Sega Genesis Box Art Across the Regions

[timewarpgamer]

Ever wonder just how much box art varies between releases in the US/EU/Japan? Who gets the best art? What sort of differences are typical? My latest feature delves into these questions. Some titles I should cover were obvious (i.e. Strider and Castlevania--I unfortunately own the US version), but I'm curious about other box art disparities that have caught your eye. Anyway, here's the latest:

http://timewarpgamer.com/features/genes ... rison.html

Incidentally, if this sort of thing interests you, here's my first installment, focused on the TurboGrafx-16:

http://timewarpgamer.com/topgames/tg16.html

[jfrost]

Interestingly, I didn't think the discrepancies were as striking as in the TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine case. It was the sampling, perhaps?

[timewarpgamer]

Yeah, the story this time is a lot more nuanced. I couldn't find anything as notoriously awful as the worst U.S. TG-16 box art. Strider and Elemental Master may be bad, but they at least have a lovably old-school cheesy look to them, in the same spirit as Capcom's Mega Man 9 box art. That was a very cool move by Capcom.

[GagaMan]

Really nice analysis of the covers, there. One thing that tends to bug me sometimes about the Japanese boxes is when they have a nice illustration not taking up the whole cover due to huge flat coloured borders taking up most of the space. See Golden Axe 1 for example. Still, I've sold off some of my PAL Mega Drive games in place for the Japanese ones based purely on the cover art. Kinda sad, but ho hum.

But yeah, the Turbo Grafix ones for America are much worse. Good dam. I love the colour scheme Namco used for their Japanese HuCard releases, makes me want to start a small collection of them.

[timewarpgamer]

GagaMan, thanks for the props. I totally agree with your critique of some of the Japanese box art. Often the characters look great, but then the overall composition gets lazy with a flat one-color background.

Namco's boxes do look pretty sharp for the PC-Engine. I'd love to collect all the Japanese hucard releases; alas, my retro gaming budget has limits.

[IcKy99]

most of the time i prefer the japanese box art over the US art. most of the time the us art looks down right retarded, strider for example

[dire51]

I would love to have the MD version of Strider again, simply because of the artwork (well, that and a few in-game bits cut from the US version). I'm not digging Flash Gordon and the Planet of the Apes, not that I ever have.

On the same subject, I was hunting for a boxed copy of El Viento a little while back, and deliberately opted to go with the MD version because of the horrible artwork the US version got stuck with.

[BoringSupreez]

That was interesting.

[ZeroAX]

no sonic comparison? every region had it's own for 3. and also 1 I think?

[molotovwars]

no sonic comparison? every region had it's own for 3. and also 1 I think?

I know the Korean version of Sonic 3 is the same as the US version. The Korean art for Sonic 1 is unique though. I posted it in my Korean Sega thread.