Poll: Box Art Brawl: The Legend Of Zelda

The golden boxes with the logo are iconic and stand out from other games in the shelves at the time.
The multicolored stuff, we had seen many of those, even if it communicates better what the game is about.

The golden box…. It made it feel special …. Like this game stands out from the rest. It was unique.

I know which one I would pickup at the store. The golden mysterious box (which I can just turn it around to see what the game is about) or the art box which, honestly, gets lost with all the other games in the store.

Famicom looks more appealing and no nostalgia here to make me think otherwise so yeh, easy win.

That gold box, and especially the gold cartridge, back in 1987 screamed that this was something special, no ordinary game. Man how right that turned out to be.

Had to go with the Famicom art. Love it. Also the background is more visible on this one and as you've said it's a nice and rare representation of an hyrule in decline which really fits what is actually in the game.

The gold box is very iconic but I'm starting to love both Famicom versions as well.
It would work well for a remake if such thing were to ever happen!

Japan Famicom > Japan FDS (the former has an uncut view of the art along with the mountain range)

Other than that, just personal taste

The Golden Box just seems so subtle and imposing, like imagine it on a shelf with all the other multicoloured and black boxes and then theres just one solitary Golden box.
I know which one I want.
The golden box makes it seem like it knows that its the start of a truly iconic franchise, almost like it knew how special it would be before it had even begun.

I'm not even slightly nostalgic for this, i'm 23 so the NES was a relic of the past by the time I was playing games but this game just feels reverent and the GOLD adds endlessly to that.

The Famicom one does look really good, i like the Disc one a bit more.

But the golden one has something medival and epic to it with the Emblem.

Like having a Book of an ancient Tale infront of you.

I gave my vote for Japan (Famicom).

The western one’s iconic, but the Japanese art is a lot more evocative and enticing. And I personally prefer the cleaner, clearer rerelease to the original

western art here is simple yet striking.

@JohnnyMind I voted the same. You get the the nicely coloured sky and mountains. Easy choice this week

I always hated the western covers for a lot of the earlier Zelda games. You can argue about how iconic they are all you want, they pale in comparison to the art they put on the Japanese boxes and more often than not they really look generic AF. The gold cartridge of some of them also looked gaudy as hell, the Zelda 1 cartridge in particular just seems cheap.

The North American box art is absolutely, in no way, shape, or form, better than the Famicom disk system art.

No way.

Nostalgia is a hell of a thing.

I mean, both box arts (since the two JP versions are almost the same, I'll count them as one) are iconic in their own way.

I do appreciate the NA/EU version for its nostalgic factor; as it is, The Legend of Zelda was one of the first video games I ever played, back when I was literally a baby.

But I do love the effort that went into making the box art for the JP release. So I went with the third option, the Famicom rerelease.

The reason being is that the logo doesn't obscure the artwork like it does in the original FDS version, and the green border does give it some extra classiness, as the article's author, Jim Norman, said.

I almost voted for the gold box because that is what I came to know and love as the iconic Zelda game. But as @charliegirl pointed out, nostalgia is indeed a terrible thing. Whisking myself back 30-some years and imagining looking at all of these boxes side by side, not knowing what I was getting apart from seeing the box art, I would have picked the Japanese (FDS) box without hesitation. Remember, the 80s were a time with no internet. In fact, when this game debuted, that was the beginning of Nintendo Power magazine as well, and that was about our only hope for good game information! So it was critical for boxes to have game art that properly represented their games, which sadly most did not. It’s amazing that this Zelda game did so well in the gold box. And the shiny gold cartridge inside that we didn’t see till we opened it was a wonderful surprise too!

I never really liked the EU art for this game. So I voted for Japan / famicom here.

It’s not just nostalgia, and dismissing it as such is short-sighted, if you ask me.

If you were alive and shopping for games then, the gold box (with its cutout revealing the gold cartridge!) was unlike anything else on the shelves and leant the game a mystique that, happily, was backed up by excellent gameplay. The box was brilliant marketing.

As nice as the Japanese cover art is, it’s because NOA and Europe did something different and memorable that the gold box is competing so strongly today.

@CharlieGirl Agreed. As iconic of a box art as it is, it doesn't really give you any idea of what the game is about. If anything, it looks quite generic, which belies the masterpiece of the game that it represents.

That's not to say that there are not other fantasy-adventure games on the NES; there are. One that comes to mind is Hydlide, which was not was well-received in North America, in no small part (ironically enough) due to being compared to Zelda, which came out a couple years prior. Still, even its NES box art shows the knight, Jim, fighting a dragon, compared to the NA/EU version of Zelda.

But Zelda is by far a classic, nearly perfect game, and established the foundation for a world that has grown, evolved, and changed again and again in the last 35 or so years. It deserves a box art that truly represents what the game stands for.

I'm kind of genuinely stunned anyone can at all like the western box art. It perfectly straddles the line between boring and ugly, I really can't come up with a single element of it I like.

@Teksetter Part of the problem is, though: quite a few of the unlicensed NES games (many of which were of very poor quality) also used the gold cartridge. So simply having a golden color to a game cartridge did not automatically make it a good one. The same could be said for other unlicensed NES games which didn't use the standard gray cartridge (some came in black, others came in baby blue, etc.).

@Teksetter I was alive in the 80s, and the gold box with random symbols on it didn't do much for me then, either.

Who put in the cartridge back to front? Normally one would see the ridges!
Also, there is an earlier European version that is square.
Anyways, I voted western style for the box art, but I also love Zelda 1 artwork and would love to see a modern game in that style.

NA/Europe. Less is more sometimes.

I'm seeing a suspicious amount of blind nostalgia here. I personally do not like the North American box art because it's not very consistent with later games in the franchise.

The simple and classic look of Europe and North America looks good, but I prefer the Famicom version. It has those Link's Awakening and Link To The Past vibes, which I love. And I know it is a great adventure, just by looking at the cover. It is simply perfect. Easy vote.

Do the other two include invaluable maps and strategic playing tips? Clear winner here.

I really love the Japanese box art, but that gold box with the shield is too iconic and nostalgia-laden for me not to choose it as the best!

I wonder why Zelda 2 didn’t get a cartridge release in Japan after Zelda 1?

This one was kinda tough. The NA cover is incredibly iconic, but I really like that painted landscape in the Famicom version. It appropriately evokes a sense of adventure and discovery. So Famicom it is.

One odd thing to note about the Japanese logo, when has Link ever used a fancy rapier like that?

NA is iconic, cant blame ppl for voting it, nostalgia or not. And the japanese version has its faults in my eyes

North America is iconic for me. Open that up what's inside? Gold cartridge! That was a little treasure wasn't it!

@Teksetter I was not only here in the 80s but also working. And games were quite expensive back then, usually averaging around $40-$50 USD for NES games. I had to thoughtfully consider which games were worth blowing my small paychecks on (considering I made about $3.75 an hour back then!). Seeing a basic or generic looking game box in the store with little to no other info available on a game made it a hard sell. For me, I had the Nintendo Power Magazine which did a huge feature (complete with maps and extensive strategy) on the Zelda game in their premiere issue in 1988, so seeing that made me aware of what I was buying. If it hadn’t been for that, I would not have given that game a second look in such a basic box. And I should note that I typically bought my games at Toys R Us which had this bizarre system of selling games, which had a picture of the front and back of the box inside this plastic flap, and then a “ticket” below that for buying the game that you took to their game counter/booth in the front of the store. So we never actually saw the boxes themselves until the game was paid for and in our shopping bags.

@OldManHermit I kinda felt that way, but then I wondered 'where are the monsters?' It doesnt have to be packed with em like the Adventure Island cover, but anything woulda been better imo

@JimNorman
"It was a long time coming before the game got a Famicom cartridge release in Japan (1994, to be precise)"

Sure this was 1994? I mean after A Link to the Past? I did not know this.

@AstroTheGamosian @CharlieGirl
Points taken, but in 1986 when I had seen an enigmatic Zelda TV commercial or two, heard from a couple friends about the game, and then saw that gold-on-gold box on the shelf, it beckoned to me. It went on to become probably my most-played NES game, and remained the coolest-looking box/cart in my stack of games back then.
There were 3rd party games with pastel cartridges or what not, but Zelda was 1st party, and bold! The publishers had confidence and once you played, you knew why.
Western LOZ will remain as one of the most recognizable game boxes of all time. I believe it’d be a worthy addition to the winner’s circle today.

But yeah, I guess I’m just too sentimental to measure a box’s merit based purely on its cover art. Where’s the fun in that? 😜

What you won’t catch me doing is saying your opinion is objectively wrong, because nostalgia/because it’s not art composition class/because the game sucked/etc.
Everyone being sincere is entitled to their opinion. 👍🏼

The Japanese covers are cute, but the classic NA/European is one of the most important game covers in history.

Famicom looks best, but the gold one is really iconic. I don’t have nostalgia for any of them, though😅

Again, it’s so clumsy when the author of the article weighs in on some art being “boring,” losing objectivity and potentially influencing the results. Just not fun to read.

North America is quite iconic and nostalgic to me. It gives me the warm fuzzies. The golden box and cartridge is so special. But Japan (famicom's) is unquestionably prettier.

@Kiyata
Thanks for sharing - I remember agonizing over those Toys R Us flaps a lot, but during the NES era got most of my games from glass cases at smaller local places (or gifts). I was still riding my bike to the store and spending money from allowance or odd jobs back then. Money was precious and game shopping was a gamble - I was burned by bad games from the corner store more than once.

I’d only seen and heard a little of Zelda prior to purchase as I wasn’t subscribed to N. Power or buying game mags back then. Actually, I bought Zelda on the last day of my trip to Disneyworld. I was still 13 at the time. I’d saved most of my spending money for a trip to a shopping mall. We found a big toy store that had many dozens of game boxes on the wall behind the counter, and I asked for Zelda. Then, after some negotiation with my dad, went back in the store to get one more game (turned out to be Skykid, from Namco). When I got home and started playing Zelda, it was such high quality, I felt like I hit the lottery! It suffused me with appreciation for that golden packaging.

So yes, this particular game box is imprinted on my brain and I can’t be swayed! Do you have any games like that? We all must. 😁

While the japanese version is good, the north america version is just so classy, so my pick is the north america version

Doesn’t seem fair that the two similar Japanese boxes split the vote.

The Famicom version looks way better and actually represents the game better.

I have a lot of nostalgia for the NES version and it looks clean and good, but it doesn't represent what the game is about very well. Had they at least gone with the Triforce instead of the Shield, then it would have probably been the winner for me.

The green border on the Famicom re-release does a favor to the original FDS art. That's the option I went with. Nostalgic or not, never been a fan of the gold box arts with just the game logo, though I understand perfectly why they do it.

Holy crap this is a close one. I thought I would be all in on the original NES cover; the classic gold box was so mysterious and really was tantalizing back in the day. Along with the gold cartridge (that had a save battery!!!) it just felt so epic (of course repeated with my pre-order release of OoT)! But seeing the beautiful comic-book art of Link in front of the world-map with the green box of the Famicon cartridge release.... I just really love it. Reminds me of classic fantasy art from back-in-the-day. It ultimately got my vote.

@DwaynesGames
The green border makes a lot of difference.

I voted for the FDS, but I think it has to do with the nice panorama in the background that made me think of BOTW and hot that game captured the magic of the Classic first game. But I'm still unsure about the sword in the logo, underneath the triangle... Is it a reference to something in the game?

It was the gold cartridge, not the gold box, that first caught my interest. The western box never did much for me and, as much as I'm a retro gamer, I'm not a nostalgia guy. So I vastly prefer both Japanese covers, and if you combine their scores in the poll, so do most people. I voted for the Disk System version. I like the white on the top and the overall layout. Plus it has Disk-kun. The regular Famicom release is also nice, and the green isn't bad, but I don't like the overall layout quite as much. Both Japanese covers would make me interested in the game. The gold US cover would not.

Lol – FDS one looks like a cover art for some old 80s anime, while Famicom one looks like a cover art for some old Shônen Jump manga. I like "anime" one more. So, Famicom one for me this week.

The golden box, and cartridge, was the sole reason I bought Zelda II and started my life long obsession with RPGs, so it's very iconic.

That said, the FDS cover is just gorgeous, so my vote goes there.

Is “block-beige” another word for gold? Because that’s what the iconic western box art was.

I personally couldn’t wrap my head around the series until Link to the Past made exploring Hyrule a bit less obtuse, but I knew that cover, and the cutout revealing the gold cart inside, denoted that this was something special, more than just another game.

japan for sure, showing Hyrule for the best time in the franchise, is much better then here a shield with a bunch of symbols, USA/PAL box art dont invoque you are playing the first game of a franchise that soon will make a impact in the franchise, i see USA Legend of Zelda 1 box art and it didnt give me a idea this is Legend of Zelda 1

At the time of original release, I didn't bother with it as the box art looked dull to me. As a kid in the 80s and early 90s, I wanted action-packed covers. Funny how perception changes over time.

The Japanese picture box is clearly beating the Western design, but the tragedy of First-Past-The-Post is playing out as the Western one is beating the split-vote Japanese one.

Remember this moment when we're trying to vote the Tories out next year.

That Western box gave an air of mystery that this was something special, and boy was that a nice surprise back in the day. But my vote today went to the Famicom (JP). It's explicit, yet has more focus than the FDS image.

Woah, this is the closest to a tie Box Art Brawl has been in a while. I went for EU/NA, even though Japan’s box art is (in my opinion) better. Yes, I’m voting based off of nostalgia

A classic brawl this week!
I’m really curious now about other regions of the world like South America, Africa, Russia and what box art did they choose in those regions. Much fun these articles.

The Europe/NA is the Zelda cover of my childhood and it’s horrible. Voted for anything else

If the JP box was more like that Zelda 1 art of Link looking over the cliff it would be GOAT tier instead we just just giant link.

Wow! Look how evenly our choices split 😎

This one's not really fair. The Japanese covers are virtually the same and they're splitting the vote. I voted for the FDS version but I would have voted for the green border famicom version had the FDS not been an option. I think the Japanese design is winning 2 to 1. I love the USA's golden box and cart but the Japanese art is wonderful and sells the adventure.

Box Art Brawls Current Total:

Europe: 61

Japan: 61

North America: 67

Australia and New Zealand: 1

EU/NA no contest here. I don't understand why the vote isn't 100%. That is one of the most recognizable boxes in the entire history of video games. The Asian versions whimper mediocrity.

The gold one is too iconic.
You can say that I'm driven by nostalgia but man, you just had to be there.
It was so different at that time, you could not pass it by.

Wow, the poll is so close! I chose the Famicom one, because you can see the entire artwork since it isn't covered by the logo. I also like the green more than the white background

The Japan (Famicon) variant looks incredible. All of the little details it provides guarantees a vote from me.

@Cashews - Agreed, it’s weird reading all these comments criticising it as ‘boring/generic’ and then going for covers that….are actually boring/generic.
Maybe because it became the standard going forward (at least until Wind Waker) it’s seen as ‘overused/no longer mysterious’ but even then, given it’s the first, I’m not sure why they’d see it as ‘boring’ and not ‘classic’ 🤷‍♂️

I just don’t like how inelegantly placed the illustration of Link is on the map… The PAL version though is anything but inelegant.

@Kiyata But probably as they were planning the boxart in 1987, the NES would've only been starting to take off. A lot of the games were still the "black box" games where the title already told you what the game was. Games like Volleyball and Slalom.

@AstroTheGamosian In North America, Hydlide was released just too far outside of its original context to make an impact. When it was released, it was already a three year old port of a five year old computer game. But America didn't know that.
FCI probably published it because it was something they could put out for really cheap. It had almost no localization cost and the cartridge would've been really basic and thus cheap to order by that point.
Also, Zelda had a different color because it wanted to look different and stand out. Those unlicensed games only used a different design to avoid getting sued by Nintendo (right after the Tengen Tetris lawsuit, you could bet Nintendo was looking for an excuse to sue other unlicensed game publishers, and copying the patented official NES cartridge design would've been an easy job for their lawyers).

Just because the European/USA version is considered iconic it doesn't make it the best box art.

The issue here is that you have two japanese covers which are largely the same bar a border currently sitting on a combined 64% yet the Euro/NA cover is likely going to win because it has the largest singular percentage. It's like when Japanese console figures get reported and the PS5 tops the table but in reality if all Switch SKUs were added together like they should be then it wouldn't be.

I didn't get into Zelda until Twilight Princess when I was already an adult, so I don't have any nostalgia for the iconic gold boxes. So I voted for Japanese Famicom art! I like the world behind Link and how it's all tidy and framed.

Seems there's a definite distinction between those who hold a nostalgic reverence for the minimalist gold cover from the West and the busier, cartoony ones from Japan. Gotta fall into the latter camp, I'm afraid; If I was buying a game and saw that it had a choice of those two illustrations, I'd go for the Japanese one without question.

Voted for Japan FDS on this one. Again it comes down to what’s being portrayed that would win me over in a store and sure while the NA one may be “iconic.” It’s absolutely boring as sin and completely unappealing. Both Japanese ones at least show me my hero and what the world is like and like the crumbling stone hints at a kinda rough time which in essence is the original legend of Zelda.

The Japanese ones are awful.

So glad classic and iconic Zelda won

I usually prefer the more expressive Famicom artwork, but in this case, the idea to feature the gold cart colour with a cut-out in the box makes it an easy win for me.

The golden box! It's soooo iconic, it certainly made it clear Zelda was like no other game, and that has been maintained to this day.