"I tell him how Virtua Fighter on the Saturn impressed me, but not as much as Tekken on the PlayStation. It was King's multi-part chain throw that did it for me, in Tekken 2 I think, although my memory is fuzzy."
If the author was 13 or 14 when the Saturn came out, I would have been about 10 years older. My memory on this is crystal clear:
Sega shit the bed by releasing the Saturn early in the US. They wanted to beat the Playstation to release, so they dropped the Saturn to "selected retailers" and the games just were not ready.
The idea that you could patch them post release did not exist yet and Virtua Fighter was so bad that Sega had to give away a free update called Virtua Fighter Remix to Saturn owners.
How bad was it?
Virtua Fighter Arcade:
https://youtu.be/rCKKe25P4l4
Virtua Fighter Saturn vs. Remix:
So I waited to see what Playstation had to offer and I got to play it at San Diego Comic Con that year.
The one that sold me instantly wasn't Tekken... it was Battle Arena Toshinden.
That was my 9/9/1995 Playstation purchase.