How and when did you find (yourself playing) VF?

This has got to be either shang or shou.

 

YES SHOW YOURSELF!(EXPLOSION)

 

Ever since that day of the discovery of VF, I've been hooked to it a long time. Somehow I just couldn't stop playing it, it was just so interesting! Here's how it all happened.

One year I was bored to death with all of my games. I thought "Is this the end for me? No more games? Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" Just as I was going to go crazy, I get a call from my friend that he wants to invite me to a party. Game tournaments were being held at this party. When I arrived the games were being popped in and ready to go. The first were the Mortal Kombats: Alliance and Shaolin Monks. They were okay. I couldn't win for nothing... until they put in VF4. I said "Hmmmmm this seems like a good game." My friends held the VF tournament. It was my turn to play. I beat most people but not all. "Pass the controller you lost!" You think I wanted to pass it? NO! I REFUSED! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif But I did anyway. After that day I started to go crazy for the game. My cousin bought VF4 for me. After that I really wasn't bored after all. Just when I was going pro with VF4, VF5 comes out and I get it. Ever since then, the life of gaming has been good.

 

Ah, fudge. I first got VF4E from those demo discs from one of THOSE mags in which Myke has talked to. (Remember fighting Naz's Eileen with Jeffry?)

When I really got into VF was in Japan, September 2006, in Club Sega Akihabara. Let me simply say the bottom floor is the most sober way of getting stoned. The CPU was weak but the competition was good. Too good. I used Vane, which I never plan to use again.

Returned home and picked up Evo for $20. Never got bored with it, but am looking to spend money on an Xbox and VF5.

 

I've been playing Street Fighter II for about 15 years. I play lots of Third Strike as well. The Virtua Fighter series was always in my peripheral vision as were most fighting games. I've always played as many fighting game series as I could but on a very casual level for most of them.

When VF4 came out for the PS2 I played it casually, yet I found learning the system through theory fighting in IRC was very exciting. The hardcore feel of the game reminded me of how demanding the inputs and mechanics for Super Turbo were. But I still left it aside for Super Turbo as I had invested so much time in learning Vega (Dictator) and O.Hawk and I enjoy ST so much that I felt no need to allocate time to another series.

I still watched tons of matches of VF4 and 4EVO version A through links posted in the media section on this site (including the full KSII .asx stream several times from start to finish before someone showed me how to index the file) even though I focused mainly on ST and 3S playing. I know that a user here, Creed, had a giant IRC bot with tons of matches. I used to swipe matches of his bot occasionally.

Recently I was informed in #vfhome that his drive died and he lost the files. Thankfully Ogi had kept many of the matches and preserved them on his YouTube channel. I remember watching Arashi win SBO'03 and Minami win KSII and I thought I would never see those matches again (as I lost my SBO DVDs when I moved to NYC and that KSII stream died on my HD as well). Ogi gets major props from me for keeping them around.

When VF4EVO came out for the PS2, with it's training mode, quest mode with good A.I., and it's insane balance and depth I was hooked. I never thought that anything could replace ST as the game I considered most balanced and deep but 4EVO makes ST look paltry in hindsight.

I consider VF4EVO to be the greatest fighting game of all time. And one of the greatest multi-player games in history, right up there with Starcraft, Super Turbo, and Unreal Tournament. As far as fighting games go 4EVO is so far ahead of the pack it's truly unreal. I never thought I would praise a fighting game over Super Turbo, never.

VF4EVO is timeless....hell...it takes time down a back alley and beats it to death. I keep playing ST/3S on GGPO often, and HDR and SFIV online casually, and of course VF5:Online as well but nothing to me will ever match the feeling I got when I realized how deep and complex VF4EVO was.

If 5R comes out to consoles I'll probably never stop playing it.