Used to have a friend who had KI Gold back in the day and we used to play it a lot. I picked Kim Wu originally because I thought she was cool with her nunchucks. It was fun! I liked how hype the announcer sounded, and who doesn’t love the sick theme that is “The Instinct”. 
Funny how it repeated itself when Kim Wu came back in Season 3.
Hmm…
When I was much younger, my eldest brother left his SNES at my grandparent’s house. Both my brother and me spent a lot of time there, especially during summer. We had an N64, but we didn’t bring it very often, so we mostly played on the SNES. Coincidently, my first game ever played was Dark Rift, so I was sold on fighting games. Back then, I would challenge and lose to both my brothers at MK4. When my older brother and I played together, we would usually play KI since it was the only fighting game we had on the SNES. He would beat me all the time with Spinal since he understood the combo system a little. I mostly played as “The Fire Guy,” aka, Cinder. Otherwise, I would watch him beat the game then we’d move on to playing Donkey Kong Country.
Then E3 happened. I don’t know why, but I was the most excited about it. I ran to both my brother’s rooms and asked them what they thought since we all watched E3 in superset rooms. My older brother mostly called Xbox launch “a failure,” and my eldest wasn’t all that interested. After that announcement, I pretty much neglected any news of the game. I didn’t have an Xbox One, and I decided to wait to buy it as a bundle and after the first wave of hardware failures were fixed.
When it did release, I both me and my brother watched my eldest brother playing it. He played Sabrewulf and my older brother played Spinal, as per his history of the character. When it was my turn, I hovered over the limited roster. I picked Jago which prompted my eldest brother to immediately exclaim, “I knew you’d pick the Ryu guy!” I was a big fan of Ryu and shoto characters having played him a ton in vanilla SF4.
Once I finally bought my own Xbox, I jumped on the chance to play KI. I started at the very beginning of Season 2, or the transition between Season 1 and 2. I started playing exclusively offline, and I was immediately hooked on the game. The music, the combo system, the flashiness, the cast, the ultra combos, everything about KI was phenomenal. I mentioned that I grew up playing fighting games, that bit is important as despite my enjoyment of the genre, it was not one of my favorites because I never understood how to play them and I usually lost against my siblings. However, once I kept playing KI, I knew I wanted to understand the core of the game, so I did. I jumped on the oooooold forums before they overhauled it into what it is today to get to know the community and understand the mechanics a bit more.
Once I started taking the game seriously, I dedicated my time to learning Thunder. He looked cool, did massive damage with ease, and it helped me learn how to do special moves on a considerably slower character. I started mastering quarter circle forward and back before I tried to learn how to do a dragon punch input. When I got enough confidence to play against my brothers, I won against both. My older brother asked me to play online to see how good I was since I had been playing for about a year without ever touching online, so I did. https://gamerdvr.com/gamer/otiger-spirit/video/2335407
Since that day, I spent more time on the forums asking for help and learning how to play the character I wanted to be great with, Jago. I asked @TheNinjaOstrich for advice on learning Jago, and I did my best to build him. @STORM179 and @Infilament were also amazing helpers, Infil being great by creating the KI page which taught me about other characters outside my own. The rest is history. I have loved KI since. I eagerly await a sequel so I can start the journey again!
I remember the E3 reveal for KI. I remember me and Jeff shouting out the names of Sabrewulf, Glacius, and Jago. We got so hyped for it, that we talked about it non-stop every hour of that day all the way into nightfall.
I first encountered KI in an arcade, like most people my age. I remember seeing people do Cinder infinites and it was pretty funny. I especially remember how loud the arcade machine was. I also played KI on SNES at friends’ houses but mostly just mashed buttons.
When KI was announced for Xbox One, I was extremely indifferent and had no interest (I had been playing or studying FGs at a high level for nearly a decade by this point). I watched the exhibition at Evo, the one in 2013 where they first showed Glacius (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teFOet_AOKg) and thought it looked cool-ish but I had no plans to buy an Xbox One. When the game launched, I read some reviews for it but didn’t watch any footage or pay any attention to high level matches. I was more interested in SF4, SF x Tekken, and Smash Bros Project M at this time.
In May 2014, I saw a Fulgore combo video on Eventhubs that I clicked out of curiosity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSJamcGtP6I) and I thought the game looked really cool aesthetically, so I tried to find footage of high level matches. I stumbled onto Grimmmz’s youtube channel and I thought it was super cool. The mind games of combo breaking and counter breaking were really unique, so I learned more about it and (begrudgingly) bought an Xbox One and some adapters to use my Xbox 360 sticks on (sigh).
I didn’t think about making a guide for the game until October, when Season 2 came out and lots of people in streams were asking how the game worked, but nobody seemed to be able to give solid answers, often not even the top players. So I decided to make a guide for it and spent 2 months working very hard on the first version, which launched in December 2014. Since then it’s grown in size and scope and I’ve enjoyed becoming something of a community ambassador for the game. I probably wouldn’t have done nearly as much work for this game if not for IG’s openness and willingness to talk to the scene, which kept me around. So for all the hard lessons learned from that experiment, I hope my contributions are one of the positive sides of it.
Like many people I saw Max play the new KI and followed his videos every time a major update happened (new seasons, characters, etc.). Though I was aware of the old games they never truly interested me like the new game did. Of course I didn’t have an Xbox One at the time (and I will never have a good gaming PC in my life it seems, so the eventual Windows Store version was also out of the question) so I followed the game on Max’s streams but never played it all those years.
Then one day I made the mistake of pre-ordering a game on Steam that had an utterly terrible PC port on release. My anger eventually led to me getting an Xbox One for my birthday to get the good version of said game, but also to finally play the new KI game. By the time I got to play the game Season 2 had been complete for several months, and though I was only allowed to play as Sabrewulf at the time (which was bad because I despise rushdown characters) I still felt fit to stay with the game until they eventually rotated characters. When Aganos was the free character on rotation I enjoyed the game enough to stay with it and eventually buy the Definitive Edition, and though I have a bad habit of burning out on KI from time to time I still manage to have fun learning characters I didn’t play much of before.
I was a primarily shooter player and fighting games didn’t interest me because of the whole “fighting games are difficult” thing.
But when Riptor was released, did AcidGlow (I watched him for his AvP videos) upload these two videos:
The only problem was that KI was Xbox One exclusive and I had no modern consoles, only my PC and my PS2, so I couldn’t play it.
I immediately got on to the KI forum and at the same time there was this poll if anyone would be interested in a PC version.
I was hyped! I even dreamed about playing this game on my PC after that!
So I followed how the game evolved throught season 2 and was active on the forum even though I couldn’t even play the game… and then it happened!
KI was officially confirmed to come to PC!
Sure, I still had to wait more than half a year to actually play it myself, but I was so happy that it was finally coming!
In the summer of 2016 I even got a Xbox One, even though I could have needed it one year earlier. (I don’t regret it though. Doom 2016 and Halo MCC where included which I wanted to play anyways and I’m a big fan of them too now)
Because of Killer Instinct I also started playing Mortal Kombat and I always look out for other fighting games that could be interesting for me. (although there aren’t many)
KI also introduced me to Mick Gorden who did an incredible job with KI’s and Doom’s soundtrack!
I even got 2 of my friends to buy KI!
Now it’s one of my favorite and most played game ever and I hope we will get a sequel one day!
For me, I had played past KI games, but I wouldn’t have considered myself a fan. I did own the Gameboy version of the original game, so there’s that. Then, I came across Maximilian Dood and watched his videos as he posted them, but I didn’t own an XB1 or a PC powerful enough to run the game at the time. Then, my previous computer tower died, and I got a new one that had Win10, so I downloaded the free Windows store version to see how it would run… turns out it ran pretty well, and that I really enjoyed the game. Bought the Steam version and I’ve loved every second of it
I’m surprised you came back after experiencing that horror.
I first encountered KI in the arcades. I goofed off a bit with Sabrewulf (At the time I thought his name was Cyberwulf😹) . I had a Genesis so I never played the SNES version.
To be honest, my first impressions of the game was that it was an MK clone and didn’t give it much attention until KI2 came out. Never played Gold on the N64, even though I had one.
When KI was announced for the Xbox One, I took a gander, and the graphics blew me away. Sabrewulf looked amazing. I purchased an Xbox One Day One, so I could play him. Then I tried Sadira and dropped the dog. 
I had this unsatisfied desire for sick combos which DmC from 2013 couldn’t fulfil (I like this game, but didn’t find its system intriguing), and I saw Cinders trailer and knew he is the one. I decided to play him, I felt in love with this game and its combo system, which really allows for innovative play and now we are here.
Hi i am the Infamously known r!Ck-r0LEd-U and what got me started in KI was back in 1994 when my friend had a birthday party at the local skating rink… since i sucked at using 4 wheel skates (roller Blades) was the thing back then i decided to hang around the concession stand and the coin operated cabinets(arcades) while i was finishing my nachos i noticed the had street fighter 2 and mortal kombat 2 but in the far corner was a new arcade game called killer instinct. i instantly dropped a quarter in the machine and picked Jago … after about $3 worth of quarters i had beat the game with flying colors… Next thing you know i was hooked. i would frequent the skate rink weekly to play the game. and when i found out that Nintendo was selling the Super Nintendo Console with killer instinct and 2 controllers as a bundle i immediately had my mom buy the console bundle and get me a super nintendo arcade stick(since i was used to playing it with stick then) So i am now a dedicated Killer Instinct fan that has played with Jago for over 23 years… Care to run a set anyone?? haha
Eh, I wouldn’t call KI on gameboy a horror. I mean yeah it looks pretty bad, but it plays surprisingly well for a gameboy game. It’s definitely the best out of the top 3 FG ports of the time (MK & SF2) , though that’s reeeeeally not saying much.
I became a KI fan by heading into college back in 2014 and seeing some people in the computer science room playing season 1. There were flashes and a guy in the background yelling COMBO BREAKER!!! SHADOW COUNTER! C-C-C-C-C-COUNTER BREAKKEEERRR!
I didn’t have an xbox one at the time and i was taking a break from gaming at the time. My brother surprised with a xbox one christmas of 2014 and the rest you say is history.
My introduction to KI started when I was very young, like 8 years old. At the time I was really into “Donkey Kong Country” and comic books, specifically “Spawn”. I also used to have cello lessons, but one day we finished early and the guy that was instructing me, a teenager, asked if I wanted to play a video game called “Killer Instinct”.
I had no idea what that was at the time, so I said sure. The first thing that caught my attention, aside from the SNES black cartridge, was the scary image of Fulgore leering out at me. When it got to the select screen and I heard the music, I was intrigued. When I scrawled through and saw the amazing characters, each of them highly realistic (for the time) and dark with a strong Todd McFarlane comic book aesthetic, I was drawn in. When I saw and played as Riptor, that was when it just immediately clicked. Since then I’ve kept my eyes and ears open for any KI-related materials, and was fortunate enough to get my hands on one of the early KI comics at my local comic book store along with the SNES game itself. Still have it in its original package and have been a huge fan since.
Back in the '90’s I was a huge Mortal Kombat fan, and most of my friends were into Street Fighter II, and none of us cared for Killer Instinct. We thought it was a clone, more or less, and passed on it; I never even paid attention to it in arcades.
I did play it once on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System at my cousins but had no idea what I was doing and thought it paled in comparison to Moral Kombat II.
Flash forward to the present, and a buddy had been recommending Killer Instinct (2013) to me for a bit now that it was on PC. I did not own an Xbox One or current gen console at the time. Still a big Mortal Kombat fan, I found the gameplay for Mortal Kombat 11 less to my liking (less replay value with it’s design in my opinion), and in the August long weekend of 2019 I downloaded the free-to-play version from the Microsoft Store on PC and tried the game out, and feel in love. Such a fantastic fighting game and mechanics.
I purchased it when it went on sale in September, and even ended up getting an Xbox One X in late September 2019 so I could practice while in my family room and play against friends locally.
I don’t know if I have answered in this before. But I figured why not. I actually got into the series because of the Death Battle between Yoshi and Riptor. The series stood out to me and I wanted to look into it more after that episode, Riptor appealing to the dinosaur but I’ve been since childhood. Very soon after I found out about the KI reboot and made the Xbox One my next gen system specifically to play it. The rest is history.