That summer of ’92 changed everything for me. I was fourteen, all elbows and acne, standing in this dingy arcade that smelled like stale cigarettes and spilled Coke, watching grown men lose their minds over Street Fighter II. The cabinet was this beacon of color and sound in an otherwise depressing strip mall, and there had to be eight people deep waiting to play. I’d never seen anything like it.
You know how some moments just stick with you? I can still picture that first match I watched – some guy in a flannel shirt absolutely demolishing everyone with Blanka’s electricity moves. The crowd around the machine was cheering and groaning like it was the World Series or something. I thought these people had lost their damn minds. Then I put my quarter up on the machine edge and waited my turn.
Got destroyed, obviously. This kid who couldn’t have been older than sixteen just annihilated me with Ryu. Didn’t even break a sweat. But instead of feeling embarrassed, I felt… excited? Like I’d just discovered this whole secret world that existed right under my nose. Spent the rest of that summer mowing every lawn in a three-block radius just to feed quarters into that machine.
Frank, the arcade owner, was this perpetually exhausted guy who always looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. After about a month of watching me blow my allowance on his machines, he started letting me sweep up after hours in exchange for free games. Best job I ever had, honestly. Even now, pushing fifty and dealing with spreadsheets all day, I sometimes miss the satisfaction of mopping those sticky floors knowing I’d earned another hour with Guile.
Yeah, Guile became my guy. Everyone else wanted to play Ryu or Ken – the flashy characters with the cool moves. But something about Guile’s defensive style clicked with me. Maybe it matched my personality, I don’t know. I was never the aggressive type, in games or life. I liked controlling space, making my opponent come to me, then punishing their mistakes. Still do, actually.
The arcade scene back then was completely different from anything kids today experience with online matchmaking. You played whoever showed up, period. Didn’t matter if they were button-mashing beginners or local legends who could execute perfect combos while eating a sandwich. Learning happened through watching, through getting your ass kicked repeatedly, and occasionally through some veteran taking pity and showing you the ropes.
There was this one guy – we called him Danny Dragon because he exclusively played characters with dragon punch moves – who became my unofficial mentor. He was probably in his twenties, worked at Radio Shack, and had these callused thumbs from years of arcade play. Danny taught me about spacing, about patience, about reading your opponent instead of just reacting to what’s on screen. Most importantly, he taught me that getting beaten wasn’t failure, it was education.
When Mortal Kombat hit our arcade in late ’92, everything changed again. Suddenly fighting games weren’t just this niche thing for hardcore players – they were mainstream news. I remember watching Tom Brokaw report on video game violence while footage of Sub-Zero’s spine-rip fatality played in the background. My mom walked in during that segment and just shook her head. “Samuel, please tell me you’re not playing those murder games.” Well, Mom…
The funny thing about the Mortal Kombat controversy is how tame it seems now. Yeah, the fatalities were gory, but they were also completely ridiculous. Nobody was going to see a claymation head explosion and suddenly become a serial killer. But man, did those games know how to put on a show. The first time I pulled off a fatality in front of a crowd, I felt like a rock star. Completely juvenile, but effective.
College meant less arcade time but more home console access. My roommate Jake had gotten a PlayStation, and suddenly I’m experiencing 3D fighting games for the first time. Tekken blew my mind – all that movement, the realistic martial arts, combos that seemed to go on forever. I probably failed at least one midterm because I was too busy trying to master King’s chain throws.
Jake was naturally gifted at these games in a way that made me irrationally angry. He’d pick up any fighter, mess around for maybe twenty minutes, then start pulling off moves I’d been practicing for weeks. “It’s all timing,” he’d say, like that explained anything. Easy for him to say when he had the hand-eye coordination of a fighter pilot. Some of us had to work for our victories.
The transition from arcade to home console changed everything about fighting game culture. Those early SNES and Genesis ports were… rough. Missing frames, input lag, compressed audio that made Ryu sound like he was shouting through a tin can. But we didn’t care because we could finally practice at home, learn combos without feeding quarters into a machine, play against friends without traveling across town.
I remember saving up for months to buy the arcade stick for my PlayStation 2. Two hundred bucks, which was real money for a college student living on ramen noodles. My girlfriend at the time – Lisa, who tolerated my gaming obsession with remarkable patience – couldn’t understand why I needed a “special controller” when the regular one worked fine. How do you explain that the tactile feedback of proper arcade buttons connects you to the soul of fighting games? You can’t. You just sound crazy.
The combo evolution has been wild to witness firsthand. In Street Fighter II, linking two moves together felt like magic. By the time Marvel vs. Capcom 2 rolled around, combos involved air dashes, assist calls, super cancels, and timing windows measured in single frames. I filled entire notebooks with combo notations that looked like some kind of mathematical formula. My handwriting got worse over the years, but my execution got better.
Tournament play opened up a whole different level of fighting game experience. My first real tournament was at a comic book store in 2003 – maybe thirty people, winner gets fifty bucks and bragging rights. I made it to semifinals using my trusty Guile before running into this Chun-Li player who had obviously been labbing combos since birth. Lost 2-0, but placing third out of thirty felt like winning EVO.
The growth of the fighting game community has been incredible to watch. What started as scattered arcade scenes sharing tips through magazines has become this global network of players, streamers, content creators, and professional competitors. EVO going from a small gathering in hotel ballrooms to filling arenas with thousands of spectators – that’s the kind of growth most hobbies never see.
I’ve attended EVO twice as a spectator, never as a competitor. The atmosphere is electric in a way that’s hard to describe. Thousands of people who share this very specific passion, all gathered in one place, collectively losing their minds over a perfect parry or last-second comeback. Even sitting in the nosebleeds, you feel connected to something bigger than yourself.
The technical side of fighting games used to be this hidden knowledge passed down through arcade legends. Now frame data is dissected on YouTube channels with tens of thousands of subscribers. Kids who’ve never set foot in an arcade can tell you the startup frames of every move in Street Fighter V. Part of me misses the mystery, but mostly I’m glad the information is accessible. Everyone deserves to understand why their buttons keep getting stuffed.
My wife thinks I’m having a midlife crisis with all the fighting game equipment I’ve acquired over the years. Multiple arcade sticks, a custom hitbox controller I built during lockdown, enough fighting games to stock a small GameStop. “Honey, you’re forty-seven years old,” she’ll say when another package arrives. “When are you going to outgrow this?” Never, hopefully.
The pandemic years were rough for everyone, but the fighting game community adapted faster than most. Tournaments moved online, locals became Discord servers, and suddenly good netcode became the most important feature any fighting game could have. I spent more hours in online training mode during 2020 than I care to admit. At least my Guile got better.
Modern fighting games try to be more accessible without losing their depth, which is a tricky balance. Auto-combos and simplified inputs help new players get started, but longtime players sometimes feel like the skill ceiling is being lowered. I go back and forth on this. I want more people to experience what I love about fighting games, but I also value the execution barrier that kept casual players from dominating tournaments.
What hasn’t changed is the core appeal – that direct, unfiltered competition between two players. No teammates to blame, no random elements to complain about, just you versus them and whoever adapts better wins. That’s as pure as competition gets, whether you’re playing on a quarter-eating arcade cabinet in 1992 or a modern console with rollback netcode.
My kids occasionally show interest in the games I play, usually when they hear me getting excited about some combo or tournament match. They’ll try Street Fighter for about ten minutes before getting frustrated and going back to their battle royale games. Different generation, different gaming DNA. But sometimes my son will ask about a character or combo, and I get to share a little piece of this world I’ve been part of for thirty years.
The evolution continues. New games, new mechanics, new players discovering what we’ve known all along – fighting games offer something unique in the gaming landscape. That moment when everything clicks, when you download your opponent’s patterns and start making the right reads, when muscle memory and game knowledge combine into something that feels almost artistic… that’s what keeps me coming back, quarter after quarter, match after match, year after year.
Samuel’s been gaming since the Atari 2600 and still thinks 16-bit was the golden age. Between accounting gigs and parenting teens, he keeps the CRTs humming in his Minneapolis basement, writing about cartridge quirks, console wars, and why pixel art never stopped being beautiful.
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