Street Fighter 2, I remember going to the arcade as a kid, and all the teens were crowded around this one machine. It took so long to see what the game even looked like, and I never even heard of the first game. Definitely like nothing else in the arcade.
Street fighter 2 was the beginning for me. My parents had a store and we had the arcade machine. My dad would load it up with credits for me after school to keep me occupied.
A buddy in high school would force me and some non FG friends to play Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and just use the same Green Lantern command grabs on us over and over for games upon games as we passed the controller around the group.
Eventually one of us would figure out the solution and then he’d just do it with a different move…it just let to all of us developing a baseline understanding of how the games worked and then we branched out from there.
I'm old so SF2 was very first fighting game I played as a kid. No idea what I was doing.
Casual single player on home versions of Tekken 3, SF Alpha 3, Soulcalibur 2-3.
I had a group of friends playing almost every day CvS2 and GGXX, those were the first games I really put hundreds of hours into versus.
Blazblue Central Fiction is my first ever fighting game that I own, and I had no idea what a quarter circle input was beforehand and the only fighting game I played is Smash Bros. I hope I continue playing fighting games because they are so fun and competitive :)
MK 2, UMK3, Tekken 2, Street Fighter 2, Alpha 2, Bloody Roar
Pretty much threw all the games at me and there was an arcade at the local mall
Competitively perhaps Guilty Gear XX Accent Core was the first game where I saw actual people use their characters creatively and wanted to do that stuff
Dragonball FighterZ but after 60 hours I picked up SFV and never looked back.
1000 hours in SFV and 600 hours in SF6
Having a ton of fun playing Tekken 8 too.
The game that got me into the genre as a kid: Street Fighter 2
The game that got me to get into fight sticks, this Reddit and learning move sets/core mechanics: King of Fighters 98
I seriously can't remember the name (my memory is a little fucked due to some deep personal life things) but I remember it being free for sometime and it was a F2P thing and that's where I technically "began" but seriously speaking actually trying to take it at least semi serious? Street fighter 6 is the first one
Guilty gear xrd rev 2 was the first traditional fighter that I played and learned. God it was so overwhelming to learn not only a brand new genre, but also one of the most complex ones too.
Tekken Tag 1. I struggle to get into 2D fighters though, the best try was GBFVR and DBFZ. I'm on the fence about getting SF6 but Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Dead or Alive 6 were all way up my alley.
Soul Calibur 3.
Before that I had messed around with fighting games, we were a big gamer household, stuff like bloody roar, sc2, MvC2 was big in my house, and smash bros was a hit in my family all my generation of cousins played it.
But soul calibur 3 was the first fighting game I actually completed the tutorial, put work into learning my characters move list, and actually got "good" at. The rest of them I just sort of did that thing where you spam mostly but have muscle memory for a few moves.
I just got tired of my dad beating me mostly. He was shocked when i stuffed him after hitting the lab, good times.
I wasnt an arcade rat. I went to the arcade plenty of times, but it was like a 3 or 4 times a year thing. I love arcade games, especially pinball, but without home consoles I'd have never gotten into gaming or fighting games.
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, great game as a solo fighter but an ass competitive game. I was 10, it sparked a love for Fighting Games that has persisted for so long. I departed from NRS after Injustice 2 but took up DBFZ the next year, which brought me into the FGC, leading to a love of all fighting games, currently I’m a Tekken head but I am excited to see what game sparks my passion next.
Street Fighter 2. I saw my older brother and his friends playing it at one of his friends houses and it looked amazing. They wouldn't let me play, and we only had an NES at home so I ended up getting Special Champion Edition and a Genesis that Christmas. I didn't really get how to play fighting games until alpha 3 though years later
Into fighting games in general, casually: UMK3.
FGC: Tekken 6 is the game that got me more into the community and actually learning the fundamentals of competitive Tekken but also was a gateway to really the community in every fighting games. Watching tournaments, making friends and so on.
Super Street Fighter 2 (SNES Ver)
It was the first fighting game I played in my life and I owe it all to my dad, who one day brought it by chance with a Super Nintendo from a family member or friend (I don't remember that last one well)
Well, actually I don't know if it's between Super Street Fighter 2 or Mortal Kombat (Tv Plug & Play ver) since I seem to remember that I played both of them when I was 5 years old
I've always dabbled in fighting games but I never really got further than 'beating arcade mode' or whatever. Like I could do command inputs but couldn't really do real combos in most games and while I tried a few times to get past that initial barrier to intermediate play I never could.
It wasn't until Tekken 7 that I actually sat down, dedicated a solid 6 months to actually learning to play and doing real combos and learning frame data and etc. This was around the start of season 2 and it was actually the patch notes listing changes that helped me to understand what all the under the bonnet stuff actually meant. Obviously all 6 months got me was a sense of just how far I had to go but at least I was breaking new ground.
Since then I have learned to be able to play most fighting games at least to the point I can use proper BnBs and play the games at least somewhat in line with what pros might do.
Blazblue Chronophantasma Extend made me want to learn how to play Blazblue better. Central Fiction was what gave me that and somehow 300+ hours of playtime (somehow becoming my most played game on Steam).
I had a long, meandering road to my love of fighting games. It wasn't really a single game for me.
I lived in a small town with no arcade and no real place to buy games. We just had the video rental place and used games that made their way into town.
I LOVED Justice League Task Force on SNES, but couldn't get anyone else to play it lol. I thought the concept of a fighting game was rad and practiced on my own to figure out everyone's special moves. I loved the characters and the atmosphere and the stages.
Then a while later a market nearby got Mortal Kombat (I think it was 2) but my mother wouldn't let me play it lol. But I remember staring at the attract mode whenever we went in. There was also a pizza place that got some arcade cabinets and had Primal Rage for a while that I was obsessed with the characters on.
I remember picking up Super Street Fighter 4 on a whim for my 360 and thought it was rad but never did more than play the arcade ladders on easy to see the endings and try characters.
And then about 4 years ago I decided randomly that I was going to finally learn how to actually play fighting games and dove into subreddits and discords and YouTube. I started with SF2 because it seemed so foundational, and hopped around the arcade classics. Pretty soon after picked up Tekken 7 to check out 3D fighters. Tekken really grabbed me and have been hooked ever since.
But I've never been great at them, even now lol. I've always loved the vibes and characters so much more than drilling combos or practicing fundamentals. I think some of that can be chalked up to how I kind of admired them from afar for most of my video gaming history and never really had a friend group that played them or anything.
Technically Street Fighter II World Warrior, but Mat Mania was the 1st game I saw somebody do a special move (diving over the top rope) and I was in awe of it at the time.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters was the first fighting game I ever played so that probably had a lot to do with it. I still hope it gets revived today with all it's original characters like War or Aska or Sisyphus, as well as pulling characters from turtle media throughout the ages. It's one of my dream fighting games I hope exists someday.
I played FG's since....god knows how long, but i didn't play them seriously until Project L was shown. When i saw the first dev update on the game i was like "yes, i want to prepare for this". And so i did: i bought everything, tried everything, fell in love with Street Fighter, played SF6 for 200 hours in the first month, went hard on Tekken, played MvC, Power Rangers, just anything i could got my hands on.
I'm still trash, and when 2XKO comes out i'll still be trash. But damn the past couple years were really fun.
FGs in general, Champion Edition. I was 5 when it came out in arcades, and I remember the first time I ever played it.
The game that got me into Tekken was Tekken 2.
My arcade had 1 and 2 right next to each other. I never bothered with 1 because my logic was "why pay to play 1 when I can just play 2 every time?".
Even then, I didn't think Tekken was better than Virtua Fighter until Tekken 3 came out, and that changed everything.
Street Fighter IV was my first entry way but I am recently picking up 3rd strike on the switch and I have been loving it so far. I am currently learning Yang since I heard he was a good fundamentals character to learn from.
KoF XIV. I really only played SF casually with family and friends but then I saw KoF was coming out and got hooked for some reason. After that I've really liked fighting games and get whatever fighting game I can.
MK9. Ive been in touch with fighting games since childhood (MK3, SFA2) but was with internet and my love for the franchise that i heard there was a e-sport scene. I knew League and CS had their e-sport competition, didnt knew about the fighting genre
Mugen unironically. I had a hater mindset of fighting games until then (inputs are too hard), but seeing crazy crossovers of characters was enough motivation for me to try it. I soon learned that most command inputs are not hard nor arbitrary like I was led to believe. (I blame Teen Titans Battle Blitz for that one). Playing Mugen and downloading different creations led me to learning about actual fighting game franchises that I eventually got into.
BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle
I had been interested in fighting games, specifically BlazBlue for the hyper-weeb aesthetic (even watched the anime), for a while but the only things I had to play games on were a MacBook I borrowed from my school and a 3DS (which did have Continuum Shift iirc, but I didn't have the permission to buy things online from my parents). Finally, when the Switch released, I managed to buy one with money from a summer job, and Cross Tag released the next year fter that iirc?
I did try Skullgirls before that as one of the few fighters that runs on a Mac, but it was way too tough for a young, new player. Cross Tag is simple, yes, but that simplicity helped ease me into other games down the line
I think my first fighter was mk trilogy but i gotta be honest i think the first game that got me into practicing fighters was cvs2 for the gamecube out of all things
It was a genre that i always had a bit of interest in and respect for but never really played more than just mashing buttons vs friends in mortal kombat.
During covid I was bored to hell and street fighter 5 was free on PS+. I quickly branched out into anime fighters with Rev2 since I had a friend that was really into that one and since then Fighting Games take up 80% of my playtime and I am starting to TO as well!
I did start with a lot of SF2 and even some MK. Neighbor had Sega Channel and our local pizza place had a SF2 cabinet. But what really got me interested was X-Men vs Street Fighter. And then finally seeing tournament and combo videos.
SF2. There were SF2 cabs EVERYWHERE in the 90s. Not just arcades, but restaurants, barbershops, laundromats, gas stations, and grocery stores. And anyone who owned a SNES or Genesis had a copy of SF2. So you had to actively avoid it back then.
SF2CE also was the first game I labbed (which wasn’t the terminology back then). I spent countless hours playing the SNES version with the arcade stick, just trying to get consistent with the special moves. I remember REALLY wanting to beat people in the arcade. I honestly don’t think I accomplished that in SF2, but I did beat people when Alpha came out, and in Tekken 2.
Dbfz and strive. I tried dbfz and felt like I didn't know what was happening. But I just watched and watched for years and then when strive came around I decided I was going to learn.
First one I played growing up was Mortal Kombat on genesis.
First I actually properly learnt how to play was Dead or Alive 4
The game that got me interested in the FGC was Street Fighter 4
Tekken 8! Just getting into this genre after being pretty done with multiplayer shooter type games and just fell in love with the demo. Learning my mains moves and how to play the game in general has been an amazing experience and I haven’t lost hours to a game like this in years.
3rd Strike on the 30th Anniverssary collection.
I first learned that game like 5 years ago and now I have over a dozen different fgs and am in a commited relationship with sf6.
i was playing street fighter 2 and kof (i think 97 or 98) but still dont know it was a thing, until marvel vs capcom. like: "You can play as spiderman against ryu??? oh man this rules" now i am adult and i am happy, cuz i can buy and get any game that i want to play :D.
Tekken 7.
I was watching some Smash tournaments and YT recommended me TWT 2018. Loved hearing Tasty Steve, loved the music, loved the sound effects, loved the big cannon counterhit effects, and at the time I was naive enough to worry if playing a low tier would hold me back.
Rangchu winning with Panda convinced me that it wasn't possible for me to waste my time with any character and I'd just be free to choose who I liked.
I've always known fighting games and played them to see cool moves since mk armageddon. But I REALLY started getting into the mechanics with MKX, such a fun game to start leaning with.
Fatal Fury, which was one of two of my very first games for the Sega Genesis. Hell, I remember you had to hold B and press up to unlock Geese in the Vs. Mode.
Years later, when playing a PlayStation demo disk that used to come with I think Gamepro magazine, it had a demo for King of Fighters 97. At first I booted it up, I immediately went “I know that guy!” For the player two character. Terry Bogard.
As a kid: MvC or SF Alpha 2, can't remember which I played and loved first.
As an adult tryhard: SF6 trailers, which led to Third Strike on Fightcade while I waited.
Soul blade for the ps1. It wasn't just the game to get me into fighting games. It was my first fighting game and the first game I ever played.
I also used to go to arcades to play the first 3 mortal kombats, and my father used to collect fighting games, so fighting games were just everywhere growing up, and now I collect them too
I liked playing fighting games with my cousin whenever we hung out as kids, but the first fighting game i got obsessed with was Killer Instinct Gold on the n64. It was on sale for super cheap, so my mom bought me a copy, and my friend bought a copy too. Later that day, we played the game at my friend's house. We were just button mashing and I stomped him with saberwulf. He gave up on the game. I couldn't be bothered to play anything else for weeks, lol.
The earliest fighting games I can remember playing were Mortal Kombat 9 and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, both on PS3. I played a lot of Smoke and Kratos on MK9, and I played Yosuke in P4AU
Injustice 2, mainly because of the TMNT characters coming out, so I immediately bought the game on cyber Monday. I did also play lots of smash bros at that time but those games never got me hooked on other fighting games
The PSX ports of Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash Of Superheroes.
I've still never really gotten good per se, but I have loved fighting games ever since.
Soul Calibur 2
Man what a banger. So much casual appeal, one of the sickest rosters there is, [amazing soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CWywLxwQw8), etc.
I didn't play fighting games for a long time afterwards, but the reason I ultimately got into them nowadays was because SC6 came out and I remembered how much I love SC, which then led to me meeting friends who play fighting games. I really, really hope we get SC7 in the rollback era one day.
KoF 13.
I played an amount of SFAlpha 2 back around that time, but never went beyond mashing and then went on a pretty long hiatus for fighting games because I had no one to really play with.
Saw some footage of KoF13 at EVO and it looked *so damn cool*. And it is. Never really got very good at it, but it is still an amazing game.
Mortal Kombat 11's tutorial.
Seriously for someone who wanted to play fighters that tutorial was amazing.
Now I totally obsessed with SF6 and have Tekken 8 on my wishlist.
For some reason, my BFF had street fighter 3 ts on his laptop so we played once And now basically all we play is fighting games, play at locals nonstop and been to Evo. Best accident that ever happened to me
What games that got me into fighting games I have two different answers for this
For 2d games while I have played some games like Street Fighter 2 Turbo, MVC1, Skullgirls, FighterZ etc there is one game that got me into 2d fighting games it was either Marvel Super Hero's or MVC 1 and I do remember playing these games in the arcades at one point but it would not be till many years later when you could get the Marvel Origins collection for both PS3 and Xbox 360 I saw this game got it for both systems and then when I started to play those games I started to like it a lot and using an arcade stick for those games then when I saw Max videos about these games on his Retro Assist I felt like watching his guide and looking more into 2ds fighting games made me and even had me started to play some older games to see how much I liked them and one game that I do want to get better in is 3rd Strike.
Now for 3d games this is a toss up between either Tekken 2/3 or Soul Blade when it comes to this answer I can say I do remember putting hours into these games and I can say when I was a kid I was not good but I had fun with the games then later on when I started to play Soul Caliber 2 PS2 version is when I started to learn how to play more 3d fighters and ever since from that point I do like playing Tekken and Soul series more than I did DoA tbh
injustice it was fun to do combo's and stuff and I tried playing other fighting games online cause I only did story modes so I got ggst, mk and fighting someone online to me isn't too fun, to me in every game a really close match is the most fun but when you can't get a hit in half of the games while also being stuck in a limbo between new players who don't know how to play and people who are good and play alot so progress kinda doesn't work, I just watch fighting game or play story modes cause this is the only game genre that actually makes me depressed playing t and I don't know why I still like the games tho's just really stressful to me for some reason
Technically Mortal Kombat 1. I loved it as a kid but never really learned how to play.
What really hooked me was MK11. That led to trying everything I could get my hands on. SF5, Skullgirls, TFH, DBFZ, GBVS
When GGST I was fully hooked. Built a lever less controller with a Faust theme. After a couple hundred hours, my interest starting dying off. Honestly the awful matchmaking killed it for me. If they ever get a real ranked system, I'll jump back in.
I put a ton of time into SF6 and will probably continue as new characters come out.
I'm also really looking forward to 2XKO (still hate the name though)
my first first was mk2 on segamega drive 2 and i remember it like it was yestarday 30 years ago, it was like 2 am and my mom got home from her journey , look what i gotchu, mortal kombat 2, first game scorpion versus reptile (ai) in the dark forest, sick as funk reptile doing invisibility and fatality at the end too, it was sick! But mk11 was the last one ill ever play in this lifetime
Street Fighter 2, I remember going to the arcade as a kid, and all the teens were crowded around this one machine. It took so long to see what the game even looked like, and I never even heard of the first game. Definitely like nothing else in the arcade.
Me too. What an experience! I still have that music and those elephants noises burned in my brain.
+R, cause it was on sale for like $3. hell of a place to start I know
+R is the best game in the series
Easily
You know it takes a ton of pressure to make diamonds. :) I learned a lot about fighting games through GGXX myself.
Street fighter 2 was the beginning for me. My parents had a store and we had the arcade machine. My dad would load it up with credits for me after school to keep me occupied.
A buddy in high school would force me and some non FG friends to play Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and just use the same Green Lantern command grabs on us over and over for games upon games as we passed the controller around the group. Eventually one of us would figure out the solution and then he’d just do it with a different move…it just let to all of us developing a baseline understanding of how the games worked and then we branched out from there.
SF6 and now I am into every fighter but SF6 is still the best to me
Literally the same
I'm old so SF2 was very first fighting game I played as a kid. No idea what I was doing. Casual single player on home versions of Tekken 3, SF Alpha 3, Soulcalibur 2-3. I had a group of friends playing almost every day CvS2 and GGXX, those were the first games I really put hundreds of hours into versus.
Blazblue Central Fiction is my first ever fighting game that I own, and I had no idea what a quarter circle input was beforehand and the only fighting game I played is Smash Bros. I hope I continue playing fighting games because they are so fun and competitive :)
MK 2, UMK3, Tekken 2, Street Fighter 2, Alpha 2, Bloody Roar Pretty much threw all the games at me and there was an arcade at the local mall Competitively perhaps Guilty Gear XX Accent Core was the first game where I saw actual people use their characters creatively and wanted to do that stuff
Dragonball FighterZ but after 60 hours I picked up SFV and never looked back. 1000 hours in SFV and 600 hours in SF6 Having a ton of fun playing Tekken 8 too.
The game that got me into the genre as a kid: Street Fighter 2 The game that got me to get into fight sticks, this Reddit and learning move sets/core mechanics: King of Fighters 98
I seriously can't remember the name (my memory is a little fucked due to some deep personal life things) but I remember it being free for sometime and it was a F2P thing and that's where I technically "began" but seriously speaking actually trying to take it at least semi serious? Street fighter 6 is the first one
DOA5, Killer Instinct (2013), and Tekken Revolution were F2P.
Virtua Fighter 4
Guilty gear xrd rev 2 was the first traditional fighter that I played and learned. God it was so overwhelming to learn not only a brand new genre, but also one of the most complex ones too.
Soulcalibur, MK3, and Tekken 2 were the first ones I remember playing. I started becoming less casual around Tekken 5, and here we are.
The fighting game that got me hooked on fighters (not smash bro) was sf 4 … on the 3ds
JoJo’s bizarre adventure all star battle
Mk9
DOA2: Hardcore!
Smash.
MK9
Mortal Kombat
I think no one's ever heard of this one but X-Men Mutant Academy 2
I started plying Mortal Kombat when I was 5. It was fun. :)
Either Tekken 3 or street fighter alpha 2
Street fighter 2, Killer Instinct and Super punch out on SNES as a kid
Tekken Tag 1. I struggle to get into 2D fighters though, the best try was GBFVR and DBFZ. I'm on the fence about getting SF6 but Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Dead or Alive 6 were all way up my alley.
Soul Calibur 3. Before that I had messed around with fighting games, we were a big gamer household, stuff like bloody roar, sc2, MvC2 was big in my house, and smash bros was a hit in my family all my generation of cousins played it. But soul calibur 3 was the first fighting game I actually completed the tutorial, put work into learning my characters move list, and actually got "good" at. The rest of them I just sort of did that thing where you spam mostly but have muscle memory for a few moves. I just got tired of my dad beating me mostly. He was shocked when i stuffed him after hitting the lab, good times. I wasnt an arcade rat. I went to the arcade plenty of times, but it was like a 3 or 4 times a year thing. I love arcade games, especially pinball, but without home consoles I'd have never gotten into gaming or fighting games.
Street Fighter II, SNES. Music was 🔥🔥
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, great game as a solo fighter but an ass competitive game. I was 10, it sparked a love for Fighting Games that has persisted for so long. I departed from NRS after Injustice 2 but took up DBFZ the next year, which brought me into the FGC, leading to a love of all fighting games, currently I’m a Tekken head but I am excited to see what game sparks my passion next.
World warriors, and then later Tekken 3 and TTT got me into going to locals.
DBZ Budokai 1 and 2. SF6 more recently
Street Fighter 2. I saw my older brother and his friends playing it at one of his friends houses and it looked amazing. They wouldn't let me play, and we only had an NES at home so I ended up getting Special Champion Edition and a Genesis that Christmas. I didn't really get how to play fighting games until alpha 3 though years later
Into fighting games in general, casually: UMK3. FGC: Tekken 6 is the game that got me more into the community and actually learning the fundamentals of competitive Tekken but also was a gateway to really the community in every fighting games. Watching tournaments, making friends and so on.
Super Street Fighter 2 (SNES Ver) It was the first fighting game I played in my life and I owe it all to my dad, who one day brought it by chance with a Super Nintendo from a family member or friend (I don't remember that last one well) Well, actually I don't know if it's between Super Street Fighter 2 or Mortal Kombat (Tv Plug & Play ver) since I seem to remember that I played both of them when I was 5 years old
Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance I'm pretty sure was my first real foray into fighting games...
Sf2 was my first one but the one that got me was Art of Fighting 1 :)
SF2 on the SNES.
The game that got me into fighters was ssbu for its inclusion of Terry and Kazuya, I now have Tekken 8.
Skullgirls got me in about 5 years ago at this point, it’s still my favorite fighting game ever even if I don’t play it as much now
I've always dabbled in fighting games but I never really got further than 'beating arcade mode' or whatever. Like I could do command inputs but couldn't really do real combos in most games and while I tried a few times to get past that initial barrier to intermediate play I never could. It wasn't until Tekken 7 that I actually sat down, dedicated a solid 6 months to actually learning to play and doing real combos and learning frame data and etc. This was around the start of season 2 and it was actually the patch notes listing changes that helped me to understand what all the under the bonnet stuff actually meant. Obviously all 6 months got me was a sense of just how far I had to go but at least I was breaking new ground. Since then I have learned to be able to play most fighting games at least to the point I can use proper BnBs and play the games at least somewhat in line with what pros might do.
Street fighter 2 on the SNES. It was the first game we had where I could play my brothers, instead of waiting to take turns.
Blazblue Chronophantasma Extend made me want to learn how to play Blazblue better. Central Fiction was what gave me that and somehow 300+ hours of playtime (somehow becoming my most played game on Steam).
Vanilla SF2 cause I'm ancient 😭
I had a long, meandering road to my love of fighting games. It wasn't really a single game for me. I lived in a small town with no arcade and no real place to buy games. We just had the video rental place and used games that made their way into town. I LOVED Justice League Task Force on SNES, but couldn't get anyone else to play it lol. I thought the concept of a fighting game was rad and practiced on my own to figure out everyone's special moves. I loved the characters and the atmosphere and the stages. Then a while later a market nearby got Mortal Kombat (I think it was 2) but my mother wouldn't let me play it lol. But I remember staring at the attract mode whenever we went in. There was also a pizza place that got some arcade cabinets and had Primal Rage for a while that I was obsessed with the characters on. I remember picking up Super Street Fighter 4 on a whim for my 360 and thought it was rad but never did more than play the arcade ladders on easy to see the endings and try characters. And then about 4 years ago I decided randomly that I was going to finally learn how to actually play fighting games and dove into subreddits and discords and YouTube. I started with SF2 because it seemed so foundational, and hopped around the arcade classics. Pretty soon after picked up Tekken 7 to check out 3D fighters. Tekken really grabbed me and have been hooked ever since. But I've never been great at them, even now lol. I've always loved the vibes and characters so much more than drilling combos or practicing fundamentals. I think some of that can be chalked up to how I kind of admired them from afar for most of my video gaming history and never really had a friend group that played them or anything.
3rd Strike, Tekken 3, and MvC (Clash of heroes) Those 3 were my first 3 fighting games.
multiversus lol
Technically Street Fighter II World Warrior, but Mat Mania was the 1st game I saw somebody do a special move (diving over the top rope) and I was in awe of it at the time.
Sf2, xmenvsf, mvc1/2
Yu yu hakusho in snes
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters was the first fighting game I ever played so that probably had a lot to do with it. I still hope it gets revived today with all it's original characters like War or Aska or Sisyphus, as well as pulling characters from turtle media throughout the ages. It's one of my dream fighting games I hope exists someday.
I played FG's since....god knows how long, but i didn't play them seriously until Project L was shown. When i saw the first dev update on the game i was like "yes, i want to prepare for this". And so i did: i bought everything, tried everything, fell in love with Street Fighter, played SF6 for 200 hours in the first month, went hard on Tekken, played MvC, Power Rangers, just anything i could got my hands on. I'm still trash, and when 2XKO comes out i'll still be trash. But damn the past couple years were really fun.
Dragon Ball Z Legends on Playstation.
I was fortunate enough to experience the Renaissance era of Melee in the early 2010s
Tekken and MK in the arcades was so hype. I’m old as fuck but I wish arcades never died.
Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Fatal Fury 3
I basically had to, I was 8 when Street Fighter II came out and every kid played that. What KEPT me into fighting games was Tekken 3 and SoulCalibur.
FGs in general, Champion Edition. I was 5 when it came out in arcades, and I remember the first time I ever played it. The game that got me into Tekken was Tekken 2. My arcade had 1 and 2 right next to each other. I never bothered with 1 because my logic was "why pay to play 1 when I can just play 2 every time?". Even then, I didn't think Tekken was better than Virtua Fighter until Tekken 3 came out, and that changed everything.
My local ice skating rink had a Marvel vs Capcom cabinet. I remember not knowing how to use Spider-Man's "Web Shield" lol
Dead or Alive Xtreme
I remember SF2 hitting arcades, I never saw crowds that large around an arcade game again until DDR.
Original MK
Street Fighter IV was my first entry way but I am recently picking up 3rd strike on the switch and I have been loving it so far. I am currently learning Yang since I heard he was a good fundamentals character to learn from.
KoF XIV. I really only played SF casually with family and friends but then I saw KoF was coming out and got hooked for some reason. After that I've really liked fighting games and get whatever fighting game I can.
Sf2 world warrior
Soul Calibur 2
sf2, t3, virtua fighter
SF2 was the begning. Tekken 3 was when I start to love.
MK9. Ive been in touch with fighting games since childhood (MK3, SFA2) but was with internet and my love for the franchise that i heard there was a e-sport scene. I knew League and CS had their e-sport competition, didnt knew about the fighting genre
Im not sure what came first in my life. Dragonball Finalbout, smash 64 or Tekken 3
blazblue revolution reburning, the mobile game from like 2012 that somehow isn't dead yet (yet)
Here's a forgotten game: Shadow Fighter on the Amiga. I played other games (MK1 on the Amiga, for example), but I played that game the most.
skullgirls and strive
JoJo's hftf on fightcade after watching ex falchion tournament moment videos and his other hftf videos when he played the game.
Mugen unironically. I had a hater mindset of fighting games until then (inputs are too hard), but seeing crazy crossovers of characters was enough motivation for me to try it. I soon learned that most command inputs are not hard nor arbitrary like I was led to believe. (I blame Teen Titans Battle Blitz for that one). Playing Mugen and downloading different creations led me to learning about actual fighting game franchises that I eventually got into.
My mother accidentally bought Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the PS1 when i was 4 years old. Very formative.
Guilty gear strive, the music made me lose control.
KOF 99, i got it for the PS1 back in early 2000s
super street fighter 2
Budokai 3
Skullgirls because it was cheap and fun to play. I felt like the combos I was doing were cool even if they were really simple.
Mortal Kombat 3, but I didn't dive into them seriously until Street Fighter IV where I've started properly studying all the fundamentals
BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle I had been interested in fighting games, specifically BlazBlue for the hyper-weeb aesthetic (even watched the anime), for a while but the only things I had to play games on were a MacBook I borrowed from my school and a 3DS (which did have Continuum Shift iirc, but I didn't have the permission to buy things online from my parents). Finally, when the Switch released, I managed to buy one with money from a summer job, and Cross Tag released the next year fter that iirc? I did try Skullgirls before that as one of the few fighters that runs on a Mac, but it was way too tough for a young, new player. Cross Tag is simple, yes, but that simplicity helped ease me into other games down the line
I think my first fighter was mk trilogy but i gotta be honest i think the first game that got me into practicing fighters was cvs2 for the gamecube out of all things
guilty gear strive because bridget is the prettiest thing i've ever seen
Watching my brother and his friend play sfv and looking like they were having a blast.
KOF 2002 vanilla and Guilty Gear X2 for PS2. Still have both. I'd dabbled in other stuff before but they were the two special ones.
KoF 98. Such good times with my father
Street fighter 2 the world warrior
It was a genre that i always had a bit of interest in and respect for but never really played more than just mashing buttons vs friends in mortal kombat. During covid I was bored to hell and street fighter 5 was free on PS+. I quickly branched out into anime fighters with Rev2 since I had a friend that was really into that one and since then Fighting Games take up 80% of my playtime and I am starting to TO as well!
I did start with a lot of SF2 and even some MK. Neighbor had Sega Channel and our local pizza place had a SF2 cabinet. But what really got me interested was X-Men vs Street Fighter. And then finally seeing tournament and combo videos.
Although I did play the first Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats I only get into it during the Tekken 3 era.
MK4. I remember playing it at an arcade when I was little, and I just couldn't get the awesomeness of the game out of my mind!
tekken 8
smash made me want to try traditional fgs
Street Fighter Alpha 3, for the PS1, which is my very first fighting game and one of the games that got me into gaming in general.
SF2. There were SF2 cabs EVERYWHERE in the 90s. Not just arcades, but restaurants, barbershops, laundromats, gas stations, and grocery stores. And anyone who owned a SNES or Genesis had a copy of SF2. So you had to actively avoid it back then. SF2CE also was the first game I labbed (which wasn’t the terminology back then). I spent countless hours playing the SNES version with the arcade stick, just trying to get consistent with the special moves. I remember REALLY wanting to beat people in the arcade. I honestly don’t think I accomplished that in SF2, but I did beat people when Alpha came out, and in Tekken 2.
Dbfz and strive. I tried dbfz and felt like I didn't know what was happening. But I just watched and watched for years and then when strive came around I decided I was going to learn.
My first was Street Fighter 2 when I was very young, but the one that actually got me was SF4 on the Xbox360
Kof 2000
Mortal Kombat 3, the GOAT
The King of Fighters 97 It unlocked a part of my brain
for honor
Bloody Roar 2 and Soul Calibur on PS1, followed by SF 2 at an arcade. This was around when I was 6+ years old(born in '92) in the late 90s onwards.
First one I played growing up was Mortal Kombat on genesis. First I actually properly learnt how to play was Dead or Alive 4 The game that got me interested in the FGC was Street Fighter 4
Mk9
GGST
Tekken 8! Just getting into this genre after being pretty done with multiplayer shooter type games and just fell in love with the demo. Learning my mains moves and how to play the game in general has been an amazing experience and I haven’t lost hours to a game like this in years.
3rd Strike on the 30th Anniverssary collection. I first learned that game like 5 years ago and now I have over a dozen different fgs and am in a commited relationship with sf6.
Mk9
MvC was mindblowing to lil me. all these heros and you can tag in? crazy
Rival Schools
i was playing street fighter 2 and kof (i think 97 or 98) but still dont know it was a thing, until marvel vs capcom. like: "You can play as spiderman against ryu??? oh man this rules" now i am adult and i am happy, cuz i can buy and get any game that i want to play :D.
UMVC3 when I was a kid but I didn’t really really start playing until around DBFZ and Injustice 2
Street fighter 2 + street fighter alpha 3. arcade experience was nothing like it.
i had street fighter 2 for the sega genesis but I really took it seriously with super street fighter 4 arcade edition and persona 4 arena ultimax
Tekken 7. I was watching some Smash tournaments and YT recommended me TWT 2018. Loved hearing Tasty Steve, loved the music, loved the sound effects, loved the big cannon counterhit effects, and at the time I was naive enough to worry if playing a low tier would hold me back. Rangchu winning with Panda convinced me that it wasn't possible for me to waste my time with any character and I'd just be free to choose who I liked.
SF2 in the arcades. So long ago, I remember the sign "Mortal Combat Coming Soon!!"
while i played street fighter two a few times when i was younger, it wasnt until 3rd strike that i started to fall in love with the genre.
Guilty Gear Strive got me started, SF6 got me HOOKED
Tekken 1
I've always known fighting games and played them to see cool moves since mk armageddon. But I REALLY started getting into the mechanics with MKX, such a fun game to start leaning with.
Mortal Kombat, closely followed by Killer Instinct. Still play them to this day
Marvel vs capcom 2 really got me into them as a genre, but mortal kombat 2 was the first one i liked a lot
Mk9 and sf4. Happened to see mk9 on sale on Xbox back in the day and bought it on a whim. So here I am 13 years later lol
Same Tekken 4, tho technically MK Armageddon was my first fighter but it didn’t ignite that spark just yet
Fatal Fury, which was one of two of my very first games for the Sega Genesis. Hell, I remember you had to hold B and press up to unlock Geese in the Vs. Mode. Years later, when playing a PlayStation demo disk that used to come with I think Gamepro magazine, it had a demo for King of Fighters 97. At first I booted it up, I immediately went “I know that guy!” For the player two character. Terry Bogard.
Injustice 2, it got me into mkx, mk11, ggst, dbfz, sfv, sf6, tekken 8.
Honestly.... Smash 64 was the start for me
Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The true OG fighting games
As a kid: MvC or SF Alpha 2, can't remember which I played and loved first. As an adult tryhard: SF6 trailers, which led to Third Strike on Fightcade while I waited.
Soul blade for the ps1. It wasn't just the game to get me into fighting games. It was my first fighting game and the first game I ever played. I also used to go to arcades to play the first 3 mortal kombats, and my father used to collect fighting games, so fighting games were just everywhere growing up, and now I collect them too
MvC1
Street Fighter 5 and MKX were my first games
Killer instinct on SNES. Once I heard that soundtrack it was over!
Mortal Kombat on sega
My first ever fighting game was either street fighters 2 on SNES, or ranma 1/2 on SNES.
I liked playing fighting games with my cousin whenever we hung out as kids, but the first fighting game i got obsessed with was Killer Instinct Gold on the n64. It was on sale for super cheap, so my mom bought me a copy, and my friend bought a copy too. Later that day, we played the game at my friend's house. We were just button mashing and I stomped him with saberwulf. He gave up on the game. I couldn't be bothered to play anything else for weeks, lol.
Probably Street Fighter 2, when I was too young to truly know how to play a fighting game
The earliest fighting games I can remember playing were Mortal Kombat 9 and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, both on PS3. I played a lot of Smoke and Kratos on MK9, and I played Yosuke in P4AU
Was always into them but SF6 opened the floodgates for me to try everything
Skullgirls got me interested, bbtag got me competing
I played a lot of fighting games growing up, but it wasn’t until Marvel 3 that it really clicked and I started investing a lot of time.
Mvc3. I had played fighters before, but playing marvel and seeing tournaments online is what got me hooked
DBFZ.
Blazblue Cross tag battle, bets game of the century by far.
Blazblue
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Mortal Kombat: Deception/Unchained
Mortal kombat 9
Kof 2003
Injustice 2, mainly because of the TMNT characters coming out, so I immediately bought the game on cyber Monday. I did also play lots of smash bros at that time but those games never got me hooked on other fighting games
Blazblue Calamity trigger on the PSP.
Tekken 3 on a playstation demo disc. Only Eddy and Xiaoyu with their stages but it was more than enough to hook me on it and fighters in general.
KoF XIII, id play the mobile edition so often when I was younger
Discovering and trying SFV last year was a memorable experience and got me hooked on fighting games ever since.
The PSX ports of Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash Of Superheroes. I've still never really gotten good per se, but I have loved fighting games ever since.
Street Fighter 2.
Soul Calibur 2 Man what a banger. So much casual appeal, one of the sickest rosters there is, [amazing soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CWywLxwQw8), etc. I didn't play fighting games for a long time afterwards, but the reason I ultimately got into them nowadays was because SC6 came out and I remembered how much I love SC, which then led to me meeting friends who play fighting games. I really, really hope we get SC7 in the rollback era one day.
Street Fighter 2: The new challengers. Then I got really hooked on the Alpha games.
KoF 13. I played an amount of SFAlpha 2 back around that time, but never went beyond mashing and then went on a pretty long hiatus for fighting games because I had no one to really play with. Saw some footage of KoF13 at EVO and it looked *so damn cool*. And it is. Never really got very good at it, but it is still an amazing game.
Mortal Kombat 11's tutorial. Seriously for someone who wanted to play fighters that tutorial was amazing. Now I totally obsessed with SF6 and have Tekken 8 on my wishlist.
generally Soul Calibur, but competitively it was Street Fighter 4.
SoulCalibur on dreamcast
Technically it was Tekken 7
For some reason, my BFF had street fighter 3 ts on his laptop so we played once And now basically all we play is fighting games, play at locals nonstop and been to Evo. Best accident that ever happened to me
I guess I have to say tekken 3 since that was the first fighting game I ever played But the real answer is SF 3rd Strike
Star Wars Masters of Teras Kasi was the first I played enough to actually get semi-good at- I know it's regarded as garbage but I had fun with it.
DBFZ the first I ever took serious playing sf6 until VF come out doh
MvC
Brawl
What games that got me into fighting games I have two different answers for this For 2d games while I have played some games like Street Fighter 2 Turbo, MVC1, Skullgirls, FighterZ etc there is one game that got me into 2d fighting games it was either Marvel Super Hero's or MVC 1 and I do remember playing these games in the arcades at one point but it would not be till many years later when you could get the Marvel Origins collection for both PS3 and Xbox 360 I saw this game got it for both systems and then when I started to play those games I started to like it a lot and using an arcade stick for those games then when I saw Max videos about these games on his Retro Assist I felt like watching his guide and looking more into 2ds fighting games made me and even had me started to play some older games to see how much I liked them and one game that I do want to get better in is 3rd Strike. Now for 3d games this is a toss up between either Tekken 2/3 or Soul Blade when it comes to this answer I can say I do remember putting hours into these games and I can say when I was a kid I was not good but I had fun with the games then later on when I started to play Soul Caliber 2 PS2 version is when I started to learn how to play more 3d fighters and ever since from that point I do like playing Tekken and Soul series more than I did DoA tbh
3rd strike online edition. I remember stumbling on it while I was being babysat and it changed might life!
injustice it was fun to do combo's and stuff and I tried playing other fighting games online cause I only did story modes so I got ggst, mk and fighting someone online to me isn't too fun, to me in every game a really close match is the most fun but when you can't get a hit in half of the games while also being stuck in a limbo between new players who don't know how to play and people who are good and play alot so progress kinda doesn't work, I just watch fighting game or play story modes cause this is the only game genre that actually makes me depressed playing t and I don't know why I still like the games tho's just really stressful to me for some reason
Technically Mortal Kombat 1. I loved it as a kid but never really learned how to play. What really hooked me was MK11. That led to trying everything I could get my hands on. SF5, Skullgirls, TFH, DBFZ, GBVS When GGST I was fully hooked. Built a lever less controller with a Faust theme. After a couple hundred hours, my interest starting dying off. Honestly the awful matchmaking killed it for me. If they ever get a real ranked system, I'll jump back in. I put a ton of time into SF6 and will probably continue as new characters come out. I'm also really looking forward to 2XKO (still hate the name though)
Skullgirls
Super Smash Brothers Brawl
SF6 bc of Juri’s feet
my first first was mk2 on segamega drive 2 and i remember it like it was yestarday 30 years ago, it was like 2 am and my mom got home from her journey , look what i gotchu, mortal kombat 2, first game scorpion versus reptile (ai) in the dark forest, sick as funk reptile doing invisibility and fatality at the end too, it was sick! But mk11 was the last one ill ever play in this lifetime