Inazuma Eleven - BAB
Image: Nintendo Life

We are back with this week's clash of the covers! Welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl.

It was a trio of designs for the NES' Dragon Power that went head-to-head (to-head) last time, though neither the European nor North American artwork stood a chance against the eye-catching Japanese variant, which gobbled up 72% of the vote and left with the win.

This time, to celebrate Victory Road finally making it to Switch, we're throwing things back to Inazuma Eleven's debut entry on DS. This is the game that kickstarted the football RPG series, complete with OTT abilities, a player roster as long as your arm, and the kind of professional-quality anime cutscenes that we always love to see from Level-5.

You'll have to wait a little while longer for our full Victory Road review, but until then, here's a match-up between two covers (it didn't arrive in North America until the 3DS digital re-release) for the game that started it all.

Europe

Inazuma Eleven -
Image: Nintendo / LaunchBox

We'll be the first to admit, there's a lot going on in this European design. Mark and Axel take centre stage, naturally, but a large portion of the cover is occupied by headshots of the other players you can recruit, accompanied by the boast that you can choose between over 1,000 of them. We like the football pitch stretching off into the background, but sometimes, less is more.

Japan

Inazuma Eleven -
Image: Level-5 / LaunchBox

The Japanese cover shoots for something different. This is all-out action. The pitch backdrop is replaced by a deep red, hiding the faces of some of the recruitable ballers. The central duo take more kinetic poses, and everything that isn't absolutely essential *cough headshots cough* is gone. It's as vibrant as they come, but there's no denying that it's eye-catching.

Which region got the best Inazuma Eleven box art?

Thanks for voting! We'll see you next time for another Box Art Brawl.