Kotaku's best animated 2D background stages from fighting games

great post

They need to bring some of these nature stages back.

I miss the old SNK days... Really cool stages

2D backgrounds are often under-appreciated.

SNK and Capcom had some beautiful ones back in the day.

lolkotaku

I refuse to give Kotaku any clicks, they are HORRIBLE. BEYOND horrible.

@6 I agree with you for once.

Where's CotA? Easily the best 2D stages of any Capcom game. I'd put MvC1 in 2nd.

Where's Fetus of God?!

these choices are bloody horrible

most Alpha2 stages were pretty amazing, shoutout to venezuela waterfall

Great post.
Terrible source.
Love the backgrounds though.
@6
inb4 "IT'S NOT A GAMING NEWS SITE IT'S A BLOG" argument.
But yes, that site is just terrible.

Lol wheres the stage from KOF13 with the fat chick going nuts and bobbing her head?!

@ 13

YES that's a top 3 stage of all time for me!

SvC Chaos really did have some gorgeous stages. SNK's always been really good about making awesome looking stages in their games.

The lack of Fetus of God makes Kotaku's article irrelevant.

Neo-Geo/SNK games have alot of great backgrounds.

Which came equipped with alot of great music.

Wow that's some REALLY bad taste...

Look at all these haters.

I bet their favorite stages is the training stage from SF4 or MvC3.

I think the problem is most of them come from sub-par games. But to say that the 2nd image is bad almost offends me as it's EASILY my favorite stage of all fighting games. The noise it makes when the water is splishing from your footsteps, the sound of the roaring waterfall in the background, how the time of day changes from day, dusk, and moonlight depending on the current round all while accompanied by Gato's powerful theme definitely leaves an impression on me.

tl;dr play Garou

Why the hate for Kotaku is beyond me, I really don't care. If they are that bad then i'd have to argue their choices for best stages here are pretty accurate. I love the one with th rain. All SNK fight stages are always living breathing paintings, in many ways I think they rival SF3 backgrounds in a lot of ways.

Capcom has some good ones but most of them feel flat and claustrophobic. You never get the sense that there is more around you. I would say their solar Eclips has to be the best Capcom background in history. Thats my opinion.

Damn! What happened to you? Your ass use to be so beautiful! Could you imagine those background stage in today computer animation. Each charater had their own stage and theme music. Even the music was blood boiling epic, I miss the good old days!

The end of days are truly upon us. Stock up on your can goods!

Why doesn't certain fighting game keep their stages for the next game, Like Mortal Kombat for instance they bring back all their cool stages like the Deadpool, Jade Desert, Subway, etc. Street Fighter never did that I like the Stage when people where standing on the boat and "Q" was on it also and guile street fighter 2 stage. Please just bring those old stages back.

Gotta love all of the 4chan neerds and their anti-Kotaku campaign.

No windmill CvS2 stage?