Growing up in Panama, i realized now it was a melting pot of asian cultures, a lot of toys i had growing up were original imported from japan hard to get merch, type of rarity.
I don’t even remember how i went over to a friends house but i know he was big into japanese culture, and when i walked inside there it was the MVS console in all its glory, they were playing Art of Fighting 2, seeing how the game zoomed in and out was mind blowing to me at that time, ever since then Kings stage BGM got stuck on my head, they never let me play it, just watch.
Then in 95 i went to the. Fort davis carnival and remember seeing the arcade section, one of the games was Fighters history dynamite, that looping demo got stuck on my head also. Fast forward to 98, i discovered neo geo emulation and first games i finally played were art of fighting 2 and fighters history dynamite which then i found out it was called karnovs revenge. I had fatal fury on sega but never thought it was snk until i started getting roms. Been hooked ever since.