Soulful Stitchery

Man...what a year for fighting games, I tell ya.

Capcom's classic fighting series, Street Fighter II, is a quarter century old this year. Who'd have guessed? As I am sitting here writing this blog post, memories of playing the game for the first time are running through my mind.

I can still remember visiting my granny (may she rest in peace) for the weekend, in the summer of 1992. One of my cousins (who was like my obnoxious big brother in a way) had gotten a Super Nintendo Entertainment System on Christmas of 1991. He invited some of his buddies over to try out this new game he received. Of course, I wanted to get in on the fun. I studied the cartridge carefully upon first glance.

Hmmm...Street Fighter...name sounded familiar...

But the game was far from familiar. My big brother-cousin popped in the cartridge, turned it on, and my eyes were greeted by a wonderful byline...

You guys remember this, right?

Then my ears were greeted by this magnificent sound...

Everything else afterward...I WANTED THAT GAME!!!!!

Most girls my age, back then, wanted frilly pink bikes, Barbie dolls, stuff that little girls were "supposed" to play with. Don't get me wrong; Barbie was cool and what have you, but even the latest doll wasn't enough to override the awesomeness that was Street Fighter II. My longing for that game resulted in begging my mother to let me spend the night at my granny's for as many weekends as possible just so I could play my big brother-cousin's SNES; more specifically, to play SF2. Talk of the game spread in a fervor throughout the school playground once it hit the consoles. I wanted in on this phenomenon badly. This led to me asking my mom if I could get an SNES console for my 9th birthday. SF2 was the only reason I even wanted that system in the first place. Alas, I was mildly disappointed upon noticing that Super Mario World only came with it. Still had fun, nonetheless. A few months (and cartridges) later (in 1994), my wish was granted. My mother, thanks to a markdown at a pawn shop, got me a Street Fighter II: The World Warrior cartridge for $25 (along with Super Mario All-Stars to make up for the long wait). By then, my knucklehead brother-cousin and another brother-cousin each had their respective iterations of SF2; my big brother-cousin had Turbo: Hyper Fighting, and my little brother-cousin got Super: The New Challengers. Didn't matter to me though; I had a SF2 game to call my own. You could say I was the happiest girl in South Central L.A. throughout the '90s after my mom bought it for me.

As an adult, I can look back on this phenomenon with a smile and many stories to boot. I now have this tradition (a little something I started as a teenager) that if I'm seeing a guy and decide to invite him to my place, it is mandatory that I challenge him to a game of Street Fighter II to test his wits. Here comes another story...

Fast forward to 2008 - I was seeing whom I thought was the finest chocolate-skinned specimen to walk this earth (before things went sour). I challenged him to a game of Turbo one Saturday afternoon. I must admit, brother had some skills. We were pretty much deadlocked at 29 wins apiece. So I told him, "First one to 30 wins everything." To quote the rapper Ice Cube, "Once again, it's on."

Final match - Ken (me) vs. Ryu (former friend)

The battle was pretty much neck and neck. I won the first round, ex-friend won the second. Round three came. We were both down to a sliver of vitality. Truth be told, I don't even remember what attack I used, but Ken managed to defeat his best friend Ryu with that attack. I may have won the whole thing, but ex-friend was indeed a formidable opponent. So I definitely have to give him props. Most of the guys I've challenged either sucked at the game (either arcade or console) or were 2-button Shotos. Now let me explain the latter...

A 2-button Shoto is a player who only picks either Ryu or Ken and relies on Fierce and Roundhouse to get him through the game. He relies on power, but lacks skills and strategy. Guaranteed to lose most of the time against any skilled player.

As for the classic arcade version, I didn't get the full experience until the 2000s. Let me go into detail of that story...

It was some time around early 1994, I want to say. My mother, one of her friends and her daughter, and I went to this laundromat in Inglewood (which was walking distance from my place), which sat on the corner of Hyde Park and West Blvds (all you Angelenos out there know where I'm referring to, right). Placed outside were these arcade games; two of them were Street Fighter II machines and the other was some shooter game I don't even remember. The one blaring the music was the one that caught my attention. It was an iteration I'd never seen before: SF2, Champion Edition. The intro, music, layout, and character designs were different from what I was accustomed to. Well, I'd never played the arcade version before back then. Not until that trip to the laundromat, at least. Then I noticed something completely odd about this iteration; the title screen had this weird, rainbow-striped pattern...

SF2 on crack

And the characters were all shapeshifters with homing projectiles...

My 9-yr-old autistic mind was trying to process all this...only to ponder, "What the hell is this hot mess of an arcade game?! This isn't Street Fighter!!!" The game was SF2 alright, but it was like the developers were smoking crack while programming this game and decided to slap the SF2 title on it and call it a night. It was abysmal. Little did I know this was a bootleg version of Champion Edition. But my little curious butt went and played anyway. Somebody else was playing already (I think he was playing as Guile, but I digress), but I still chimed in. Player One was doing all these Sonic Boom traps and whatnot; overall, the gameplay was all kinds of wonky with a side of nope. Pretty bad experience, I say. My verdict of this bootleg...

That was only half the trauma inflicted. My mother and I went to another laundromat in the Mid-City area (Midtown to us Angelenos) on 10th Avenue and Washington Blvd. Lo and behold, this place also had a Street Fighter II machine (the classic World Warrior version). I rustled up a quarter from my mom, dropped it in the machine, and picked Ken. Still didn't know what the hell I was doing...and eventually lost. Developed a deep-seeded dislike for the arcade version. After returning home later that night...

I find myself on Vega's stomping grounds. The masked matador stands before me. I try to take in everything before me, but my observations are halted by the sharp piercing of his claw through my skin. Vega slashes me with no mercy. I'm just a 9-year-old girl, bloodied and bruised from his attacks, clinging onto the edge of life. One more slash from him and it's instant death. Vega jumps off the fence, delivering the final blow...

I woke up in the middle of the night with a quick scream escaping from my mouth. I could've actually died in my sleep from that dream about Vega trying to kill me. That same nightmare had instilled so much fear in me that I refused to be or go anywhere around Los Angeles County that had a Street Fighter II machine. I didn't care which iteration it was. If I went to Shakey's in Culver City, I wanted to sit as far away from the gaming area as possible (they had two SF2 machines in that area back then). Oddly enough, this fear didn't stop me from playing the SNES version as I still loved it. That was the only version I would even play...no Sega Genesis, no arcade; it had to be only the SNES.

Fast forward to 2004 - I was 19 and came across this laundromat on Crenshaw and Rosecrans while on the way to El Camino College. There was this odd-looking Champion Edition machine inside. That's when I decided it was time to get over this silly fear of a damn video game. I dropped in my quarter and played a few battles until losing to Balrog. Game still played a bit wonky as it was another bootleg version I may have seen in passing.

Some good things happened in my experiences with this game, though. I met my longtime best friend from watching him play SF2CE while on a birthday trip to the arcade; we're still cool to this day. I hope you're reading this, Best Friend. I'm glad we met back then. Oh, and you still owe me a match. Your Guile, my Chun-Li. (smile)

And since this is a blog about my crocheting exploits, I wanted to share my latest creation regarding the 25th anniversary of this classic fighting game series:

A crocheted SF2CE Rainbow skully

I figured the only way to celebrate this anniversary special was to do what I do best, and that's getting down with a hook and some yarn. Anyway, after I'm done with this post I might sit down and turn on my SNES just to play some World Warrior or maybe get in some combo practice on Turbo. With that, I'm ending this entry on this note: Once again, thank you Capcom. Thank you for this franchise, and thank you for the childhood memories of said franchise.

Now that September will not return for another year and the hot, sticky weather has passed through like a bad fart, I can finally make my runs and crochet some stuff. The muggy air had prevented me from touching base with a couple of connects at Venice Beach and driven me batty. While it's still hot (Summer usually leaves Los Angeles for a few days and comes back like a boomerang), at least it's tolerable out here.

I've listed some funky fresh hats and patterns on Etsy. Speaking of which, two things happened:

1) I sold a custom-made fedora to a lovely woman in New Jersey.

2) My broke behind couldn't even pay the damn Etsy bill on time.

So before I split and make this cash deposit, here are the newest listings: