Even time I click on this thread I get actively annoyed that we got the worst box art in a lot of cases. If I ever decided to get a high resolution printer, printing out the nice box art would factor into the decision.
I love when games come with reversible box art. The Nier remaster has great secondary box art even if the game itself isn’t the best version
Today, let’s do a little Boulder Dash.
ZX Spectrum
Commodore 64
Commodore 64 (Plastic Folder, UK)
MSX
NES (EU)
NES (Japan)
Atari 8-bit (with actual screenshot from the game)
Oh, this is fab as all hell!
Pipe Dream has five variants, which I’ll label by the first of its kind to appear in Mobygames:
DOS, US:
Scream variant, Commodore 64, US:
Abstract, Gameboy, US:
Redraw the art and make it go the other way, Gameboy, Japan:
Add a friend, Super Famicom, Japan:
Do you prefer Weird Dreams (US)
or Weird Dreams (UK)?
(Both actually do a decent job of representing something from the game; the artists just chose very different things within the game.)
The Ultimate Doom in the US
The Ultimate Doom in Europe
That random demon isn’t art from the game but it sure is metal AF
I think the UK one is probably the sensible choice, but I love the wackiness of the US one, and it’s absolutely what I would gravitate towards.
Not wildly different, but amusing how the original cover and the Japanese computer adaptation have understood the same “show the heroine running away from a flying island with spiraling clouds and add some fisheye camera effect.” assignment with two very distinct interpretations.
Today I’ll focus on the original SimCity (Mobygames). The basic box art featured what looks like a very stylized TV set. The US version is similar; for fun, I’ll show the FM Towns one, which adds a frame around it.
The second one appears to be from the EU and takes a more geographical approach. The yellow, pink, and blue really pop. It’s my favorite.
The third is the Super Nintendo adaptation of the game, which features the letters as skyscrapers.
Two others. The first, an apparent magazine copy, trades the TV conceit for one with a whole lot more visual and textual noise.
And PalmOS says, “What if we make this retroactively consistent with the 1990s Sim box art people love?”
This is beautiful 90s perfection.
Ultimate Domain / Genesia.
The European version (Genesia) is this pseudo-futuristic fantasy that is all in someone’s head. (The longer I look at the outline to the head, the more unnerving it is.)
The North American version goes for a very Eurogame (Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico) sort of aesthetic: late medieval Europeans outside a castle they’re too big for, near a ship. The fist in the background pulling the land upward maintains a hint of the original cover’s sense of fantasy.
In both, the nod to the genre is the most obvious unrealistic element about it. Genesia says that strategy is in the player’s head, unfolding across a vast imaginiative landscape. Ultimate Domain says that strategy is in the player’s hand, to pull the land up like fabric to make it ours.
Today I submit Dune: He Who Controls the Spice Controls the Universe (Mobygames).
The North American DOS version goes for the 1984 David Lynch film, while making Paul Atreides look at the Golden Triad Award:
The Sega CD version goes for a photo of Paul Atreides, weirdly cropped (? is that the term?) with a drawing of a sandworm and some Fremen below.
The UK DOS version eschews people and lengthy titles entirely for a duned landscape with two moons. The Mega CD version is similar but rearranges the lettering and mirrors the image.
The US CD-ROM release goes for duality, sand and water.
The Portugal CD-ROM release goes for two structures in what looks like a desert.
