Haywired

It's definitely a PlatinumGames title; with their typical ratio of great ideas and terrible ones, and their customary grandiose, over-ambitious design that they can't quite pull-off, but probably could if they could just reign it in a touch. But it's fun and stylish and overall I'd give it 8/10.

Japan because I'll always vote a cover that has actual artwork on it rather than just a plain boring logo (or near enough) cover. Though if it were eligible I'd probably go for the 3DS cover.

It's also interesting to note, considering how people often tend to say things like "Nowadays the video game industry is obsessed with graphics and power, back in the day it was all about gameplay." etc. Well I can't think of many PS4 or Xbox One games that mention "State of the art high resolution graphics" on the front of the box. Point being, the video game industry has always been obsessed with power and graphics.

Japan because the other two are an abomination. Though to be fair, while the American one is just unspeakably hideous, the European one is actually a really cool cover, it just has the minor issue of not looking anything like how Mega Man artwork should look...

The American one is pretty soulless. I really like the Japanese artwork, though the European one is perhaps more in keeping with the style of the game (not that I've actually ever played it). It's one where that sort of overly-rendered late-90s 3D artwork actually kind of works.

Well, it's not as if there's a shortage of Pokemon spinoff games, so I think the world will cope.

Fun game. Somehow weirdly manages to be both relaxing and panic-inducing at the same time. However, this game had way too much DLC to an almost comically absurd level. I figured they were building to a "definitive" version. Having over twice as much content in the DLC as in the "main" game is not something that should be celebrated or encouraged...

I'm digging the layout and pink background of the Japanese version.

I can't vote for America just because of the hideous "Nemesis" font.

This one was a decent improvement over Umbrella Chronicles, as they'd largely gotten rid of the motion control quick-time events (the terminal cancer of video game controls) and had less of an emphasis on getting perfect headshots (in a game where shooting an enemy 5 billion times in the head didn't seem to count as a headshot).

Definitely America and Europe over Japan. They look a lot more "Animal Crossing" to me. I went for America over Europe, because the Europe one is off-centre and thus looks odd.

Didn't Alex give Animal Crossing: Wild World 6/10 a few years ago (which, being the most recent review, is now NL's official score for it)? Even though I believe it was justified by the fact that it was the Wii U version and thus not fully portable, Animal Crossing is still Animal Crossing. The games are essentially the same across the series with a few minor tweaks. It just seems odd for a reviewer to go from a 6/10 for one to a 10/10 for another. That's quite an enormous leap for a franchise that's pretty much the definition of consistency. I just can't imagine anyone who would ever give an Animal Crossing game 6/10 would ever give one 10/10.

@Krull
Haha, so true. Such a weird choice of image.

I don't think I've ever seen that Japan cover before, unless I blocked it out of my memory. In any case, what a terrible boxart for the game. It looks like it's about depression or something. How is it winning? Unless people are being ironic...

Even though it baffles me that a game with Skyward Sword's control scheme would get a perfect score, I can't really specifically have a go at Famitsu for it because so many in the Western media dropped that almighty egg too (even the supposedly respectable EDGE magazine). It's a Zelda game, etc. But how the hell did Kid Icarus Uprising get a perfect score? I mean, it's good, but it's like the dictionary definition of an imperfect game. Oh, Sakurai writes a column in Famitsu. That'll be why then...

@Doofenshmirtz
I don't think there was anything inaccurate about my comment (I don't think I was ever suggesting that the list would fall into some perfect reverse-chronological order). My main point is that the latest game will pretty much always win these polls regardless because it has a huge advantage for various obvious reasons. The fact that this pretty much always happens in the reader polls is understandable, the fact that it pretty much always happens in the writer polls seems a little fishy to me, but whatever.

While it may seem annoying of me to complain about your writers' list and then also complain about your reader list, in any case, a reader vote like this is still always (as has been the case whenever you've done them) going to skew towards the most recent ones because for a lot of people voting, those are likely the only ones they've played. Unsurprisingly, whenever you do these writers' lists or reader polls, the winner is almost always "the one that just recently came out."

Vanquish port I hope.

I don't like covers with full borders, so I went with Japan just because it has the smallest, least intrusive border.

Close call between Japan and Europe. I went with Europe. Definitely not the American one with its dodgy late-90s 3D art. Though as a side note; you said that the European one forgoes the usual full black border in favour of the (much nicer imo) black strip down the side. This was actually the case for all third-party N64 games. It was only the Nintendo-published games that had the full black border. I never understood the reason for this; whether it was an intentional decision or just a mix-up from the start, but in any case, I wish they'd all gone with the black bar down the side, so my N64 collection wouldn't look like an ugly inconsistent mess...

For me, that Europe one is one of the most iconic covers ever (even with the blocky, overly-shiny late-90s character models). Japan's is OK, but I don't like the black background. US one is extremely bland and all "just the logo" (or near enough) covers must die.

Why would anyone expect RPG elements in non-RPGs anyway. I don't see why this is even something they would need to explain?

Europe by far. Really cool, dynamic image. Though does have an advantage over the others as it came out much later, so the character models and colours for Mario artwork were more refined and established by that point. Can't vote for the US one because I hate those old "big ugly 8-bit pixel art on a black background template" NES covers. No cover art should ever be in-game graphics.

Would be pretty dumb to release a new Mario Kart when your current one is still in the top 10 chart every week, years after release. As it was never released here in Europe, I'm hoping for Excitebots!

Not surprising, but always sad to hear anyway. I do long for the days when a game was a complete, final package rather than an ever-expanding bloated blob of vaguely connected bits of "content". Plus, it's hard enough to find the time to keep up with gaming as it is, it doesn't help if all the games you do get to play never bloody end...

They had such great official artwork at their disposal:

It seems a shame to me that they went with such plain uninspiring covers.

Even though I don't love it, I have to go with the Japanese one just because I hate "just the logo on a plain background" covers. If it were eligible I would definitely go for the European 3DS cover. In my opinion, it was always such a shame that the old-skool Zelda covers in the West were basically all the same boring artwork.

Though I suppose it's kind of amusing, seeing as Link seems to somehow get crowbarred into every other game these days, that back then, he didn't even get to appear on the covers of his own games.

I learnt so much on Miiverse. Life-changing, mind-blowing insights such as "Mario is good" and "Nintendo rocks".

No, in all seriousness, I think the world already has enough social media platforms, we didn't really need another one. If you want to discuss games online with other people you can already do that, and with a hell of a lot more freedom than on Miiverse.

@Xansies
Fire Emblem has never really been huge in Japan. It was historically bigger in Japan than in the West because for a long time it didn't exist in the West. Since then, Fire Emblem games actually tend to sell more in America than they do in Japan. In any case, the franchise was almost cancelled before Awakening, so it's certainly never been huge anywhere.

Japan because you get a nice bit of sky and I guess its vertical orientation helps with the Snowboarding vibe.

"Boob-filled borefest". How is that even possible?

Glad that I finally got round to experiencing this. Yeah I'd also give it a 7/10. It's certainly one of the most unique and original games of recent times. It feels like it shouldn't really work, but it kind of does. Plus, the first jump-scare I encountered in the game almost made me soil myself, so it certainly works on that front.

Definitely not the European one with its big ugly "Up to 4 players at any time!" banner at the bottom (which is also such a Wii thing to do, to be almost like scared or embarrassed to be seen as a single player experience. You have to tell Wii owners that there is some sort of multiplayer/party element).

Not as bad as when they forgot to remove some of the 8 billion tedious collectables before releasing it.

Wow, I never even noticed that the American and European Smash 64 covers had different artwork. I assumed they were just the same but with a slightly different arrangement.

Yay, more pointless illogical crossovers... What's even more nonsensical is that this is the first game. Someone should tell them that crossovers are for when a franchise is old and stale and run out of ideas.

Wow, a Link cameo, how original... At least in the first one it was just cosmetic. Seems stupid to me to crowbar non-Mario game mechanics into a game that's supposed to be all about Mario game design, but oh well.

The American one is absolutely epic.

Nice to see short games getting some love. It's always annoyed me how a game being "too short" is often something that gets criticized (though rarely the same if a game is "too long", which I would say is more annoying). You wouldn't get it in any other form of media/entertainment, where it's usually the opposite.

I have no idea what's going on or why people are upset.

Japan. Because you can see the characters' full bodies (rather than just headshots) there's more shape to it and is thus more aesthetically pleasing. Though I do prefer the blue sky background of the EU version.

Good. Street Fighter may be violent, but it's not gory, it's all fairly PG. Not remotely the same level of violence as in Mortal Kombat, which is extreme and revolting (which I suppose it's meant to be). That's not necessarily meant as a criticism of Mortal Kombat (though it's not really my cup of tea), but thematically/tonally they're not a good fit. DC is a better fit for a Mortal Kombat crossover as they're desperate to be ultra-violent and gritty (while at the same time marketing their stuff to kids), but even they balked at having their characters involved in torture porn fatalities.

Japan because it's beautiful artwork; full of life, character and colour. They may now be iconic, but I always hated those old NES boxarts with the 'big ugly 8-bit pixel art on a black background' template. No cover art should ever be in-game graphics.

@nimnio
Yeah, I would consider the "light" roster a joy rather than a con. For me, having a tight, manageable, well-balanced roster is a blessed relief in this day and age of fighting games with absurdly bloated character rosters, especially for someone coming into the franchise for the first time. I hate being smacked in the face with an exhausting wall of 50 characters that I will never have the time to properly explore (compared to when I was a kid and was able to become an expert with all of Street Fighter 2's 8 playable characters). Plus you can't really compare the roster of (essentially) the first game in a series to long-running franchises that have accumulated characters over 20-30 years.

The American cover is one of the ugliest boxarts I've ever seen (it could give Karnaaj Rally a run for its money in the 'weird awkward head' stakes), so it's between EU and Japan. I'll go Japan because I don't really like the big black border on the EU one.

Definitely between Japan and Europe as I prefer the handdrawn artwork to the 3D models of the American one.

I much prefer the Japanese cover artwork (though the text at the top is a bit odd) and it seems to represent the game better than the NA and EU ones do, which to me is just a really ugly, unappealing image (though at least the EU one uses the cool logo and not just a plain font like NA).

Not really a whole lot of difference between them in terms of the general design/artwork. I went with North America just because the Japanese one looks a bit too much like an advert in a magazine rather than a cover, and the EU one has the infamous N64 big black border (which was only ever on Nintendo-published titles for some reason. Third-party N64 games just had a nice simple black strip down the right-hand side. I never understood all that).

2003: Mario Kart Double Dash
2019: Mario Kart Direct Debit

Japan because it has character. I never really liked how all the old Zelda boxarts in the west were always basically just the logo on a plain background.