I used to like Tekken 3. Lei I'm-not-Jackie-Chan-honest-please-don't-sue Wulong was my favourite character. I knew all the moves, the Karate Kid Crane-thingy, the Bruce Lee posey stances (I detect a theme here), even the great lurch around like you're drunk to confuse the opponent attack (no, really, it's an actual move; it's called the "drunken master", and leads into a powerful punch). I kicked ass. I did occasionally get beaten by girls who had never held a gamepad before who worked out that if they took Hwoarang and hit circle lots they could win (no offense - they did tend to be female). I just put that down to one stupidly unbalanced character. I had played Street Fighter, but not for years. It was old hat.
Then lj got his nice shiny new laptop and started sitting around the living room playing X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Street Fighter Alpha 2 (He was using Final Burn, but he has the system boards, honest... *cough*). I was intrigued. Here was Street Fighter, but new and sexy, with big sprites and even Wolverine at times. I got him to bung me a copy, and borrowed one of his sidewinder pads. I loaded X-Men vs. Street Fighter. I hit insert coin, then start. I picked Ryu ("mr boring") and Cyclops ("the most boring X-man"). (you get to pick two characters, and switch between them. The fight lasts till both drop, one round only.) The old fireball came naturally, the hurricane kick too. Pretty soon I found I could combo. Real combos; ones that took skill and timing, like in Tekken, except that they felt more natural, like you were improvising rather than following a script. Cyclops was easy to use too, fireball for his laser-vision, and just improvise whatever else. I was hooked. I can Dragon Punch now. Sure, I can't make Ryu stumble around like a drunken fool, and he isn't Jackie Chan, but he screams "Hadoken!" like he means it, and nothing beats seeing a dragon punch connect with Guile's chin and his limp body fly across the screen in slow motion as you beat his ass into oblivion.
Tekken is good, but Street Fighter has yet to be beaten. I haven't touched my Playstation in months, but lj would have to fight to get his gamepad back. Not IRL, obviously. We have Street Fighter for that.