So what memories do you have playing this game back in the day?

I used to play in my local arcade that was about two minutes from where I grew up. The arcade would open at 10 am on a Saturday morning and before 9:30 there would be a decent sized line of kids waiting to go in and play Street Fighter 2. We would sit outside and chat about the game and share who someone the other day figured out how to do Ryu's fireball or how Tadhg Murphy was the first person to finish the game with Chun Li. I would usually end up playing games like Sunset Riders, Bubble Bobble, Gryzor (Contra in Europe) and Ninja Gaiden while I waited for the line to die down a bit.

Also, check out this fantastic documentary about the history of Street Fighter called "I Am Street Fighter" it was made by the people over at Area 5.

I played ths snes version first and dismt play the arcade version until it was much older. I thought the ability to duck under round houses was the coolest thing ever, felt like playing a kung fu movie.

Cool.

Wait, Contra was called "Gryzor" in Europe? The NES version was called "Probotector"?!? WTF?!?!?

I never spent much time on the SFII machine in my local arcade. It was too intimidating. I watched it a whole lot though.

Germany had weird laws about violence in videogames so instead of shooting dudes they shot robots and the games were renamed. Since Germany is a big market in Europe I think the whole continent ended up with games tailored to meet German content restrictions back then.

As for Street Fighter II, I am with you there too. I sort of enjoyed playing single player but I never liked playing vs in arcade because I wasn't any good and it would drain my cash too quickly. I played more of the SNES version with friends, where even if I lost it didn't cost me anything.

I did watch a lot of Street Fighter II, though, since everyone I knew was into it.

I guess I was maybe 5-6. When I lived in China, I remember going to tiny smoky arcades and SF2 is what I played the most. Definitely one of those "keystone" games for me. Some games you play early on just define your understanding of what games are and SF2 is one of them for me.

Freaks me out somewhat that Street Fighter 2 is my age. Norway never had any arcades, at least none that I knew about, living out in the country. My neighbor had a SNES with Street Fighter 2 the World Warriors, and I remember me and all of his other guy friends from school gathering in this super tiny attic room to play Street Fighter 2 on a tiny TV back in the early nineties. I think only a single one of us managed to do a fireball. The rest of us stuck with doing special moves with Chun-Li, Blanka and E. Honda because you could just mash on one button.

One of my friends used to play as Dhalsim and said he hit a special button to make him levitate as a victory pose. I'm pretty sure that's just a lie, and depends on how well you did or which round it is. I'm happy that over twenty years later, I can just hit medium punch and medium kick and Dhalsim will levitate no problem in SFV.

@pauljeremiah: Thnx just watched the whole docu, very entertaining !

Dont think I've ever seen any kind of street fighter machine IRL in any of the arcades Ive been to here in the Netherlands (All were very small as well though ).Or at least not that it made any impact on me.... Only played SF II on a snes once, I think, at a cousins house when I was 5 years old. I STILL vividly remember blanka kicking the shit out of me and spamming the bloody lightning attack all the time :p I have a snes myself now and a copy of SFII for it as well but im not sure I've ever played it. I might play some SFII to celebrate later :p

@lestephan: no probs, so glad you enjoyed it.

I was a kid living in a rural area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When we needed to go shopping for anything other than groceries we would have drive about 60 miles to a store called Shopko. Tucked in the back behind the checkout aisles they had a few arcade cabinets: Spy Hunter, Donkey Kong and Street Fighter II.

So while my parents shopped for snow tires or school supplies I would get thrashed mercilessly in Street Fighter (always played as Guile). It was the first "fighting game" I'd really ever seen so the concept was mind blowing and the characters and stages were super cool. One nice kid showed me how to do the Sonic Boom and Flash Kick which was kind of magical.

I've never really been all that good at the Street Fighter games, but I always find myself coming back to them even though there are other fighters I enjoy more.