Oh, hey, it's the guy from the box art!

Gaagaagiins

I love when the guy from the box art shows up. It lends a sort of authenticity to the advertising effort. You bought that game because you saw the guy on the box art so the guy damn better be in the game, and at least sort of as cool as he is on the box art.

Contra Hard Corps continues the Contra series’ then 1 game streak of putting a freaking sick giant robo skeleton on the box art who then shows up in the game. I especially like the effort put in here in order to interpret the RoboSkeleton’s GenesisOrb Hands into the medium of sci-fi realism illustration.

Conversely, I’ve always felt Heckran is a weirdly placed and kind of anticlimactic to end up on the box art. It’s a cool piece of concept art, a great dynamic scene with a lot of storytelling. The main problem is, though, that this scene doesn’t happen in the game, even if Heckran is there. Is this a sign of some cut or rearranged content maybe? It was a weird choice too considering this box art makes Chrono Trigger look like a relatively generic fantasy when its general conceit, time travel, is completely absent. You’d think they would have chosen some concept art with either a robot or a dinosaur, or a robo and a dinosaur, which is something they easily could have made happen. Also Marle is casting a fire spell! What the hell?

Nevertheless, weird rather than just disappointing discrepancies between the guy on the box art and the guy on the box art as he actually appears in the game are still great. I love to get to Heckran and think, “that’s the guy from the box art.”

The guy from the box art of Super Metroid makes a pretty early appearance. I gotta say, one of the best and weirdest incongruities between the guy on the box art and the guy on the box art as he actually appears in the game is when the color palette is completely different.

Also, damn, I just realized now at the top of the box is Kraid’s feet!

Also, I’ve never thought to look up the SFC version of the Super Metroid box art, but holy damn, the rest of the world got robbed.

There’s so many guys on this here box art!

Post your favourite guys where when you saw them in game, you thought “that’s the guy from the box art.”

Syzygy

Gaagaagiins

Syzygy it’s cool that he’s on the box art but in a non standard form!

captain

I like when big RPGs have the whole party on the box art and you get to have this experience several times stretched over a long playthrough.

Here you are 7 chapters into Fire Emblem and suddenly

Oh, hey, it’s the guy from the box art! Two of them! (if you’re looking at the Japanese box)

I played around 35 hours of P3 years ago and never met the guy with the fan in the upper left.

And in Final Fantasy sometimes it’s a mystery who is even on the box art! I thought this was supposed to be dark knight Cecil for the first few hours (or however many it takes to get to Golbez).

Gaagaagiins

captain I like when big RPGs have the whole party on the box art and you get to have this experience several times stretched over a long playthrough.

yes…

Even more hot is when you get a guy in your party who ISN’T on the box art.

I feel I could make a whole other thread about surprise/late game party member additions

EDIT: No. We cannot. Because it would be Spoilers.

captain

oh man

that’s the guy from the box art?!?!!!?

穴

cow

captain

Gaagaagiins
EVERYTHING
IS
SPOILERS

captain

Companion thread:

Who is that extremely sexy guy on the box and why isn’t he in the game???

Gaagaagiins

Perhaps the Genesis is the ultimate “guy on the box art” console

I’m also having fun looking up the domestic release box art for these games and if you don’t see Gunstar Yellow’s hands behind the logo it kind of looks like her arm is snuck up Gunstar Red’s pantleg. Please calm down!

Syzygy

FF14 has funny examples now that it’s brought up: again, the initial 1.0 version came out in 2010 and was a commercial / critical failure, leading to the unprecedented move of remaking and relaunching the game with new staff and design in 2013.

1.0 had a collector’s edition with this typical vague Amano fantasy character on the box:

Eight, almost nine years later, in patch 4.4 of the reboot . . .

I’m going to spoil this next one because if you ever intend to play FF14, it’s a moment worth experiencing for yourself.

This was the reboot’s cover art in 2013:

Those characters designs are all in ARR, however— seven years later, in patch 5.3 . . .

pasquinelli

off-topic, but the contra hard corps soundtrack owns.

Gaagaagiins

pasquinelli off-topic, but the contra hard corps soundtrack owns.

treefroggy

Phalanx box art is an actual photo of @Syzygy

Syzygy

I can at least confirm I know about a dozen old Appalachian coots who look like that.

Snowdecahedron

Am I going to meet this guy? Is it supposed to be a player character?
Turns out, kind of both.

◉◉maru

I’ll try to think of something clever this weekend but for now I can lazily recycle my Shienryū submission to the Last Letter Game Collection thread.

★The guy (DIO):

★On the cover (Shienryū):

Bonus: in this case, The Guy might be The Title too.

I support any exclamation mark question mark human centipede combo regarding the belated in-game explanation given for the logo of Final Fantasy XIII. Big « forgot to do my homework and bullshitting my way through the Teacher’s questions » energy right there.

hellomrkearns

Gaagaagiins

hellomrkearns The secret of evermore box art guy is a HUGE one. So much so that I thought of him even though I’ve never played Secret of Evermore

穴

sticking with katamari here because I can imagine a japanese person playing Minna Daisuki Katamari (We Love Katamari) and upon encountering the credits saying “Oh, hey, those are probably the guys from the box art!”

exodus

穴 I forget whether you get to roll the Namco building up in this one… That’d be another cover guy

◉◉maru

I have been thinking of interesting cases (in more senses than one). Nothing as clever as 穴 ‘s Namco staff example but…

Dragon Quest (1986) is interesting because it’s a case of “what it says (and shows) on the tin” but you wouldn’t know it for a while. Most Famicom game boxes used very loose artistic interpretations of what you should expect in the game. You’d think the same of Dragon Quest until the very end when the Final Boss does in fact transform into a Dragon almost exactly like the one on the cover. It has a slightly different color scheme but this can attributed to the hardware’s technical limitations. Also, the scene belatedly validates the title! Speaking of belated validation…

YU-NO (1996), released ten years later, is interesting because the title’s meaning as well as the cover character’s identity and purpose in the story both remain a mystery until the final few hours of the game. I am using the Saturn version (1997)’s cover above but the original PC-98 version also featured this enigmatic character, in the same location and wearing the same clothes (or lack there of), only in a slightly different pose. OK so we get Dragon Quest, an influential adventure game, let’s combine these and…

Japanese adventure games owe a lot to Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (1983) and especially its Famicom version (1985). As many of you know, The Portopia city’s serial murder case is an extremely influential interactive detective mystery from the same people who would later create Dragon Quest. Here is a good article from HG101 that somehow does not spoil the culprit(!), if you are interested to read more on the game and its impact on Japanese pop culture.

The story comes with a famous twist, which is pretty much as well known and parodied in Japan as the endings of Usual Suspects or The 6th Sense have impregnated Western pop culture. But the cover of the Famicom version is also known for making an interesting and controversial choice. It depicts the two most important characters in the story in a scene that is described to you near the end of the investigation and hints at the true culprit of the crimes. So it’s in fact very similar to the Dragon Quest cover, although you would not understand all that until you cleared the game.