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.