekend for six months.
I remember when the SFIII machine first game in; I have to admit, the crowd around there didn’t seem to share a lot of the supposed pettiness that I heard about in other parts of the country; nobody minded that SFIII was such a shake-up, or was annoyed at the weird character designs. But most of us knew enough by that point to realize that it was prototypical and Capcom would heavily revise it for a few years.
I realize that by the standards of the historical hot spots in the fighting game scene, that place was in the ass-end of nowhere and of no real significance; I have no idea if any of the other guys who hung out there ever ended up going to west coast gaming events and suchlike. Looking back now, I do think of it as putting some good DNA into my gaming roots because everyone was so easygoing and laid back about playing; they had the kind of attitude that today, I suspect, would have them labeled a bunch of “scrubs” on sight by many because they just weren’t concerned about being bad ass and authoritive. They knew how to play to win; the median attitude was just more focused on having fun.
The moment I recall most was playing Hyper Fighting and I lost the match against because I had a total brain fart and was trying to use the wrong command input for the character at hand; I remarked on how dumb that was and the guy I was playing against - who seriously knew what he was doing and probably could have given any pro a run for his money - laughed with me, not at me, and immediately put another quarter in for me before I could protest, and even switched sides with me so I could warm up on the correct input with my dominant hand.
This thread deserves a Sticky
the old skool SF scence, hmm my brother told me that SF2 was so big that he would ride his bike about a mile and a half to play it at a laundermat. which always had people playing on it
LOL! Sad but the stereotype is there.
Rest assured though, not all competitive tourny goers act like a bunch of shittalking “gansta” wannabes that can’t keep their mouths shut. That type is certainly around though unfortunately.
If i hear “pringles” mentioned one more time i might smack somebody for real.
Leave it to the childish members of the fighting game community to run all the neat, fighter-related jokes into the fucking ground.
The true bar of just how big street fighter was back in the day…where I am, every burger king had one there. Even today, the thought of seeing an arcade machine at a big corporate fast food joint would be beyond bizarre, but there it is.
I use to string the fuck out of those bad boys…and down some .99 whoppers.
They used to have a SF2 machine at the local liquor store, pizza joint, etc. When Champion Edition hit the streets, you could barely see the arcade screen because of the crowds. Those were the days.
Read a lot of the OG tales in this thread, great timekiller in work. This thread is 7 years old for a reason!
One question I got - how big was Honda in the old school scene? A lot of the stories in this thread, especially the Cali ones, talk up Guile and Ryu a lot, but where I came from, Honda was big shit (around the WW/CE era I mean). If you were good enough to mash out continuous HHS on the sticks and know your spacing, you could dominate people’s shit with minimal effort. So much so that some places had a house rule about not keeping up HHS beyond the first time you landed it.
Was he was a respectable character out there in American arcades?
Me and a couple of my buddies use to love playing honda. He wasn’t very popular though back in the day. Even when we would go play in sunnyvale he didn’t get much play. It was a few versions of the game in that his popularity took off…and even then, it wasn’t much.
Yeah, I don’t recall Honda ever being too popular in the early 90’s. He was so slow, and he didn’t have any flashy moves. But those that did use him knew that they could get some serious punishment out of HHS. In those games, it would take close to 40% if it was landed right. And if you got stuck in the corner against HHS, you were pretty much fucked.
I was 10 years old, living in Northglenn Colorado a suburb of Denver. My buddy and I use to ride our bikes to the Northglenn mall and hang out at the Golden Nugget Arcade. That place was cool at that time my buddy and I were playing the Simpsons Arcade religously, we could make $5 last for hours. I probably beat that game like 20 times.
So one day my buddy and I are playing a game of air hockey and we see the owner and his son wheel in this new machine. We go over there and ask “Whats the new game”? He tells us its this new fighting game that is suppose to be really good, he plugs it up and gives us a bunch of credits.
I played first against the owners son. I picked Honda and he picked Ryu, he had obviously played before because he knew the moves. I just started mashing and came off with some hundred hand slaps and leg sweeps. He won the first round and I won the last two, he was so pissed he didn’t even give my friend a chance he stayed on for the next fight. During our first fight I noticed the owner putting up a poster on the side of the machine, it was just generic rules on how to block and throw. So in the second fight I threw the heck out of that fool and won again.
After that day it was on, we spent the rest of our summer there. The game became so popular they put another machine in there. That is also around the first time I became addicted to EGM, I had the issue that showed how to play Street Fighter II.
I play SFIV and it reminds me of my youth, great memories. I only lived there for 2 1/2 years I moved there from Texas in the 4th grade and moved back in the 6th. That was a cool time living in Denver. I feel like I learned so much during that time. I learned about gangs and drugs. How to play football. I got to see the Cowboys play the Broncos at Mile High Stadium the first year they went to the Super Bowl and beat the Bills. I played Street Fighter for the first time, thats when being a kid was being a kid. No internet or cell phones we rode our bikes played football and hung out in arcades…
Man I wish I can go back the early 92 again and be 12 all over again
I have a ridiculous 45-minute VHS SF2 tutorial, has all the early 90’s stereotypes like Tomo with Vanilla Ice hair, the stereotypical asian dude with long flowing hair, and a coked-up “cool kid” running around with backwards baseball cap asking questions to the capcom guys.
Think it’s online somewhere. Has some very good SNES tutorials though. Also has THE BEST action figure commercials I’ve ever seen in the beginning. Get Guile with his SONIC BOOM TANK!
And these funny intros to each character in the guide. “M.bison goes down slicin”. Yeeeeh!
Guess I’ll share my stories…
An so it begins?..my favorite moments in the old school scene. I shall some classic moments in which SF seemed to always be there.
Arcade: Jupiter?s and Beyond Galaxy of Games/Pool Hall
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=39.12989,-84.50954&spn=0,359.997594&z=19&layer=c&cbll=39.129802,-84.50955&panoid=-mjHjHMnbTOq08B5I445FQ&cbp=12,285.29,,1,5
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Year: Summer of 91
Picture this arcade? it was a renovated 4 floor apartment building? the bottom floor was gutted and transitioned into a pool hall/bar? the first floor was a arcade with it divided into sections. One section with beat em ups, another with racing, another with sports, a back room with strictly pinball games, and another with fighting games. And the rest of the building floors were literally APARTMENTS. I was taken on my first day in Cincinnati staying with my aunt an cousins cause I would be somewhere outside of Memphis every summer. My cousin talked big trash in all video games and he was the first to say I couldn?t touch him in street fighter 2z. I didn?t know the characters names? I just knew I used the guy with the red karate suit. When u approached the arcade it was crowded on the outside cause 1 it was a college area mixed with the ?hood? atmosphere? then u had a concert hall next door an a hole in the wall grunge/garage band hole in the wall club across the street. I can remember hearing Dhalsims stage very very loud. The elephants were on full blast an it was the first game to the left when you entered. To use the machine you had to use quarters as opposed to the token system this arcade used. I remember looking an seeing a large group of older guys pointing, laughin, cussing an all that an I didn?t take it in???.yet. I approached the guy who would soon be my mentor. Sunny. He was asian. Cool, yet very direct. When I asked for quarters he asked what was my little ass going to play cause I looked as if I need ?tokens? for the more ?friendly/kiddy? games. I noted I was playing street fighter 2 so gimmie my damn quarters I replied
His reaction an look hypnotized me. Cause he stared as he counted out my quarters an gathered my change. I asked for 2 dollars worth of quarters but he gave me 1 dollar worth and my change. When I noted this? he buffed words that I remember to this day
??. If you?re good? u not need 2 dolla??
Seriously? those were his words. I took my 4 quarters an found my cousin already on the machine and I stood there. Stood there watching people go back an forth an talk smack that I never seen so serious since OG?s in my hood over a dice game. Finally my cousin stopped the next game an told me to get on. Oh the complaints poured in cause I didn?t put my quarter on the screen. Lesson one was just taught?
Fool pick ken an see what happens.
Who the fuck is ke- - oh my red karate dude. Damn I need to remember these names. I know he had the green monster but let me learn his name?.ah ? blanka. Round one begins an smack! Blanka ball to the face off the bat. My cousin was a trash talker an loved to get that first hit off an make sure you understood u got hit. He went walked back wards an immediately went for it again and ??.. fireball. His energy bar went down extremely an the sound from the crowd excited me. My cousin already was on a 6 game win streak and here I am a kid that was forced onto street fighter by neighbor hustlers tryin to hide their dope when the police would swoop by the carry out beating the crap out of him with back fireball, jump kick foot sweep antics. I picked an chose my attack time and with the crowd support it was over before I knew it. I defeated my cousin whom was a ?bad ass? according to some in the crowd. I didn?t care. I play to win. 8 wins later I have my jump kick fireball in muscle memory and I am feeling on top of the world. My cousin is using some tokens to waste on pole position, lol, asking when is it his turn. A puff of cigarette smoke comes across my face. I finally look up an its Sunny. Pulling a bar stool up? tapping his cigarette an inserting his quarter.
?We?you? ah man he done went an pick We-you? its over youngblood?
the random statistic guy I like the call em that shout out whats what an who is who, let me know of my soon to be knock off from glory. Round 1 begins?.and sunny simply says block or die?
To be continued (at work people)
This needs to be uploaded to youtube…
This is the video
[media=youtube]d_e9eOVct6w[/media]
“The super nintendo version is better than the arcade version, NO LIE!” :lol:
That kid is to hype, dudes jumping back and forth at the camera along with sick guitar solos. I also remember that Tiger Handheld commercial. All those hip commercials had to have those neon colors to advertise
Some of the best days of my life, thats for sure.
I clearly remember the first time I saw a cab with SF II running, and all I was just stuck to the screen having never seen anything like it, sure there were beat em ups at the time, but this was 1 on 1 fighting and just looked so… COOL.
The rest is history.
In fact everything about the early 90’s was sublime…sigh.
Man I had that Tiger hand held Street Fighter game at the end of the video, I had a lot of those Tiger games. I remember SF2 coming out on the SNES the next summer after the arcade. There would be like 5 of us spending the night at my friends house playing all night.
I can’t believe he tried to say SF2 turbo was better than the arcade, I remember EGM saying the same thing also. The console version was good for learning combos and such, then you took the moves to the arcade and owned…