Started with SF2 on SNES, then Champ edition at a local pizza place. Then Mortal Kombat (though I didn’t like it) and a few others like TMNT: TF and some game on the genesis that had a horse with boxing gloves (It was like an intergalactic fighting game).
When PS1 dropped, it was Tekken 2(the demo. Bought the game later on. It was the game that taught me have to do QCF and DP motions), then Tekken 1 (rented it by accident), Rival Schools, Alpha 2 on the PC, Tobal No.1, some anime style game with some funny english VAs (had a cute demon girl who was really old according to my friend and bit you like a vampire and shit), DOA1 PSX version, Tekken 3, Street Fighter EX +alpha, Alpha 3, Pocket Fighter, MVC1 crappy PSX version, and Street Fighter EX2. during that time period I got to try out some cool fighters in the arcade like Soul Blade, World Heroes 2, Samurai Showdown 4, and Tekken 2&3 even though I already owned the game on psx. I witnessed exciting games played by other people like Marvel Super Heroes, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, MVC1, and Tekken 3. I remember watching attract modes for SSF2, Samurai Showdown 2, VF3, and XvSF. This was around the time I discovered MUGEN and started playing around with it. This was also around the time the Dreamcast came out and I got to play Street Fighter III: New Generation for the first time, thinking it was brand spanking new.
When PS2 came out, DoA2 was the first game I played on it. Later we got Tekken Tag Tournament, and played that shit to death. Around this time, I’d figured out how to get the arcade emulators to work so I got to play alot of the games I missed out on like ST, Darkstalkers, XvSF, MSH, and a bunch of SNK stuff. Got a Gamecube afterwards and played X-men: Next Dimension, Soul Calibur II, Def Jam: FFNY, and Bloody Roar: Primal Fury. Got CVS2 on PS2 then EO on Gamecube cause I was a Nintendork and didn’t want to play fighters on the PS2 that I could play them on my Nintendo console. Of course, the GC didn’t sport alot of good fighters so I still ended up getting Street Fighter EX3, Anniversary collection, Tekken 4, KOF: MI1, and Virtua Fighter 4. I remember seeing the Daigo clip for the first time and thinking “Cool. Competitive SF.” Later we got an xbox and I played DOA3, SVC chaos. As far as arcade cabs went, there was Soul Calibur 1 at the movie theater, Tekken Tag at the bowling alley, and MSHvSF at the laundry mat.
When I wanted some decent comp, I jumped on the kaillera servers to play some input-delay-heavy games online. MVC, KOF98 and Alpha 3 were the popular games, with Alpha 2, KOF02 and XvSF being 2nd best. Alot of the Alpha 3, KOF02 and MVC players were douchebags, kicking you or leaving your lobby if they won 2 games in a row, while all the RB2, SVCC, Alpha 2, and Puzzle Fighter players would sometimes play for an hour with you. The button lag was horrible, leading to lots of late air-to-airs, lack of hit-confirms, and simple high-lows and crossups being almost unblockable. What’s stupid about the whole ordeal was that players would’ve easily had a better connection to each other if they changed their settings, not to mention there were emulators with better netcode, but no one wanted to change from their crappy outdated MAME emulator and settings.
Back in 2006, I would come by the SRK website to read up on the progress of CPS3 emulation. I would mash normals with the front page Ken sprite, then lurk the forums to see the latest tournament updates. Then I would look for them on Godweapon.net, which had a nice media section when it wasn’t cluttered with online MVC1 matches. It wasn’t long after until CPS3 emulation was 100% working and you saw a shitload of Third Strike lobbies in the kaillera servers. I kept wondering “Who would want to play that game with 1/4 second input delay?”
SF4 was announced and I was hyped for it. What I thought was going to be a new and innovative look on the continuation of the long-going franchise turn out to be, well, the opposite.