11. New York City (Guilty Gear)
The Guilty Gear backgrounds tend to look like something that you would see on the cover of a heavy metal album. Everything is just rad and larger than life. The first game’s art feels very washed out, but that only improves Sol Badguy’s stage in the ruins of New York City. If you don’t know the Guilty Gear storyline…well, I don’t have enough of an allowed word count for that. Basically, there was a 100-year war between mankind and magical mutants called Gears. The games themselves take place in the aftermath, where society is moving towards a utopia, but also there’s always a danger that the war will start anew.
New York City was a casualty of the war, now a dusty tomb with the striking remains of the Statue of Liberty. It’s desolate, haunting, and goes well with the feeling of cynical dread that comes with the first game. It’s also fitting as a hangout for Sol himself, as he is not only one of the ones who ended the big war but secretly the one who inadvertently caused all this death and destruction in the first place (the titular “Guilty Gear”). Later games would clean up the rubble and build over it, but it never looked as memorable as the first game.
10. Kousyu Street (Street Fighter III: Third Strike)
Street Fighter III and its upgrades boasted some of the sweetest sprite work to exist in the world of 2D gaming. Whether it’s Gill’s lava stage or Hugo’s questionable bachelor pad/attic, the backgrounds in these games are things of beauty. The best of the best comes from Third Strike, where Akuma gets his own stage. This is a rarity, as Akuma is usually more of a secret opponent or someone so shrouded in mystery that it’s odd to see him have a home to call his own. Usually, Akuma’s stages are a cave of some sort.
Here, he’s off in nature, albeit in a creepy setting befitting his dark aura. The Master of Fist trains in the middle of the woods with the edges of a mountain peaking in, unable to obscure the gigantic full moon looming in the sky. Adding to the eeriness are rows of statues, presumably training dummies fashioned by Akuma himself. It’s a fitting background to fight Akuma in, but to make things extra cool, when you fight his more powerful Shin Akuma form, the same background has a blood moon, turning the environment red.
9. Thanos’s Palace (Marvel Super Heroes)
Capcom’s Marvel Super Heroes is a very loose adaptation of the 1991 comic event Infinity Gauntlet. Not as loose an adaptation as the MCU’s Infinity War ended up being, but the comic certainly didn’t involve Psylocke and Shuma Gorath fighting on a train. Thanos is the final boss of the game and his stage is a perfect recreation of his domain in the Infinity Gauntlet comic. The architecture was created from his omnipotence and imagination, defeated heroes (Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, Drax the Destroyer, and so on) have been turned into statues, and you can even see Death and Mephisto just chilling in the background.
Its inclusion is perfect due to how it relates to the source material. In Infinity Gauntlet, a big collection of heroes went after Thanos all at once and he still slaughtered them all. He only lost in the aftermath by fumbling his power. Here, you get to succeed where the heroes of canon failed. Your choice and your skills can overcome what well over a dozen could not.