Poll: Box Art Brawl: Duel - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions

Very easy win for the European cover for me. I love box art where there's lots going on, showing characters and scenarios from the game. Reminds me of the Super Mario Land game covers, which I love so much I have the artwork enlarged and framed, and they are a big inspiration for my own game covers that I design.

I'm also not keen on any game cover just havign a plain white background - to me, it feels lazy, and I especially love colourful backgrounds that show a location for the characters, like a blue sky, green grass or whatever. I know it was a fashion to have plain white backgrounds at the time, for a lot of DS, 3DS and Wii Titles, and its honestly one of the main reason I don't particularly enjoy collecting physical copies for those systems. To my eyes, it feels unfinished.

Finally, I vastly prefer the more dynamic pose of Mario and Luigi. I really don't like how they are just standing in a default stiff pose staring forward in the American one.

But hey, its personal preference. I can see how others would like a more minimalist approach.

NA one looks like the cover of a programming manual as done by children

This week it's a pretty easy choice, I gotta go with the European art work.

Europe by far, it's more colorful and energetic

Europe, no question. Really couldn't stand how they keep using those minimalistic boxarts for North America. They're charming, sure, but not for me.

Well, you don't see that every day, NA and JP siding and EU being the odd one out.

I still don't and never will understand why they make different covers, but the EU branch clearly wins this time.

I’m European, our box art is too much better in this case

The European one is miles better, also I just noticed how the NA/JP version has the "only played in 2D" message on the cover whilst the European version doesn't. So I suppose the NA/JP is more informative.

Box Art Brawls Current Total:

Europe: 59

Japan: 60

North America: 65

Australia and New Zealand: 1

I voted USA version since my majority 3DS games are USA region.

The North America / Japan İ like that version more.

I saw the European one and thought it was one of the most beautiful covers I've ever seen. I think the NA/Japan one is cool, but the European is gorgeous. Good job to that designer.

I know it is highly unlikely, but I do wonder if somewhere sometime the person that designed that will find this poll and see how appreciated it is.

European one is easily the best and is a fantastic callback to the OG on GBA. One of my favorite box arts of all time and one reason why I picked up the game in the first place back in 2003 (actually it was my first Mario game, technically I played this before any of Mario's platformers). Partner's in Time also had fantastic box art but all versions moved to the standard basic character screen Japan was using for Bowser's Inside Story, which was such a bummer.

@samuelvictor

"I'm also not keen on any game cover just havign a plain white background - to me, it feels lazy,"

(note: a suggestion to receive a certain recording of audio at this World Wide Web address (specifically the part of it between these points of its length: 25:22 - 34:17): https://www.npr.org/2022/01/27/1076168476/whodunit-at-the-afterparty-plus-the-lie-of-laziness )

NA looks so much better for me (unpopular I know but hold your pitchforks)

The Europe is very dynamic and the colors are awesome, but the simplicity of just Mario and Luigi standing there has this sort of presence, of might.

Huh, I'm in the clear minority here, but I think Europe is much too busy. I like cleaner presentations.

I never liked the European artwork, and that includes the original GBA release, and I'm not even particularly sure why. It just doesn't appeal to me despite otherwise liking covers that some would describe as "too busy".

And as much as I'm not crazy about minimalism or the fact that the Mario & Luigi covers on 3DS often look too samey for their own good, I prefer the Japanese cover in this instance.

They could have given it a background though.

I like the simplicity on one hand, but the excitement on the other. And both are consistent with previous games released in the series (because the series (in-)consistently keeps using two different kinds of box art). So it's a tough one. I wish they had really stuck with one of the two roads, and in that case... I still don't know which one I would have preferred.

Well... JP/NA one for me. Mario's and Luigi's faces looks funny on this one.

I never really liked the thing where the bros just face forward on these M&L box arts. It was fine for one game maybe but I don't really find it very charming.

Europe all the way on this one. One of the few times where Europe gets the better one by a landslide.

@Mario500 I went and listened to that podcast audio as you suggested - initially excited as I love Ben Schwarz but then realised he left just before the part you recomended! lol

Funnily enough, I've read "Laziness Does Not Exist", I saw it mentioned in one of the self improvement channels that I watch. I feel theres a lot of useful advice in reminding yourself you could always do "more" and more isn't always better, don't overwhelm yourself with pressure to perform. What we can percieve as laziness in others might actually be a sign they are dealing with something deeper, mental health struggles etc.

I'm afraid I don't really see how this applies to a piece of cover art though, especially not the trend of Wii/DS covers to just be plain white paper with characters or logos in the foreground. It definitely does feel "lazy" to me, in that it feels like they should have made a background, but then decided not to because they ran out of time or something.

I definitely understand that its possible for things to be "too busy", and that minimalism as a style is a choice... but Nintendo covers (bar NES blackboxes, which I similarly dislike) have almost always had a full picture with foreground and background elements, colour and details all over... except for the Wii and DS era, which makes them feel unfinished, to me.

Compare Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS to pretty much any other gen's Mario Kart game. Those 2 predominantly white covers look weirdly sterile and uninteresting - to me at least. I was very glad when the Wii U and Switch Mario Karts had far more colourful and detailed artwork, making the most use of the canvas.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "lazy" because its imposing an emotion or motivation onto the artists. But to be fair to my post, if you read the rest of what I wrote, I said that I was aware it was a stylistic choice and that others may prefer it and consider it minimalist.

I hoped I was clear that to me, I mostly meant that it looks unfinished, and like there should be something else in the white space. I'm autistic, and too much blank space in something visual makes me feel uneasy in the same way long pauses do in conversation. Sorry if I expressed that feeling in a way that might insult the artist, rather than express my personal preference.

Rare all out EU win.

Can’t get past how long Mario’s legs are in the EU version!

I can’t remember if Mario & Luigi games have been in Box Art Brawl before, but I hope they cover all of them.
Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga remake was great on the 3DS. I’m sure Nintendo could do an awesome port for the Switch.

I really like the European one, the North American/Japanese one looks like a billboard advertisement.

Europe for me. Never been much a fan of the Japanese box arts style being just Mario & Luigi and some other elements (depending on the game) in a white background, or purple in the case of Partners in Time.

Not to mention, the European cover art has Hammer Bro. in it, that's always a plus in my book.

I really appreciate Europe homaging the original North American cover but it's immediately weaker for not showing off Luigi's stripped socks.

@Uncle_Franklin Australia/New Zealand need to step up their game if they want to catch up 😅

European version just looks more awesome.

Some might say the European cover is cluttered, and that's fair, but the composition keeps it under control. Mario and Luigi are dynamic and are the clear focal point. All the characters around them are well drawn and well placed. Color choice is great. The Euro cover was immediately pleasing to my eye. Point is, any clutter it has is more than counteracted in every other way. Europe is my pick, easily.

The other cover is killed by Mario and Luigi doing that creepy, stiff-as-a-board pose with their eyes crossed. They look more unappealing than I can remember seeing them since their modern looks were established. Who thought that was a good idea? From that cover, I'd rather play as the Shy Guy and the Boo and go on a quest to destroy Mario and Luigi with fire.

European all the way. Personally I'd wager the box art might be part of why the series died.

Fans will know the difference but surely the general audience and grandparents buying the games for grandkids will be confused by all of the similar boxarts.

It works when there's only 1 or 2 entries in a system. But the 3DS had four of these games and the boxart are barely different.

Japan’s RPG box art often has this simple white background with characters design… I think it originated with Final Fantasy games. So this kind of design might have a classic nostalgic feel to them. Though I can’t say it works in such a wacky game like Mario & Luigi.

Posing is cool, but that ready for action cover is awesome.

Gotta go with Europe on this one. Not only is it visually appealing to me but I love box arts with all sorts of characters and nice backgrounds. On top of that the Europe box art genuinely reminds me of the old GBA box arts. The NA/Japanese ones are like a odd mix of the European lots of stuff here and the whole Mario and Luigi on a white box they’ve started since Bowsers Inside Story.

I like the JP cover a lot but Europe is just better in this one.

The European version is more faithful to to the original, which is one of my top 5 favorite game covers of all time.

I love the expressions on M&L’s faces on the NA cover more, but everything else is better on the EU box art, except that it almost has too much going on.

Cackletta takes it for the EU edition.

@Anti-Matter nice new profile picture!

I get the US/Japanese design. I really do.
The European one is just fantastic though. One of the easiest ones yet.

I'm going with Europe this time. Looks fun and colorful. Just a tad crammed.

My kid's voice has been spoken! It is the European variant for us this time!

Nothing wrong with US’ but I definitely prefer UK’s.
Looks more like the awesome Dream Team cover. Gotta love all those colors.

I'm gonna go with the US. The European one is great, but I've always found myself preferring the simple yet effective design of the boxes from Bowser's Inside Story onward and as @PtM pointed out, they also serve as a nice throwback to the JP Super Mario RPG boxart especially when you consider that AlphaDream was comprised of members of that game's dev team.

The art style is a fever dream of bad ideas.

Glad the European box art indicates that the game is compatible with the 2DS/2DS XL in case parents are unsure if it will work on Lil Timmie's Nintendo

Never liked the boxart trend of this series after Bowser Inside Story.
SSS and PiT boxart were so colorful and fun.

Then they became something similar to Final Fantast Cover.

The new Game logo + Mario and Luigi + something related to the new gimmick. Nice, but so boring.

Never picked it up because they changed all the Toads into the same model, unlike the original that has lots of different looking ones, I'll stick with my GBA version that can be played on my DS Lite.

@PtM
I think they took the wrong things from it considering the blank expressions that don’t really convey the mood and tone of the game at all, the renders on the RPG box are one step away from looking like basic t-poses and the remake’s recreation of this really makes it obvious, M&L’s take on it makes the art of the bros looks very much like turnaround art.

european box art, since it resemble the box art of the original GBA release.

I want so badly to love this game. I'm on my fourth attempt, and I think I'm at the end, but I am losing steam. I think I needed to have played this when I was younger to appreciate it now.. I just get bored with the party only being Mario and Luigi

No brainer for me personally Europe I like the diversity of baddies and the purple background with cacleta amazing