Seriously tho I have no idea where I learned about gg it feels like it just mysteriously started existing one day many many moons ago and retroactively existed from that point
I do remember how I learned about Guilty Gear because it was the "kill your friends guilt free" magazine ad for the very first game.
And I also remember thinking "Wow, this game looks like shit."
nintendo power review of the ggx gba port. they said there was a guy with a bag in his head and i said 'wow thats so random'
i began going to locals in 2008 because of SSB Brawl netplay, got into playing Street Fighter 4 from there, and on one random night I played some version of GGXX against longtime Faust player Kyoku. i was too new to fighting games to remember anything besides the pogo sticks that hit my face and the cool styles that everyone had
My cousins, who are also into weeb shit shall we say, were at our place constantly when we were moving as my aunt and uncle were helping out a lot. Literally one of my cousins just happened to bring Guilty Gear X2: The Midnight Carnival #Reload for Xbox over one day, and I fell in love instantly (with the game and Ky Kiske). I explicitly remember him promising to lend it to me if I beat him, beating him and then... still not getting to borrow the game. Scammed... I got my parents to get it for me for Christmas a few months later. This was about 19 years ago right around this time of year... ๐ฑ