Poll: Box Art Brawl: Duel: Golden Sun

They've used blue so that the picture's compostion fits in a squarer space. However unlike metroid from last week, it's a little underwhelming. Almost looks like a colouring mistake. So UK this week. (Yes, I can be picky)

@GrailUK
That bird on the UK box art is angry their face was covered on the JP one.

I think it's a wash. I went with JP because I like the balance of that one with all the empty space juxtaposed with the busy cast area. I'm also a sucker for the logo with the Japanese characters, which also has a little more room to breathe.

They're both great though.

Of course Kanji looks great, but I don’t like all the other clutter (“Gameboy Advance” in two languages, “for 1-2 players”, “A fantasy RPG” … though one could argue that the western version does the same with the giant GBA margin and the silly “seal of quality”

@Mgalens Hahaha

It's the same artwork, so I guess we're just judging the composition. I think the Golden Sun logo at the top of a square box looks nicer than the Ougon no Taiyou logo that seems to sort of cover up the left parts of the artwork.

I also like how Garet's sword escapes the bounderies of the box art a little

Both about the same for me. Gave the edge to Japan just because I like those boxes more, wish they did the same boxes for everywhere. Much more space for the art with the more subtle GBA logo placement.

I guess it's a battle over layouts, then?

Japanese GBA box art seems to be quite bad,
too much space to fill in.

A rare instance of using the same art on both regions, but it coming out much better for the west.

I can't wait for the game to come to NSO for a replay. It's been years since I touched Golden Sun, not since the awful DS release.

I gave my vote to the North American/European box art.

@Dark_Isatari Rule #1 of Japanese product design: have some empty space? Put some text in there!
...Just kidding, that's the ONLY rule of Japanese product design!

For the actual artwork used for the box art, the western box works better than the Japanese one this time, so my vote goes there.

Thanks for reminding me of getting this and The Lost Age before the Wii U eShop closes.

NA/Europe this time. Both designs are good, but the box art orientations for the GBA help this one. While I like the blue space on the Japanese variant, it feels a little unnecessary and just...there. Besides, the Golden Sun logo is blocking that poor Eagle's head....

I don't think I've seen the actual box art before now. That's a really nice painting.

@kurtasbestos don’t get me started on Japanese webpages… -_-

@kurtasbestos Bonus points if the text is in English, and serves little purpose beyond being there!

Box Art Brawls Current Total:

Europe: 48

Japan: 53

North America: 58

Australia and New Zealand: 1

@Horace Good catch. We're having to choose between covering up the dragon, or covering up the eagle. Not a good situation.

I remember seeing both this one and Advance Wars in a toy store I passed when walking home from school, and going in just to look at them way more often than I should have, only to go in a game store a little further and look at the same and other games again, sometimes renting them (which was still a thing back then), and eventually buying them used. I had no tv so I never even looked at anything but the Game Boy games. But damn it, I did look at them often. Further there was another store that had some games, and I remember buying Cannon Fodder for GBC there after looking at it a thousand times. I hope they bring that one to Switch online as well. But they didn't bring the SNES version of it... Or better, make a modern twin stick remake of it.

But I'm getting way off topic here. Also, I ate a fresh coconut today.

Sometimes, empty space can work well, but I don't think this is one of those times. For me, all that unused space doesn't really add anything of value. So in both cases there is a character that is covered by logos. However, in the western version, it's less obvious that the dragon is there under the logos while the eagle is very obviously obscured by the title logo on the Japanese cover. The western cover is my pick.

US this week. Weird that the JPN box opted to simply use the US art... and do nothing with the extra space.

Usually the JPN box is the original, & then the US box crops it or goes with something else entirely. Unusual that it seems this is the other way around.

North America/ Europe
I don't like the blue section in Japan box art, it doesn't fit with the main design

@Ooyah The angry bird is there, but has been censored by the logo.

North American/European wins for me, it being centered and the blade overlaying the GBA logo looks neat.

I like the extra blue in the Japan box. Kinda frees up the busy design of characters

I went with the PAL/NA one here. The dirty greens and brown at the top make it look like our heroes are in a cave, and the logo is placed perfectly.

However, I never even noticed that those were little bats at the bottom of the image! A very slightly more zoomed out version of the artwork allowing for all the beasts to be shown would have probably made more sense.

Iconic game, and deservedly so.

Mia is wielding a sword in the art in both. In the game she can only wield staves and maces. Worst boxart ever.

But for real this is one of my favorites, and was my phone wallpaper for a bit.

It's almost the same thing in different colors. I'm giving it to NA/EU because there's no logo to cut off the griffin's head.

Me personally, the US design is better, but the JP art feels more crisp than the US.