🚀 go-pugleaf

I feel as if I have written something like this before (and it's because I
have).

Back on October 26, 1992 right here in these very newsgroups, Sean Givan
posted a series of matches between the fighters of several arcade games and
asked for the readers to decide who would win.  The process was continued
until there was only one left.  Amazingly, everything was wrapped up in just
over a month.  Thus was the Dream Tournament born!

There have been 3 Dream Tournaments completed over the years.  A fourth one
began back on August 1, 1996.  To say it ended up in limbo would not be
entirely correct.  The people who took over Dream Tournament 4 had a case of
"real life" hit them and things went on hiatus after Round 3.

That's where I came in.

On October 1, 1997, Dream Tournament 4 was relaunced with myself, Kevin
"Emerald" Kanda, and Thomas "Wanderer" Wilde.  Little did we know that Round
4 would end up becoming the Semi-Finals.  Little did we know that we too
would come down with a case of "real life" and again things were halted.

Fast forward a couple of years.  March 26, 1999.  I finally got around to do
doing the vote ballot for the finals.  Got the results and the final match
was begun.

Only problem was that burn out kicked in for good and things sat.  So no, it
wasn't in limbo.  I knew where DT4 was.  It just wasn't going anywhere.
Noone else really wanted to do it.  Y2K came and my interests just weren't
on writing anymore.  So, DT4 went on a long vacation.

So here it is now, May 9, 2002.  Looking through some of the old postings, I
see that some fanfics make their appearance from time to time.  And even
with the dying arcade scene and arrival of the "dream" crossover games
(Capcom vs. SNK 1/2), there still appears to be some interest in these old
stories.  Well, I am proud to say that Dream Tournament 4 has been finally
completed.  Now, I am putting up an archive of all 4 Dream Tournaments
(which you should see in early June).  In the mean time, I am hoping that
many of (very) old time readers enjoy the show as well as bringing in some
of newer people who may not know what the Dream Tournament is all about.
Considering this year marks the 10 year anniversary since the original Dream
Tournament, I find it fitting to bring you the long awaited conclusion of
Dream Tournament 4.

Because there is quite a bit to DT4 (despite only 5 rounds total), I am only
reposting the Semifinals.  The next 3 posts first appeared back in 1997.
This should help give a "crash course" to those who aren't familiar with the
Dream Tournament as well as set up how we did reach the finals without
clogging up things too much (plus that's what the web archive is for) :)
The 4th post will be the final round.

It's taken a long time to get here, but I think it was well worth it.

There were 5 newsgroups that this was cross posted to back in the day
(alt.games.mk, alt.games.sf2, rec.games.video.arcade, rec.games.video.sony,
rec.games.video.sega) and those are the ones I am sticking with for now.

It's the beginning of the end!  Welcome to Dream Tournament 4!

- H