Wow even the Wolf’s are back. Sup!
I thought shinakuma was a wonderful site whilst it lasted. You and ur brother were very active in the forums and the HF/ST threads had great posters like Apoc & NKI spreading info. It’s great seein u OG heads posting, whether it’s spreading knowledge, trash talking or just reliving old memories - u should all post more more more!
GGPO
Glad to see you are still alive, Graham.
Loved your interview in the SFA2 Guide by VS Books. You should come out to tourneys every now and then just to hang out.
Take care. I wish you and your bro the best.:wgrin:
You guys should settle this “battle of the past” …preferably in August :karate:
I know alot of people would love to see vids of those battles.
Fantastic to see so many big names posting. Thanks to everyone for contributing:) Cool to see you on here Jessie, I often wondered who you play in HF, cause your name is so synonymous with Fei Long:)
Great to see you on here Graham. Yours is a name I’ve heard alot in oldshool discussions. Its would be great if you could give some of us non US peeps your SF2 pedigree and perhaps a story or two abt the old days?
(concerning Tomo ‘how to’ video) That would be fantastic Bob, thanks alot 
I recently got the fantastic Insanity X-Mania - HFS dvd/book for my bd. The book features hit box data for all the ST characters, but does have the occasional section on CPS1 hitboxes. Here I’ve scanned in a very interesting page coveing the evolution of Guile’s c.MK boxes. Those WW boxes are too much, I’ve had that go thru DJ’s uber footsie c.MK & c.MK and even Chun’s 100leg kick! If you notice CE & HF got more range, but brought the hitable area with it, and poor old CPS2 Guile lost the range but kept the vulnerability!:
http://rapidshare.de/files/9208800/Guile_crouch_MK_boxes.jpg.html
The Hyper Street Fighter II, The Starting Over DVD-CD-Book Set is heartily recomended and is available here:
http://www.vgmworld.com/catalog/index.php?table=cocoebiz_dvd&item_num=14
If youve not already done so, get over to the SF2: CE Korea thread post haste. There are great OS matches posted almost daily. That CPS1 chain crazy, Shanghai Ru player is amazing, as is the Korean Guile player featured in the latest set. Why not make ur appreciation known with a post or two while ur there too
http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102064&page=6
It might surprise some that there was a short period following SF2’s release when many people were just plain perplexed by it, ‘all those buttons’, there was even grumbles that you ‘can’t walk up and down the screen’ ala Final Fight, to avoid fireballs! Before people started to realise just how much potential this game had, I’m sure that SF2 appealed so much because of the popularity of this film on VHS at the time:
http://www.dimator.org/blog/2005/03/18/bloodsport-street-fighter-2/
I remember all those debates in the playground going something like “Its obvious! That ‘Dim Mak’ technique, its more of a pushing force, than a striking one, thats why the bottom brick got crushed” lol.
I just have one question for everyone, ‘Where is Apoc?’
thx crayfish for all this stuff it’s great to see this thread is still alive. keep it comin’!
Yeah, I post on here every now and then. I quit playing HSF2 on XBL because it was really damaging how I played offline. I still play Fei on HSF2 but now I am stuck in a sort of limbo between HSF2 and ST. Fei just isn’t the same in HSF2. It’s his attack hit boxes n such…he feels plastic for some odd reason. And now when I go back to ST I hold back and play safer because of what HSF2 has done to me. It’s still fun to play but I stick with CE and HF characters when I play it now. But no more online play for me(except Zbattle…God how I love it). If everything goes well I will be attending this years EVO.
Thanks for posting up those links. I think I am going to order that DVD combo set. It looks very interesting. It will go great right next to my region 2 dvd of SF2 The Movie! It’s funny…now that you mentioned my name being synonymous with Fei…alot of people ask me if I am Jesse Howard!:looney: I know Jesse personally(awesome OG Ken) and he and I have TOTALLY different Fei styles…well, atleast back in the day we did. The last time we fought was ECC4 I believe. Nobody knew I could even play Fei until the Las Vegas Nationals(apoc hosting that tourney). I got 2nd vs Choi’s Sagat and my boy Mike Zavar got 2nd vs Valle in 2nd Impact(awesome finals!). Ever since then I just been holding my own in tournaments. I also started playing New Ken back then too…something that alot of people weren’t too familiar with. Not saying that I was the originator but I hardly saw ANYONE playing New Ken as a business character back then in the late 90’s early 2K’s :wgrin:
Now you see more and more people taking old SF games more seriously…using oddball fighters n such. I like that alot.
I met Alex and Graham back when Daigo first came down face off against Valle in A3. They probly don’t remember me because we didn’t play any ST but they were nice guys. They had a cocky confidence about them…alot like Nelson and Cole. Graham was the only one out of the bunch who beat Daigo in A3…but of course you don’t hear about it that much haha!
To this day I must say that I still have the best matches VS Sirlin and Rekka Ken. Our matches always come down to the wire. Thanks again for the info and links
Oh the memories of the A3 Tourney.
For those curious, that was probably my “finest hour” figuratively speaking of course.
I had lived in North Dakota for a year, dont ask me why, and moved back to California when I heard from Cole about the National A3 tournament with the champion from the Japanese Nationals coming over to play the winner. I get back to California with 1 month to spare before the Nationals. Some of you would think “There is no way a player can compete with others with 1 month of practice only” this was when A3 had been out for a good 8 or 9 months, add to the fact I hadn’t played fighting games for 1 year since I lived in a state that didn’t even have an sf2 machine.
Continuing, I purchased an A3 board the evening I flew in, installed it into my arcade machine at home, and actually invited Cole and Nelson over that night to play against me. For the next month my life consisted of playing as much street fighter alpha 3 every waking hour, I’d drive down to San Jose and bring Nelson and Cole up to my house, an hour drive each way, to practice against them on my arcade machine at home. I attended tournaments at SVGL to see what characters were winning, and who was beating who.
From the first tournament I realized Choi was beating Nelson using “Gen”, Cole was beating Choi using “Dhalsim” and Nelson was beating Cole using “X Rolento”. They were consistently the top 3 winners of the weeklys as I asked around and found out what the past few months results were. I realized in this rock paper scissors system there was no true winner, it was the luck of the draw on tournament placement to see who would win. I also did some research on LA’s finest, Valle at the time since Watson was in retirement and running his store. I knew Valle played Ryu, Dhalsim beat Ryu.
I decided quickly to learn Dhalsim since Cole was having the most success since Dhalsim was able to beat more characters overall than any of the other ‘rock, paper, scissors’ characters. I realized though Nelson would destroy Cole, so I learned Gen, then would get countered by Nelson’s Ryu, so I learned X-Rolento too.
I was placing around 7th in the weekly tournaments before the Nationals, 2 weeks before them i got a 9th place in an LA tournament. It wasn’t looking very optimistic. My brother had been playing casually as he was a student, maybe like a few hours a week, since we had the machine at home. I gave him a few pointers, he was of course one of the best players of all time so he learned quick.
But he wasn’t serious about winning.
The big day arrives, the National Finals in San Jose Nickel City in California. I was nervous, since this was the biggest tournament ever at the time. The games get going and at the end of the day all the big shots made the top 16 for day 2, somehow i managed to get into the top 16, and my brother shocked me and made the top 16, I laughed since he probably played less than 24 hours total of this version.
Day 2 rolls around, 2 great players, Jesse Howard and another guy I can’t recall his name didn’t make it to the tournament due to their car breaking down so the top 16 really were top 14. Right at the start I get wrecked and sent to the losers bracket in my first match. I was very very nervous, yes even old schoolers still get the tournament jitters in their stomach. I lost and was so angry at myself because it was due to nervousness mostly. At this point in my mind i said “Screw it, you’re already outta this tournament” this made me lose all nervousness since I didn’t care if i lost my losers bracket match. At this point having no fear I somehow managed to take out the top 5 seeds. Tao, Cole, Nelson, Watson, Choi. The way I pulled this off was using the character counters I had learned the first tournament I went to, My Gen vs Nelson’s Rolento, Dhalsim vs Choi’s Gen, and X Rolento vs Cole’s Dhalsim. It worked like I had planned it out in my head a few weeks back.
So the final match comes around and me and Valle go at it, this was my longest match ever in SF2, took around 45 minutes for us to play 2 sets of 7 games. The final match was his Vism Ryu beating my Dhalsim in the final round of the 7th game second set.
Valle played against Daigo after beating me and went down fighting. But it was rather amusing because Daigo first let Valle win the first game and then the first round of second game, this i know because he used none of his tricks. Then the final round before Daigo would have lost he pulled out all these crazy tricks and destroyed Valle using vism’s we had never seen before. It was so intense that many people just laughed at what we were seeing.
After this happened they had some ceremony where they dressed up poor Valle in some goofy outfit.
Then the REAL tournament happened. Daigo had only played 3 rounds of A3 so far. We had the exhibition tournament, the top 6 players from the tournament, were picked out to play against Daigo for ‘fun’ but I believe it was some of the best old school sf2 entertainment ever.
First Jason Wilson played Zangief against Daigo, Daigo picked Gen. This wasn’t a very impressive match to watch. But Daigo clearly understood enough on how to play X Rolento that he defeated Wilson easily.
Next was my match, I picked Dhalsim first, this was my moment so I wanted him to know I wasn’t going to play the character choosing game, just bring my best to the table and see what he had. He picked Gen, at this point i quickly realized he was using the top players characters, to mock us? who knows but I knew he wasn’t going to be a pushover. I started off defensive, its how you play Dhalsim. He busted out a style never seen before in the US, he was swapping stances mid-combo, and so frequently I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I managed to pick up weaknesses and beat him first two rounds anyway. The match was 3/5. The next two rounds he must have picked up my style and started winning, they were close but he took me out.
Final round came around and I knew I had to use some of my old school knowledge to beat the finest japan had to offer. So I decided to totally swap my style to aggressive, since no one had ever seen my aggressive Dhalsim. Its somewhat newbish is why to attack as Dhalsim, but it can tear apart a character like Gen who is based around offense, not defense. Daigo didn’t expect it as I figured and got stomped that round before he had time to adjust. I shook his hand and smiled as I walked back to my ‘gang’ of the top players of the US.
The next 4 matches were like watching Mike Tyson beat down some amateur boxer. I cannot tell you if Daigo stopped using our characters after being defeated but he didn’t play Dhalsim as you’d expect judging by the rotation he used vs Wilson and myself. Cole went in swinging his fists like a boxer thinking he was going to beat Daigo like I had just done. He went out almost as fast as he went in. Next came Nelson our ‘aggressive’ player. He was turtling for almost the entire time, not by choice, Daigo’s guy had him locked down in the corner. It was probably the most enjoyable match to watch. Next came Choi’s Gen vs Daigo’s Akuma. Right at the start Choi used Gen’s Air super Kick, dont know the name. Daigo countered with his Vism, and for the next 15 or 20 seconds we watched Choi get juggled down to 15% life. Daigo got a perfect first round, we all just made frowns and thought ‘damn poor choi’. After that Valle got another chance to play against Daigo, Daigo used Guy again. Valle got comboed by combos we never saw Guy do before in the US.
After that ass whooping that the US players got on them, we were all just laughing, Daigo had showed us that we were like kids in the SF2 world compared to the Japanese in that version at that time. I’d say this was one of the first events that made the US players start watching videos from Japan to not be so far behind on tricks and combos.
Anyway if you’ve stuck with me this far, i hope you enjoyed this story. This is one of the Street Fighter’s greatest tournaments because it was the historical first moment of top Japanese players playing the finest the US had to offer. It was a childhood dream of mine to play the best in japan when i first learned the first street fighter and when I had my moment, I didn’t let myself down.
Graham
That is rather accurate. I have the tourny vid (good ol Omni and) on VHS. Watching Daigo beat down Cole with Guy was just amazing to watch.
I miss the old days.
Thanks for the story, was a fun read.
Great story. Thanks for sharing it.
~Decoy
good story. appreciate it. question on one part though, did daigo really give up rounds to valle? because it seems to contradict the choi’s old japan log for usa vs japan (i don’t think it’s accessible on srk anymore), and he said that the japanese reported that daigo and the japanese were amazed at valle’s ryu, and even amazed his VC the alex combo, and daigo picked up v-ryu for awhile afterwards.
I’ve seen the vid, it was 3 games. final score 1-2.
and it seems ryu beat him clean the first game, 2nd game valle NEARLY beat him or upset him. it was 2 rounds to 3. and last game valle won only 1 round, and got destroyed.
Edit: After watching the Videos that Nohoho linked, (Thank you very much was very entertaining to see history live), I think Daigo didn’t throw the early matches in the Finals vs Valle but more likely was nervous and learning Valle’s style earlier games, he did a number on him in the end but took a while to get the feel.
Graham
http://walhall.sakura.ne.jp/zero3.html
EDIT: Here’s a rough translation I just slapped together of an interview with Daigo about that Valle match. [EDIT2cough] Original page.
“there’s no way I’ll lose” (lit: there are no elements for losing)
UME: [Valle] had used Ryu in a final match once before but I figured he’d use X-Rolento against me there so I was thinking there was no way I’d lose.
R: I see. So that’s what that remark referred to. (when you were watching Alex play and you said “there’s no way I’ll lose”)
UME: But then he actually chose V-ryu and he was fucking aggressive, that surprised me.
R: He can be really aggressive, I noticed that last time I came here. He gets a lot of unpunished jump-ins, what’s going on there?
UME: I guess it has to do with his personality?
R: You mean his personality comes out in the game?
UME: Yeah, I guess they like to have a personality come out in their play style over there.
R: Now that you mention it, there seems to be an emphasis on winning over the crowd. When you first saw that attack, were you able to respond?
“the style over there”
UME: I don’t know if I’d call it responding. When he’d jump in my DP got counter-VC’ed so I couldn’t DP and I knew that throwing FBs would be risky, too. So, I mean, I thought I was in a pinch so we started playing footsie but when I threw a FB he jumped in. (laugh)
I was thinking, “woah, this guy’s tough,” and I couldn’t do anything. On top of that he was good at throwing FBs so I couldn’t get my own jump-ins.
R: So how did you turn the tables?
UME: Yeah, I was in a tight spot but I starting thinking, you can use air-throws as air-defense, right? But it took me until the sixth round to figure that out.
R: So it went down to the wire? Weren’t you worried that you’d choke?
UME: Sure, I thought I could lose but I came up with a formula that I believed in, busted my ass, won three rounds and voila victory! (laugh) That’s a comeback for you.
R: I see. So you’re forming a strategy during the match. I guess it’s good they were using the american tourney style. [japan style = one match only]
You can’t hold Valle (Best rapper alive) down. The Dos Hermanos, Valle and Miguel, The gruesome twosome.
These stories are dope. Wish i was there (prolly wasn’t born =p).
Graham!!! sup bro, good to hear that you arent dead fool!!! I haven’t seen you since ECC7 =)
I just watched the A3 nats finals vid again after so many years too. Good shit good shit. Cigarbob, I know this is a lot to ask but can you ever upload the whole VHS tape in its entiretity? lol cause the footage online only has graham vs alex, daigo vs alex and the first round of that exhibition tourney after
Sup Arturo,
Yeah im doing fine. Thinking of getting into sf2 again.
I play WoW lately.
Graham
I will do what I can. But with out internet at home I really am limited.
Over the weekend ill convert the VHS to DVD and then make an AVI/MPG out of. And from there ill see if I can some how get it to work and boot it up on a pc and create a torrent.
Maybe mid next week ill have it up. Along with the Tomo teaches HF vid too.
lol just to note: I went in swinging thinking i was able to use X-Balrog agaisnt Daigo, then they told me I couldn’t use him cause they didnt wanna put the code in. Then I saw him pick guy and already knew the outcome, Balrog would of won that shit for free =P
J-Cole
Thanks for you contribution Graham,
I would love to hear anything you can tell us about the North Cal scene, pre ST era (like WW thru HF). Jeff told us alot abt South Cal (which was really defined by Tomo), but many here know very little abt the North Cali scene of this time.
Ciguarbob, would be great to see the Tomo teach HF vid, thanks again
Jessie, yeah loved watching your Fei since day 1. One of my fave vids is you playing Fei casuals at ECC4, I would post it up, but I want to keep this thread more about pre ST Street Fighter. Maybe post up in NKI’s ST thread. Still real curious who you play in Hyperfighting? Ken I’m guessing? Would be cool to see some of your z- snes matches, as Hyperfighting footage is proving to be as illusive as when the thread started 
Someone has actually posted up a low res scan of the famous SHENG LONG, EGM April fools scam. I hae wanted to get this for more than ten years. If anyone has a copy of the origonal page feature, pls could you scan it in hi-res (600dpi or up) and post it here. Anyhow find EXAShock’s scan here (abt half way down page):
http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104905&page=2
Crayfish.