Poll: Box Art Brawl: Duel - Batman Returns (SNES)

What a massive win for Japan...

Both are pretty ugly, but there’s still a clear winner.

North America / Europe for me.

Both are pretty ugly but the NA box features the army of penguins making it the clear winner.

Japan is way more comicy and way more clean. Therefore my favorite.

Japan has won this in leaps and booty, something abooty this one just makes it a butt above the other. Maybe it's just a little more cheeky?

I’d love it if this and The Adventures Of Batman & Robin to the NSO SNES app. Licensing be damned!

I chose Japan for the Cat Woman on the front and the bat punch on the back

Box Art Brawls Current Total:

Europe: 53

Japan: 56

North America: 62

Australia and New Zealand: 1

EU and US all the way. It fits better with the darker tone of the movie. I used to love this game but never beat it.

Wow, the comic renditions of Bats, Catwoman, and Penguin are just too cool to vote against. I suspect Konami used a Japanese illustrator to render movie scenes in an Ame-comi style. Or maybe they commissioned an American artist?
Super cool either way.

Incidentally, I never played this back in the day, but really loved Batman Returns on the Sega CD.

I would love to know who drew the Super Famicom box art, because that is excellent comic book quality art!

Definitely Japan. These comic renditions are great and remind me of a kid-friendly book a cousin once had about this movie. The NA/EU cover feels like a hack job of glued together clips from the movie.

Japan for the nice looking illustration.

Japan for sure. Illustrations are always better than lazy photo montages.

@Teksetter There's similar promotional "comic book" look material for the movie that was used in McDonald's and other things back in the day, it seems they just used those assets to make the JP cover.

Who would have thought that, 30 years later after Batman Returns, Michael Keaton would become Batman again? What an awesome time, and what a fantastic game Batman Returns is.JP Cover takes it away this time, but I remember the cartridge sticker was cool on NA.

Japan easily.

I don't get the idea that the Japanese art is removed from the movie though. That's clearly a comic book styled Keaton Batman specifically, and not just "generic" Batman (same for Catwoman & Penguin).

Went with North America for the nostalgia. If there was an equal voting option I would have picked it. Japan's is great, reminds me of the McDonald's drinking cups you could get.

Is that Val Kilmer or Michael Keaton? If Val, I'll go with Japan, if Michael, still gonna go with Japan.

Amazing game, personally both box art doesn't do the game justice. But the Japanese version is definitely the better one.

I hope this game along with NES Batman and SNES Adventures of Batman and Robin get a re-release in the future.

Japan, no question there. Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman could have potentially beaten it, if they wanted to go for something out of the movie, but I think I would have still given the win to a drawing in the style of the comics, especially for a videogame that, well, didn't look much like the movie. A drawing that also has Catwoman AND the Penguin in it.

As photographic covers go, the western box isn't bad. I think it still looks interesting enough to catch my eye. But I prefer a nice illustrated cover. It's something I miss from old movie posters. I was always drawn more towards comic books and animation over live action. So for me, Japan wins.

The NA/EU box art is just shots from the movie slapped behind Michael Keaton. The JP cover is more stylized, and has Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, and especially Michelle Pfeiffer on full display. My only issue with it is Keaton's lips look oddly puckered up, like holy sour lemons, Batman!

They should release a compilation of 8 and 16-bit Batman games that includes this game along with The Adventures of Batman and Robin (SNES and Mega Drive), Batman: The Animated Series (GB) and Sunsoft's Batman games (NES and Mega Drive)

The Japanese cover reminds me of Smell the Glove.

Both are pretty bad.
The NA one looks like someone just slapped whatever images they could from the movie and threw them on there.
The Japan one, Catwomans pose is horrible for cover art of a game and Batman looks off (something is wrong with his arm I can't put my finger on, like it's twisted too far or the wrong way or something) and the pose.....blegh.
The Penguin and the back art on the Japanese version are the only good part of either of them, so I guess Japan wins.

I very much prefer the the North American variant. Something about the Japanese one doesn't sit well with me, though I do enjoy the art style chosen for Batman in that graphic. Even so, the North American wins out for me.

Batman looks like they forced him to pose for the picture

I give it to Japan on this one but just because of the really nice art but also because the back shows off some actual gameplay versus the American one which is like HEY LOOK ITS THE MOVIE despite it looking nothing like that.

Nah, how anyone votes for NA/EU for this one is beyond me!

I used to own the comic (glad DC revived it with Batman ‘89). Cool to see the similar artwork.

NA is so hilarious, I couldn't not vote for it

NA/EU. The tantalising promise of these film tie-ins for me as a kid was that the game would look and feel just like the film (had to wait until the Arkham games for that pleasure). The cover with shots from the film almost serving as a film poster meets that requirement.

Would be interesting if Konami can make a Batman Collection of their games.

@CharlieGirl I bet if they got Tom Dubois (I thought that was his name?) to draw something, it'd be a win for the western cover art.
Probably one of the few artists who could make western boxart rivaling and beating the Japanese art.

@NintendoBMA How many do they have?
I think just Batman Returns NES and SNES, and Animated Series/Adventures of Robin on Game Boy and SNES.
I guess that's enough for a collection.

Of course they wanted to make an arcade game, but Atari Games swiped the license away.

@Diogmites oh dang, I feel bad for not catching that 😓 he only did the Batman Returns adaptation comic 😅
he also did some time on Jonah Hex I enjoyed.

thank you!

Seeing the original NA / EU cover brought back nostalgia from when we rented it during a sleepover at my friend's house (I was firmly Sega during the 16-bit generation and its BATMAN RETURNS was not very good). This was a licensed game done right as Konami was firing on all cylinders during this era. That being said, the Japanese cover is just cool.

@NintendoBMA
That would be a pre-order for me. Just like the Cowabunga Collection. I would also love to see Sega make collections of their Marvel and Disney games. The developed quote a few in-house.

I've never played this game, but my vote goes to Japan for looking like a comic book cover.

This won’t be close.

@KingMike Yes that would be a great collection of Batman games. If we take a step further, perhaps Warner Bros. can also include the Sunsoft games as well. Having a game compilation with different companies appears to be possible as shown with Disney Classic Games collection (not to be confused with Afternoon collection), where Jungle Book and Lion King by Virgin Interactive were included together with Capcom’s Aladdin. Konami has already proven with Cowabunga Collection that anything is possible. From what I may have remembered of what contributed to the making of this, was through numerous players’ requests. With that logic, if enough demand is there for a Batman game collection, this could get Konami and Warner Bros. attention, whether through emails or their social media pages.

I always thought the US boxart was kinda boring. That Japanese one however is really cool.

The artwork is too "busy" and jam packed for both. Like they had so many ideas for the boxart and just smashed it all into one ensemble on the box. Because the Japanese one is far less "busy", that wins it. Also I don't know if the live action footage works on boxart for video games unfortunately.

Love this Game, have it full in Box since back then.

Have to say... Uff that Catwoman haha

The US version is so lazy and uninspired. This perfectly demonstrates why the import scene was so strong during the 16bit era.

NA/Europe looks kinda cheap, and is too cluttered and crowded. I voted Japan.