While music or the stage’s look alone are certainly reasons to enjoy a fighting game stage, it’s the combo of both here that makes Moonlit Wilderness one of the best stages ever made. A blend between string instruments, a stirring choir and a techno beat that’s practically a Tekken staple, and you’ve got an extraordinary score that serves as a perfect accompaniment to you hitting Wind God Fist on Jack’s robot dick for three rounds in a row. Not only is the stage aesthetically pleasing, but the music is also an absolute masterpiece. The landscape is pretty bare, with the only significant landmarks being some trees, a couple of rocks and a ruined castle, but whereas fighting game stages can often feel cluttered or like there’s too much going on, Moonlit Wilderness’ simplicity makes it an iconic stage.
Of course we’re talking about Moonlit Wilderness, which takes place in an idyllic countryside field filled with white flowers during a full moon. Despite all that though, Tekken 5 featured the best stage in the franchise’s history that took everything that worked in the early games, and used the improved power of the PS2 to add some much needed atmosphere.
The core gameplay is some of the best the Tekken brand has ever seen, while Namco finally managed to effectively incorporate closed arenas into regular play. Namco were still keen to build on these formulas in Tekken 5 though, and the end result is one of the best games in the entire series. However, Tekken 4 saw the introduction of closed arenas, which allowed for wall combos and other strategies to come to the forefront. The first few Tekken games featured infinitely scrolling stages on rotating backgrounds, which are still a staple of Tekken games to this day. Tekken in the 2000s was going through a kind of evolution, particularly in regards to how they approached their stages. First, we honoured some hallowed ground in the form of Third Strike’s Subway stage, but now we’re heading to the prettiest field in gaming. We thought we’d spend some time every now and then celebrating the best stages fighting games have to offer. There’s a lot of love for fighting games here at Cultured Vultures, but one of the most underappreciated aspects of a fighting game is the stages: the enclosed arenas where two titans collide in epic battle.
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