Tbf Iāve been technically playing fighting games all my life I just never knew
My earliest memory was a playing a game called Rival Rage on Miniclip at the age of five. It had only 4 characters and uses directional special moves(S button with a direction)instead of quarter circles but the supers and combos were cool and the music kicked ass. I then discovered a game called Pocket Fighter Nova on a game website called Friv(it may only be known to Europeans/people from the UK)
It only had both the shotos,Sakura, Chun,Morrigan and Lei-Lei and I didnāt really know how to do their specials back then but man I loved every part of the game. My favourite was definitely Lei-Lei for sure. I loved the game a lot I searched it up and discovered the full game alongside Puzzle Fighter
Later during primary school the ICT teacher bought an arcade cabinet in the school which had an emulator(donāt remember what it was) that ran most arcade games. Me and a bunch of other school kids would play MVC1 almost every day, and again while I didnāt know how to do the special it was still hella fun. My characters was almost always Strider and Ryu. I also loved playing MHvSF(specifically because the 3xPPP button was set to supers) and SFA3 because I could do Karinās moves(and Ryu to a degree,but I was still average)
I discovered most of Capcomās works through these games,including USF4,and then later on discovering the EX series for the first time. They are still my favourite SF games for sure
Kudos to my ICT teacher for having very based taste btw
Fast forward a few years while going through the worst of high school I discovered KOFXIII on mobile. Played the hell out of it and then found the KOF series through it,then bought KOF1999 and KOF2000 on the Switch. I also watched a bunch of mugen stuff including this one dude who made a really good CVS roster,his edits were super sick and his videos were the catalyst behind me discovering other various series between Capcom and SNK
(Samurai Shodown,Red Earth,Metal Slug,etc etc) and behind the characters lore too.
I eventually discovered Fightcade in 2018 and went āehhh fuck it,why not? I like these games way too much to pass up on this opportunityā
Was god awful at KOF games and challenged randos who were clearly way better than me(on WIFI too)
I also watched EVO 2019 in the same year and was also influenced by Evo Moment 37
I got discord so I could join the mugen YouTuberās server and in that I also discovered the Thunderia(fighting games tournaments)discord,alongside a bunch of other stuff,discovered tons of obscure underrated games on FC and went āman,I REALLY like fighting games at this point,fuck it man I wanna be a fighting player.ā
And now,Iām here I guess.Found lots of FGC friends along the way,and new sparring partners. (Maybe made an enemy of a few people but hey they were probably bigots anyway so screw it?)
I play a lot of games as long as their fun but I mainly like to play KOF98UMFE,KOF2000,KOF2003 basically the KOF series I guess lol
I owe it to Capcom for making some hella good FGs back then,thanks capcom hehe
Wow that was a long one