Real Places in Background Stages

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

One of the things I really enjoy abt fighting games is the exotic background stage locations your battles take you to around the world. These are usually a hybrid of real plaes, fictional cliches, refrences to other games and origonal fantasy creation, but there are a few that are depictions of 100% real locations (give or take a bit of artistic licence), so I thought would be cool to start a thread on these.

FEI LONG SSF2/SSF2T:
The main motivtion for staring this thread was just discovering that Fei’s Hong Kong balcony is based on a real place!

Its the Tiger Balm Gardens in Hong Kong, a fantasy park built in 1935 at a cost of HK$ 16 million by Aw Boon Haw creater of ‘Tiger Balm’, that stuff Ur mum used to rub on you for blocked noses when U were a kid! Capcom’s artists really captured it:

http://www.mitchberman.com/hongkong2.htm

On the left of this pic you can actualy see the balcony you fight on!:

Tragicaly this wonderful place was recently demolished to make way for residential development:( :
http://lambcutlet.org/gallery/Day_15/The_ex_Tiger_Balm_Garden

CHENG SINZAN - Fatal Fury 2/Special:
Was especialy pleased when I discovered this one, as you can see from my avatar, Cheng’s Hong Kong stage is a personal fave.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/neogeospirit/FFS_section/images_ffs/cheng_stage.png

It is actually the boarding point for the ‘Jumbo’ floating resturant in Aberdeen harbour.

Luckily this one is still aound and going strong. Table bookings taken here!:
http://www.jumbo.com.hk/

MIZOGUCHI - FHD/ Karnov’s Revenge
I only noticed this one when a friend moved to Osaka Japan, and sent me back some snaps. “I’ve seen that somewhere before” I thought…

Mizoguchi’s stage is actually the bridge over the Dotonbori river - Osaka, Japan under the localy famous ‘Glico runner’ sign.

Bet there are lots of other interesting ones out there…
Please try to keep it interesting, not too obvious (Statue of Liberty, Great Wall of China etc…), and not too speculative (“this Budhist temple looks just like…”)
Crayfish.

2

Hey great thread idea! Cause guess what, when I use to live in HK I was playing SSF2 when I was around 6 or 7 on the Genesis, then I saw Fei Long’s stage and my mom told me that place is really there called ‘fu pow bit siu’, and I was amazed then asked my mom to bring me there and I still have photos taken from there, ah good times. But yeah, I also heard that it got teared down few years ago, wanted to go there again, but oh well at least I went there.

As to the other stages, good finds, I saw the FF2 stage before, but never knew it was from Jumbo. Once again, good thread.

:karate:

3

Thanks m8, is really cool to hear abt your story, must have been amazing to visit!! The closest I’ve come to somethinglike that was visiting Tower Bridge when I first moved to London from my samll hometown in England to check out the ‘Coggs’ from Billly Cane’s FF2/Special background (guess what, they wern’t there, duh!). Even tho I’ve never actually even left England, I’ve dreamed of visiting Hong Kong my whole life and seeing the Gardens would have been fantastic, but I literaly only just found out about them this morning. Even before I started playing streetfighter, I grew up on the oldschool ShawBros Hong Kong flicks and especialy films like Bloodsport. Some grotty HongKong backstreet is possibly the most evocative image I can imagine! For now, I can still (with a little imagination) get a kick out of visiting Chinatown in London.

Please note that in that screenshot the ‘Jumbo’ is obscured by Cheng’s own Dragonboat resturant, but if you play the game its clearly visible. :tup:

Crayfish.

4

Dudley’s stage on 3s has a London Underground not sure if it’s based on a real location or whatever.

5

when i played KOF 2001, I had the the gut feeling italy stage was based in Venice. looked it up and found this.

Reality

In-game(italy pic)

cool thread! :tup:

6

Hehe, I just found this image of a Rugby player on holiday:

http://www.diamondgeezers.org.uk/competitions/farflunggeezers/entries/jumborichard.html

and managed to recreate the scene on WinKawaks!!

http://img55.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jumbu0pw.jpg

:slight_smile: Crayfish.

7

do you remember jojo’s bizarre adventure the fighting game ?? yeah the same as the 1st post too …

tiger balm garden still exist ! is in singapore ! and admission is free !

8

Yes I had noticed this too but i cant find a screenshot from JoJo for that background. I think its based on this section, where the steps lead up through rock:

Yes there is another Tiger Balm gardens still open in Singapore, thats cool. Still shame about the HongKong one tho.

Crayfish.

9

I always thought the Fei Long’s stage was made up too because of the colours, but my dad saw me playing and told me it was a real place.

It’s pretty obvious Yun/Yang’s stage in SF3 is based on photographs of HK night market, although that “place” may be a combination of real places/photographs and put together in the artist’s mind. When I go back to HK next month I’ll keep my eye open but I doubt there is a real place called ???.

10

kens stage in 2nd impact is the golden gate bridge in san francisco

the game:

the place:

11

In King of fighters 98, the Spain stage is based on a building from that country called “(La) Alhambra”.

Kof 98 stage: http://www.neo-arcadia.com/NG-testsc/kof98/Image4.jpg

Real building:
http://www.gardenhomearchitects.com/Alhambra-The_Lions_Courtyard.jpg

12

i’m sure that ryu / sagat stage in alpha 2 exists somewhere…

13

Chun-Li’s stage is on the Great Wall of China!

:smiley:

14

Venezuelan Stage in Alpha 2 is based on the Salto Angel Falls

Stage

Real Place

15

Real place Knightsbride. The bulding in the backgrund is supposed to be Harrods, the street isn’t Downing Street however.

Real

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/4498/sattheknightsbridgetubestation.jpg
Stage
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/1337/dudleybg2ak.png

16

I’m pretty sure King of Fighters series has a few of these. In fact KoF 2002’s Korea stage wasn’t too far from where I lived when I was in Korea.
http://neo-arcadia.com/NG-testsc/Kof2002/kof2002.php
scroll down to about middle of the page under “Corée du Sud” to see Korea stage.

http://cnscenter.future.co.kr/icisc01/main.html
http://english.seoul.go.kr/today/about/about_02top_4601.htm
the real thing.

17

Yeah you’re right, there is no such place as hong kong choi goon, it is a made up place from combinations of different places, but you can tell that the place is most likely Mong Kok/Sham Shui Po.

18

Where are you guys getting the pure backgrounds without the characters or HUD?

19

http://excaliburgames.digibase.ca/zweifuss/

:karate:

Edit :: Crayfish - I found a better picture of the Jumbo restaurant, WAY better, lol.

:sweat:

COPY & PASTE THE LINK.

20

That link doesn’t seem to work m8, just get a forbiden403 message

Kim Kaphwan - Fatal Fury 2/Special
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/4381/kimffspecial5cw.th.jpg

Kim’s Korean city square is the Nandaemun Gate in Seoul:

Crayfish.

ps the 3rdStrike background link is really cool, does anyone know where/if you can get the 2nd Impact background’s? Especialy the Hong Kong ‘Curiosity Shop’ with the fishtank etc… also any other background resources, there are lots in Mugen form but hardly any in simple image format… thnx