I never been good at fighting games. I remember being really young, living in Stockton California going over to a family friends house where they had a Super Nintendo with Killer Instinct and some edition of Street Fighter 2. I remember picking Spinal mainly because its a cool skeleton guy with a fucking sword. I would always mash buttons and lose. Yet it was always really fun. I didnt play any fighting games seriously. Time would pass by and there would be some fighting games that I found interesting and would check out but it was never like Im going to dedicate my time to it. Fast Foward to 2017, when I was like 14. A little game comes by my radar named Skullgirls 2nd Encore on the PS4. Seemed neat, it also had this girl named Squigly who had a Zone Tan color scheme, a Hentai mascot I had a thing for at the time(fucking cringe). Anyway it was the first fighting game I had the bug for. I started investing time into the game, trying to learn combos despite still button mashing the hell outta my controller. It was good timing, my sister was taking me to Fanime, and I was thinking of going the tournament they were holding for the game. I ended up showing up and....not signing up. I kinda realized I wasnt actually as good as I thought. But it gave me a bug to want to genuinely put the effort to learn. Eventually that bug for Skullgirls wore off but it did get me wondering about other games. Specifically Marvel Vs Capcom 2.
I dont think I need to introduce Marvel Vs Capcom 2. Its genuinely one of the best fighting games to ever exist. And I remember getting a Dreamcast Emulator, NullDC, and running up matches on it with some people I knew at the time via Netplay. It was cool, but It was frustrating setting up matches for it, and I ended up finding a program called Fightcade. They didnt have Marvel Vs Capcom 2, but they did have Street Fighter Alpha 3, which was one of my favorite games to play growing up as my sister had it on a PSP. I remember this was 2018 so this was still Fightcade 1, in its grey ass client. There wasnt too many players for Alpha 3 but I saw alot for a game named Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Fight For The Future. A wave of memories came back. I seen this game before. I remember being a kid and downloading demos and videos off the Xbox 360 Marketplace, including the trailer for SF3 Online Edition. I thought it looked cool, at least the trailer did.
I remember the first time playing Third Strike, I fucking hated it. The characters were weird, there was no Sakura, and everyone was pulling off insanely precise perfects. I pretty much quit right after.
I never viewed myself as a good person. Its something I realized recently, and to be fair, part of it was me being needlessly harsh on myself. Calling myself the worst things imaginable, viewing myself as a monster. And well to be fair, its not like I havent made plenty of fuckups, hurting people I love and strangers. I once called the only woman I loved that she deserved everything terrible that happened to her. I used women for my own needs. I lied my way to get what I wanted. Always viewed myself as a creep and in truth I was. And it sometimes effected how I think, what I want, etc. I struggled with depression. I wanted to kill myself several times. I thought I would never be happy. That I would always be the monster I viewed myself as.
In 2020, I became friends with someone named Heretic. She was in a youtuber's server I was in, and overtime we became friends. We eventually began bonding over our interest in fighting games. It was around the time I started seeing more content about SF3 on youtube. I started to see videos about the lore and history of the game within the FGC. And it lead me to give Third Strike another chance. I started maining Ken, mainly because up until this point, I pretty much would main Sakura, and I didnt feel like playing Ryu...and also Daigo. Ken always seemed like the 2nd shoto, maybe not the best story wise, but the one that was always striving to be better. I started playing matches with Heretic and another friend of mine Biterix. I started reading about the lore, the story, the motives behind each character.
Ken wanting to be the best fighter he can be, to fight everyone he can, to be as strong as he can. It was something I kinda became attached to, something I can relate to. The feeling of wanting to prove yourself.
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