Origin part 2: fall

Back to the tale of my early Street Fighter days.

In 1993, the scene where I lived still felt fairly strong. I had managed to win my first tournament which was held at a church lock in and had about 20 participants. The game was the snes version of SF2 Hyper Fighting. There was no prize, but it still felt good none the less. After the tournament there was still a pretty decently sized crowd that played until the sun came up. It was a great night. (Jesus is cool with Street Fighter according to the pastor there by the way, Mortal Kombat is for sinners!).

By 1994 the majority of my friends had moved on to other games and had pretty much shelved Street Fighter. I played many other games too, but I was probably the only one of us that gave Street Fighter 2 the occasional visit. Still, I wasn't exactly putting hours into the game by any means.

That summer, Super Street Fighter 2, along with the live action film and Street Fighter 2 the animated movie released. (I'll share my opinions of the films in a post on a later date.) The new game got my friends back into fighting for a while, but sooner or later something like Killer Instinct or a new Mortal Kombat would steal their interests away.

This was at the start of the decline of arcades that we still see going on today. The Bristol Mall arcade stopped updating their Street Fighter 2 versions. I eventually got to play Super Street Fighter 2 turbo, but the machine was right behind the checkout section at the local grocery store, so rarely was there every anyone to play. The noisy brightly lit atmosphere wasn't very appealing for your typical arcade goer.

As usual, the interest in Street Fighter in my friends had pretty much disappeared. I think my only friend that kept playing the game was Rob, UGotRobbed, but he lived in Roanoke, so matches with him were few and far between. I stopped playing myself for a long time. I mean, who wanted to play the snes anymore with the new Playstation and Sega Saturn out at the time?

I was without Street Fighter until around the time Street Fighter Alpha released for Playstation one. My Dad eventually purchased one of the systems for me one summer after going through a tough breakup with my girlfriend at the time. I guess it proves how shallow I was back then, because I forgot her pretty quickly after getting the playstation and Street Fighter Alpha, haha.

Interest from my friends followed a similar pattern through the years of Alpha 1, 2, and 3. With the exception of Rob, most people would only play the games for a few weeks and then move on to the next best thing.

By the time I graduated highschool I had just about shelved fighters all together. I had declared to myself that fighting games were once hot and now very much not. I was probably the only person left that had a hardcore interest in them. Arcades were empty and the idea of busting out some Alpha 2 was laughable to everyone else.

In the following year, college and mainstream access to the internet would teach me that I was not alone, and that the fighting game community was much much larger than the arcades of southern Virginia and eastern Tennessee.

More later...