Metroid Prime Pinball - BAB
Image: Nintendo Life

It has been a particularly Metroid-packed week, and we're keeping that Morph Ball rolling in the latest edition of Box Art Brawl.

Before we do that, however, let's recap what happened last time. Celebrating the arrival of its Game Boy counterpart on NSO, we matched up three covers for Bionic Commando on the NES, and our favourite cover walked away with the win. The action-packed North American cover took the gold with 58% of the vote, Japan followed behind with 36% and Europe mopped up the remaining 6%.

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube842k

This week, with Prime 4 finally in our hands, we're throwing things back to Metroid Prime Pinball. Now, is this the best game with 'Metroid Prime' in its title? Probably not. But there's no knocking Nintendo's efforts to try something new — and, aside from Kirby and Pokémon, who's better to star in a pinball game?

Europe and North America opted for the same design on this one, so we have a good old match-up between East and West on our hands. Let's check 'em out.

Europe / North America

Metroid Prime Pinball -
Image: Nintendo / Launchbox

You've got to give it to the Western cover, there's no doubting what the game has in store after looking at that design. Samus looms over the top half of the box, and a pinball table occupies the bottom. Simple. It's all a little bit subdued, opting for the metallic greys and yellows that dominated sci-fi in the mid-2000s over anything particularly eye-catching, but hey, it's Metroid Pinball, alright!

Japan

Metroid Prime Pinball -
Image: Nintendo / Launchbox

The Japanese design has a lot of the same cues as its European counterpart, but the end result is rather different. Right from the jump, look at all of those colours! The dull greys of the other cover are overshadowed by neon lights and lasers, making the pinball table look that bit more exciting. There are also Metroids floating overhead, and nothing screams 'action pinball' quite like aliens.

Samus is a lot less prominent in this one, shrinking away into the upper right corner, but we'd say that the series' vibes are still present and correct.

Which region got the best Metroid Prime Pinball box art?

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