Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl!
Before we get started on this week's brawl, let's take a look at how things concluded in last week's edition. We threw Viewtiful Joe 2 into the ring, with all three major regions battling it out for supremacy. To little surprise, it was the North American variant that took a resounding victory, claiming 68% of the vote. Europe and Japan both managed 16% each.
This time, we're going back to 1996 with the Game Boy release of Tetris Attack. Originally released on SNES a year earlier, the Game Boy version certainly felt like an easy win, and sure enough, it turned out to be pretty darn good.
North America and Europe share the same designs this week, so it's going to be another tense duel as the two take on Japan. But enough chatting; let's get on with it.
Be sure to cast your votes in the poll below; but first, let's check out the box art designs themselves.
North America / Europe
The Western design is most certainly more recognisable than its Japanese sibling, with the coloured blocks taking centre stage. There are a couple of very angry-looking dudes crashing down from the top of the image and it's overall a pretty striking piece that's sure to draw the eye.
Japan
Nintendo's presence can definitely be felt with the Japanese design here, with several characters from the firm's Super Mario IP making a welcome appearance. It's arguably quite busy compared to the Western design, but we do admittedly like the overall composition.
Thanks for voting! We'll see you next time for another round of the Box Art Brawl.
Comments 38
JPN without question.
Love Yoshi <3
Japan obviously, the other one doesn't even show that Yoshi and co. are in the game.
Interesting how the JP version is called "Yoshi's Panel de Pon". It's like, "Hey, we made a Yoshi version of Panel de Pon!". Meanwhile, outside of Japan, Tetris Attack always had Yoshi characters. So that means that the JP version only exists the way it does due to how the original Panel de Pon was localised...?
I do find it interesting how the GB version uses the Yoshi characters in all regions. I would have expected them to make the GB version based on the Super Famicom version with all the fairy characters, and then to change them over to Yoshi outside of Japan to market it akin to the SNES version. But I suppose maybe they decided Yoshi was more marketable even within Japan, so in order to save dev time, they just made it Yoshi from the start? I'm just guessing...
...Hey, here's a fun fact - in the ROM file for Pokémon Puzzle Challenge for GBC, there exists unused graphics for all of the Panel de Pon fairy characters. Seems like a proper Panel de Pon game was planned for GB after all, and was scrapped in order to attach more marketable characters to it instead.
Honestly - my opinion is that the wishy-washy nature of the IP hasn't helped it much. First Yoshi with "Tetris" branding, then Pokémon, and then bland "Nintendo casual game" branding on the DS... and now we barely see the game anywhere any more.
If they had stuck to their guns with the fairy characters, maybe by now we could have had a rich history of games involving them, akin to what we have now with Puyo Puyo? ....though to be fair, I doubt the fairies would have sold the game as well as Yoshi to kids in the USA in the 90s... :/
The Japanese one by an absolute mile for me
Yeah JPN easily here. Great, great game.
you can't go wrong with Yoshi
@EarthboundBenjy
Ah, an entirely consistent Panel de Pon franchise, what could've been!
@EarthboundBenjy - Personally, I reckon they could’ve kept the pokemon thing going and done pretty well; I might admittedly be a bit biased there, as I loved both Puzzle League and Challenge, but compared to what we have now, surely it’d be an improvement, no?
———
Oh, and Japan easily wins this one, no contest.
I love Tetris Attack (the SNES version), it's one of the few games my mom would actually play, with me and my siblings growing up.
With that said, I gotta vote for the Japanese boxart this week.
The American boxart is unnecessarily violent and out of place for what the game actually is. The Japanese boxart tells you exactly what the game is about including who's in it.
Yellow Yoshi looks either drunk or stoned. It's adorable.
Ahhh every time I see these articles I want to buy the game featured. Unfortunately, some games featured especially with the box is no longer affordable.
Japan by sole virtue that the Mario-related character art is more charming and creative IMO.
The Japanese box art, obviously. The North American box art is boring.
Yep, Japan easily this week.
My vote goes for the Japanese one just by virtue that it evokes the original Panel de Pon box art.
I'm glad NoA and NoE finally embraced the original fairies by releasing the original game on the NSO. As much as I like Tetris Attack, it has nothing to do with Tetris. If only Nintendo released something along the lines of Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman and had a version of the original game with both Lip and the other Fairies and Yoshi and his friends/enemies.
Cartridge art.
American:
European:
Japanese:
@JohnnyMind That's because in Japan they called it Yoshi no de Pon (Yoshi's Panel de Pon or Yoshi's Puzzle League) whereas in USA and Europe it's called Tetris Attack. By calling it Tetris Attack, of course they gonna show you something related to Tetris instead of Yoshi. One interesting fact though, even though the Game Boy version of Yoshi no de Pon got a physical release in Japan, the Super Famicom version doesn't and was only available as a digital only download through the Satellaview service as Japan doesn't want their audience to confuse the Yoshi version to the pixel fairy version (Panel de Pon or Pixel Puzzle League). Unlike the Super Famicom version, the Game Boy never received a port of the original Panel de Pon which is why it's getting the Yoshi version in physical form.
I’ve always hated those faces.
Sometimes I wish that the box art brawl games would release on the same day on NSO. Seeing those box arts makes me want to play the games again.
This is another where I like both equally. In this case for different reasons for each. Can we have a button for love them both equally?
Japan! Hard to beat the fun Nintendo characters. With that said, I like the western cover, mostly for the angry blocks. Not horrible considering what they had to work with.
People voting for NA have got to be trolls, I thought this might go 100% Japan.
@EarthboundBenjy I think once people realized they could stick literally anything else on Panel De Pon then the dumb generic fairy thing the original did, that theme was pretty doomed.
Gotta go with Japan on this one the art is just too good the use of Yoshi and the color is just so good whereas the angry America one is just. Bland.
@Ironcore Having a both option would not be a good idea for these kind of polls. It's meant to be a poll on which one do people like better and on which one would win the "brawl" based on the number of votes. No ties. (Some box art brawls actually did almost tie though.)
Box Art Brawls Current Total:
Europe: 68
Japan: 69
North America: 77
Australia and New Zealand: 1
Just can't beat Yoshi.
Yellow Yoshi is now my favourite Yoshi.
Those things in EU/US covers are so ugly
Why have ugly when have Yoshi
@HammerGalladeBro Panel de Pon almost broke me as a person. Finished it but after hours of rewinding.
This game looks like kids' game and plays like a Battle of Stalingrad simulator, "Dark Souls Ultimate Dante Must Die" difficulty
@NinjaNicky I genuinely think people are picking the clear bad one to troll. Everyone in the comments has said the same thing, that the Japanese one is clearly better. It has nothing to do with my opinion, one is just better in this case.
The Japan one is more fun and has Yoshi in it. A "comfortable win" therefore?
@Serpenterror Didn't know all the details you mentioned, interesting!
That said, my point was based on the fact that despite the name "Tetris Attack" that version is the one which changed the Panel de Pon characters into the Yoshi ones so it doesn't make sense to not put them on the cover.
Japan has produced an overwhelming majority of the votes, and I am honestly not surprised. I am a sucker for Mario characters though. The Japanese variant gets my vote as well.
Love Tetris Attack. Never knew about the GB version. The Japanese one is cuter.
@jolteon23 The garbage blocks do scowl in-game and are reminiscent of thwomps. If you were being sarcastic, my bad for not catching it.
I expected this to be 90% Japan. It absolutely demolishes the American one imho. It's so happy, and just makes me want to see what it is about.
@EarthboundBenjy 100% the fairies would have been considered the negatives meanings of "gay" by 1990s USA marketing.
A lot of game stuff had to be changed for marketing reasons due to that.
Apparently the original Bust-A-Move (at least the NeoGeo version) had a dipswitch enabling an unused mode which removed the dragons and possibly also replaced the music. Good to know that I wasn't the only person in chat watching one of my favorite streamers, to immediately guess it was a scrapped USA localization.
Though I believe Bust-A-Move 2 did at least replace the soundtrack (no Monsuta's Theme on a USA NeoGeo). Funny that said streamer pointed that, I think it was the Taito Legends on PS2, had based its emulation on old MAME versions before they realized the USA mode had a different soundtrack, and it wasn't yet properly dumped which caused the game to crash when it tried to play the alternate music.
And of course Puyo-Puyo being replaced by Kirby, since they knew it was an accepted level of cuteness (but only if Kirby's angry).
Also, when the game was released on Satellaview, it was the Yoshi version.
Tetris Attack (SNES) had also added a English/Japanese option that didn't exist in (SFC) Panel de Pon. Why add a language option that they could reasonably expect most of the target audience wasn't going to use, if they weren't maybe considering a re-release in Japan? (I'm trying to recall the extent to which Namco's Cosmo Gang: The Puzzle got reintroduced to Japan under its international variant, Pac-Attack (or Pac Panic, did they rename it?)
So that is some signs that even in Japan, Nintendo was leaning towards keeping the Yoshi theme.
@EarthboundBenjy Wishful thinking.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...