Kemco's Phalanx may not be one of the greatest 16-bit shooters ever made - heck, it's not even close to being one of the best shooters on the SNES - but it has become famous for having one of the strangest western covers in gaming history.
Even at the time of release, people simply couldn't fathom what an old man playing a banjo had to do with a sci-fi shooter with spacecraft and aliens. It was completely nonsensical - but it turns out that was always the intention.
The two men responsible for this iconic cover are Matt Guss and Keith Campbell. Guss - who still works in advertising and his own agency - explains to Destructoid exactly what happened:
My ad agency had the Kemco account, and our task was to develop packaging and marketing materials for over 40 titles. Kemco would typically buy their games from 3rd party developers in Japan. Some were good, and some were not good. Weaker games needed more help graphically to get them to stand out on the retail shelf. We wanted people to pick up the package, get engaged with the story, and buy the damn game. The package was also used to help Kemco sell the game to retailers, so it had to make the buyers think the game would sell at their stores (i.e. Walmart, etc.). Most of the games back then were in a look-alike category: same genre, same kind of graphics. Nothing to differentiate them from each other. Keith was not a gamer, and, in fact, none of us were in our agency. But Keith was a brilliant idea guy and always was. We knew the game didn't have a lot to offer, but we wanted to make the package arresting. Keith called this kind of thing the "heavy huh factor." If we couldn't do anything else, we'd try and get the potential purchaser to stare at the package and try and figure out what just happened. Today it might be called a WTF moment.
So Keith could have done some predictable spaceship shooting bullshit that would have been like every other game out there. Or he could create a story that would make people stop and think about it. And I guess it's proof that was a good idea because people are still thinking about it. Phalanx was a very average game with an unexpected cover design. It needed a great/weird idea to stand out from the crowd.
As for the guy on the cover? His name is Bertil Valley, and he sadly passed away in 2004. Somehow, knowing all of this makes that odd cover art even more appealing.
[source destructoid.com]
Comments 62
Fun story!
Ha ha, very nice, all a marketing ploy so it would stand out, fair play to them
If there's one thing to take away from this, it's that it's all about selling games. They will do what they have to.
Slow news day
Or, they could have just taken inspiration from the Super Famicom cover. That would have stood out against all the bland SNES box covers.
The game actually isn't garbage, I played it on my SNES CLASSIC recently... there's WAY WORSE space shooters from that era... and god don't get me started on side scrollers... ugh!
@dew12333 Seems like you're having a slow comment day, chum.
I always liked this cover.
It's a great photo, and it brings the space action down to Earth, which is where people would find the box on shelves.
AAAAAAAAAAAAnd Kemco still hasn't learned... Their games are still awful. Totally funny story though The first thing I said was WTF when is aw the pic on the NL home page hahaha
"His name is Bertil Valley, and he sadly passed away in 2004."
SADLY? Phalanx was released in 1991 and in that cover photo, Bertil looked to be about 86 years old. By the time he passed in 2004, he would have been like 99 years old. I think he lived a good, long life.
I got the chance to play the game recently, and it's actually not bad! It's nothing amazing but it was still fun. Great write-up!
They had a sense of humour!
I love it.
I actually owned this game on my original SNES and it was actually my favorite shooter! Quite unfair for them to repeatedly call it mediocre. Maybe not the best, but it had a great ship design and smooth gameplay.
@MegaTen I realise they didn't develop the game, but they published it. Lagoon isn't a very good game either... So that developer isn't looking great.
Kemcos not without talent, just seem to misplace it... Like all of it... fairly frequently especially when it comes to sub par 3ds RPGs. The best part of those games is the copious cartoon cleavage.
There might not be many but i do love SNES shmups and "Phalanx" is definitely one of my top choices. But the best cover remains still the original X6800 version.
I didn't buy this game because of the cover..
I remember seeing this game in the Argos catalogue back in the day, and as a Mega Drive owner it made me think the Super Nintendo was a bit weird.
Do we know how well it sold? I'd be interested to see if their strategy worked!
Yes, probably more WTF than that :
I remember renting this because of the boxart. lol. Good game though.
@Shiryu Wow beautiful, wish I had known of that before as that looks great.
And all in all you know this game actually is pretty good. There was also a conversion of it later on for the GBA as well so you can have it on the go or on your SNES. I kind of wish I still had it but I never get around to trying to track it down. Yeah I could ebay it, but that's less fun.
@Averagewriter Not only that, they turned off the comments so people can't call them out as thieves.
Well played.
I prefer this kind of marketing malarkey over shady expansion packs or micro-transactions. OK game? Slap an old guy on the front. Love it.
@tanookisuit Here is the artwork in its full glory.
you can check out some more impressive stuff by Yoshiyuki Takani right here.
Even crazier: the first time I played "Phalanx" it was actually "Tiny Phalanx" on Playstation! It had the first three levels and it was the loading game for "Zero Devide", also by Zoom. Good times!
PS: I do own "Phalanx" CIB on Game Boy Advance, solid conversion unlike "R-type III".
@FNL So they should have said "happily passed away" then
@Averagewriter Well it is not word for word. Clearly they used a thesaurus. Not sure the word "vital" means what they think it means though.
"Even on the time of free up, " (even on the time of release, lol)
"purchase their video games from third birthday celebration builders in Japan"
I still remember he first time I played this. It was at a Wednesday Youth Group and someone brought their SNES and a few games.. Imagine my surprise when I booted it up and found a pretty fun shooter...
@Shiryu Even better. And ugh, RT3 on the GBA the developer should be drug out back and shot for that one. It's bad enough collectards have made the SNES game prohibitively expensive but then even the GBA one for as bad as it is still costs too much as it's a dollar dumper disaster.
Even as a kid I thought this cover was awesome. Never understood the people who want to call this one of the "worst" covers ever. Some people just don't get the joke, I guess.
Hahaha that is awesome and a good call, going viral before it was cool
Thanks for the read!
First time I've seen this cover, honestly.
First thing I thought about is an old man on the town outskirts, stargazing all night while playing his banjo and having a good time. Then he's so into his music that he totally misses a crazy spaceship passing his back. And life goes on.
@Kamalisk I'm dying from them replacing 'cover' with 'quilt'. Either someone doesn't know english or this was done by a bot, I'm not sure which.
I vividly remember seeing this box art at game stores when I was 9 or 10. It certainly grabbed my attention.
"Kemco would typically buy their games from 3rd party developers in Japan. Some were good, and some were not good. Weaker games needed more help graphically to get them to stand out on the retail shelf. "
That kind of sums up most Western publishing and the obsession with visuals above all else, doesn't it?
@Shiryu So they stole the Trifoce logo for that one.....still cheap marketing
this tactic works like once. then when they realize it has nothing to do with the game you have hurt future sales on everything from the company because you lose trust that your product is what it says it is.
@Jingo_Unchained pretty much!
@link3710 well, if you look closely, the old man IS on a quilt
Wow, lol, you learn something everyday. I think that's what other cover artists were doing back in the pre-internet age, since we couldn't just hop on the net and see what people were saying. Like the article said, sometimes it worked, and other times it was just lipstick on a pig
I remember the cover, but never really knew what the gameplay was like. But the box art didn't turn me off, I just wasn't buying a lot of games at that time.
I always thought the cover was trying to show some guy in the middle of nowhere playing his banjo late at night, looking up and seeing these crazy spaceships or lights flying across the night sky. Sort of like the Last Starfighter minus the arcade connection. As in there’s way more going on in here than meets the eye, but you must buy/play the game to find out.
I never did buy this game, but the cover art always interested me as it stood out from the rest. Now we know. Cool article.
Because Styder, & Mega Man really look like how they're represented on the box art to some of those games. Beefcake man, & a 45-yr old in a blue/yellow suit, with a futuristic looking weapon in his hand.
Edit: Fun read.
This cover made AVGN's bad game cover art series back in 2015. He has some clever remarks about it, but deduced it was all about differentiating this game from others. Very interesting to get confirmation from the source . . . .
I did not like the explanation or the site to which it was attributed (I had never liked that site due to the rude language in many of its articles).
Looking at the cover made me think maybe they were going for a space ballad kinda feel. "Let me tell ya boys and girls of a little ship called the phalanx that saved our little world from evil" then he would start singing a ballad of adventures in space and who knows in his ballad it could turn out he was in fact the pilot!
Mad Men: Video Game Edition.
@GameOtaku Was just going to post my thoughts but you hit the nail on the head. I always liked the idea that he was telling his grandkids about his voyage.
When my Super NES friend told me "Have you beat Phalanx yet? I told him yes I beat him in Demon's Crest" and rejoice!
Then he say, "No you were suppose to beat the other one." I kept wondering what other one he meant. Now I know, now I freaking know.
@Averagewriter I don’t think you know what “word for word” means.
Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why they specifically chose a hillbilly with a banjo. It just explains why they decided to use random/weird box art in a general sense. So, what was it that actually made them use that specifically for the box art, since the headline of this article leads us to believe we’ll be informed of that reason?
I always loved that cover art. I don’t even see it as being that weird. Even as a kid, I could tell that it’s clearly a space shooter type game.
Huh... I seem to remember actually really liking Phalanx. Then again, that could just be my childhood memories trying to trick me again.
Best box-art ever! By the way: No swear-warning?
This article explains it perfectly fine, sorry you apparently need someone to hand connect the dots for you but it's pretty easy to grasp.
The whole reason they used a guy with a banjo was to create a "wtf moment" that was completely random from the sci-fi game. There was nothing really important about it being a guy with a banjo, just that it fit what they were trying to do....Which was find something completely off the wall and not related to the game it self. They probably could have used any number of a 1000 different ideas to create the same result, they just picked this one probably mostly by chance.
And btw, this wasn't an "average" 2d shooter, Phalanx actually was an amazing game. It had great graphics, great levels and boss fights, and it was a blast to play. I actually find it sad that the marketing guys state "we knew the game didn't have a lot to offer", but of course this is coming from people who didn't play games at all. As far as 2d space shooters go, at that time, or even now, that is one of the best. There was nothing "average" about any aspect of it.
I thought this was a really great game; I played it a lot as a kid. I didn't ask for it, though. The fact that I received it at all (as a Christmas gift) is probably due to this box art.
I always ask why people is lamenting on that cover when I find it excellent, very 80ish. And old man with a banjo playing it while someone is fighting in the space. And the space is there, the ship too. Very 80ish. I like it.
I remember the advertisement in Electronic Gaming Magazine back in the day. Always confused me, never wanted to play it but I like the weirdness of it. Definitely not a great shooter though, there are far better ones on the SNES alone. Since the SNES though pretty much all US boxart has been bad. The border ruins them all. Most of the import Super Famicom boxes look like a standalone work of art and I like that many of them use the verticle orientation.
@gurtifus Does it look like a penis? Balls and all? Or I'm just a sick puppie?
If the old guy had an alien barrel at the end of its banjo, it would have been more interesting...
please excuse me while being on my laptop since Apple and Microsoft and that excuse aside who the heck is that guy with the banjo I'm sorry if this has nothing to do with that banana wang-ish ship phalanx but nothing the less though. There are rest of the world that just focus on the ship design including japan and austrilia and europe.
@maceng it does not matter though the Western are trying to theme it up but this has nothing to do with this
@maceng Well sorry this is not in the game originally though it was programmed in Japan for some reason. but actually, it was for the sharp X68000 computers first in Japan before this game was ported on home and handhelds.
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