I started playing fighting games when I played SF in Famicom when I was young, maybe about 8yrs old.
then it carried over to playing SF in SNES, and SF2 in MegaDrive.
I have played bunch of fighting games growing up like YuYu Hakusho, DBZ 2 & 3, Mortal Kombat 1-3. Killer Instinct 1 & 64, Samurai Shodown 1-5, Fatal Fury, Darkstalkers, KOF 94-99(?), Virtua Fighter, Tekken 3, 5, 6, tag2, Children of the atom, MvC1, Guilty Gear XX, Naruto, Jump super and ulti stars, SFAlpha 1-3, SF4, and of course Smash 64, Melee, and Brawl.
I started young and really just played by just executing the movelist and following my instincts. I knew if I blocked a shoryuken, I can counter with a move of my own. I know that when an opponent is going to block, I can try an overhead attack or a throw attempt to try and confuse him. It is only a few years ago that I learned about the technicalities of it. That's the first time I heard of the terms "punish" and "frames", "mix up" and "wake up", "spacing" and "footsies".
That knowledge gave me a new perspective on fighting games, being a big nintendo fan, I then felt like I needed to try and apply them in smash. or maybe at least understand smash in a competitive light. I attempted to study brawl by lurking in these forums but it is harder that I thought (compared when I was studying tekken or SF!).
I am looking forward to playing some serious smash 4 and hope to learn from you guys when the time comes!
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I was moved by the recent events in Evo2013 (my first time following Evo and FGC events). the tension with FGC, the FB poll + donation drive, evo streaming fiasco, the records that are broken, "one more year" chant, and one unit. that's great showing right there, congrats guys!