sdelfin

The Jet Set Radio art style looks great here. The color use makes for some very pretty screenshots. I wasn't aware of this one as far as I can remember. Since there's a demo, it would be impolite not to check it out.

I was really into He-Man when I was really young, 3-6 years old probably. Voltron and Thundercats stuck with me more. Incidentally, do Thundercats next!!!! Anyway, the pixel art here looks fantastic, and the gameplay looks great as well. I love that the trailer isn't filled with camera shake either and didn't waste time avoiding showing off gameplay. That's how a trailer should be done.

No nostalgia for me. I didn't play my first Pokemon game until late 2012. I like the Gen 1 boxes the most. I prefer the true hand-drawn look, plus I think the designs are the most appealing.

I have no love for the gold Zelda covers. They served their purpose back in the NES days, but Nintendo should have left those behind much earlier, and by the time this one came out. While iconic, they're also boring and lazy as covers, as others have said. They also don't really stand out from each other. Not only is a logo on a colored background lazy, in this particular case the art for the Japanese cover is fantastic, so the difference is quite stark.

Japan by a country mile!

I also don't like any of these. Japan's is my least favorite. I think the green is worse than the red, so my vote is for Europe's version as least bad.

Metal Gear Ghost Babel is interesting, thought I'm not a huge fan. I can see why others like it so much. They did a good job of taking the essentials of Metal Gear Solid and translating that to Game Boy Color. And it looks and feels more advanced than the early games. I ended up not liking Metal Gear Solid on PS1, so the property itself means nothing to me. I found the GBC game still does a few things I don't like. For example, it's wordy for a Game Boy game. I also don't love the stage design, but that's just a matter of taste. The game mechanics are great, though. Plus, the VR missions are more my style, so I was able to enjoy those. Either way, it's good that they're making this available, even if it's not on its own.

Both are okay, but also disappointing to me because I expected more. Both have pros and cons, which others have pointed out. So this is one of those duels where it comes down to what each person prefers here. For those that love the pile of characters just posing, they have Japan. For those who like the cover depicting some action. there's the western cover. For me, I'm voting purely on layout. In this case, I prefer the vertical orientation and more symmetrical artwork for the Japanese cover. I just think it looks more pleasant to the eye.

While some people like these, I am not among that group. These areboth pretty bad to me. NA's cover is very generic and I don't particularly like the style. Japan's cover is a poor concept overall in my opinion. I think Japan's cover is much worse, even though I consider both of these to be bad.

Like others have said, I think they're both pretty good. I like how the western cover features that blue enemy because it's one of the more distinctive things in the game outside of Yoshi. Mario and Yoshi might be a bit too far forward and them seem disconnected from the scene. It's also a bit cramped from the logos and such.

Japan's cover is simpler, but very nice. One thing I really like from Japan's box is how the game title script is textured and matches well with the overall cover. It's a really great detail. In this case, I prefer the Japanese cover a little bit, and that's how I voted.

"Classy" is one of those odd terms that is largely undefined in this context and is often applied to minimalist covers. You know what else is classy? A quality illustration like the one on the Japan/Euro cover here. And it's quite a good illustration. I don't love the plain white background, but it works well here. Japan/Euro cover gets my vote, easily.

"Our prized plumber stands front and centre, gearing up to send a shot back over the net"

Are you sure about that? Have you seen where the net is? Conceptually, the western cover is a total failure in depicting tennis. However, it succeeds in its composition as a game cover. The Japanese cover is fine, which is the nicest thing I can say about it. It does nothing for me as a game cover. So despite the tennis fail of the western cover, I will still vote for it.

At the end of the day, picking covers comes down to vibes. Some covers that show the game concept or show more elements from the game are better. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes dynamic covers are better. Sometimes they're not. Yes, certain elements and concepts work more often than not. Artists figured that out for comic books long ago. So it's not a quantitative thing where a certain cover shows more, so it's better. Visual clutter is real. At the end of the day, it's always what information is a cover giving and what feeling does it give off. Vibes.

The standard cover is nice and probably my second favorite. For me, the best one is Captain Commando. That's basing it purely on being a cover. The standard cover at least communicates it's a compilation.

Late to the party on this one. As it usually the case with these spooky games that do minimalism, it doesn't land for me. I would go as far as to say the Euro cover is not good. Perhaps a more ominous pose would have made a difference, but I just don't get a horror vibe from that. Speaking of covers that are not good, there are the other two covers here. The cropping for Japan is just bad and lazy. I'm not a fan of this rendering of Leon in general outside of the game itself. The zombie guys behind him are pretty good though. So my late pick comes down to which one of these is the least bad, and my vote goes to the North American cover.

@TheBoilerman your comment on this one is fantastic. That's exactly the vibe I get from that cover. Horror is definitely not the vibe I get.

@rvcolem1 you're not alone. For certain games, these minimal covers really seem to land for a lot of people. To me, it's terrible. In some comments, all sense goes out the window, like not understanding what a cover is for. But there was one comment that I thought his the nail on the head, the one calling the Euro version a tree-harvesting simulator.

Street Fighter 2 was a great game, and still is in my opinion. The SNES port is probably the most important game of the 16-bit generation and probably single-handedly sold enough SNES systems to close the gap Sega got from being out for two years(with Sonic arriving right before the SNES launched in North America). It was a great exclusive to have in 1992. Luckily, other systems eventually got versions too. I don't have the same nostalgia for it, but I do go back and play it. But not World Warrior. And not the SNES versions. Some of the music irritates me. My favorite version is Champion Edition arcade. I do really like the SNES version of Super SF2, though. But as Christmas gaming traditions go, you could do a lot worse. Imagine if the tradition was the SNES port of Pit Fighter.

US black-box games....classic? I guess. Good? Debatable. I don't like the black-box game boxes. The actual art of the other two is far better in this case. Japan's is the best by several miles here due to real artwork and much better framing than the Euro cover. US cover is a distant third place, and was lapped several times along the way.

I remember reading about this back in the day and maybe seeing some screenshots. I've always been fascinated by demakes and other attempts to push systems to their limits or make them do things they weren't designed to do. It doesn't always work out in terms of ending up with a quality game, but it's cool to see developers come up with clever ideas. And I remember the GBC being an interesting platform in that regard. Plus, there are also just smart adaptations of bigger games, like a Daikatana and stuff like that.

I had to think this one over a bit. As others have said, the composition for NA is better, at least for many of us. The Japanese might be one of the weaker of the Rockman Famicom covers. Still, I like the art style of the Japanese version more. The robot bird looks great on both. In the end, I chose the art style as the deciding factor, so Japan got my vote. But nice to see the NA covers looking decent after a shaky start.

It's interesting the different methods kids will come up with in situations like this. Very creative and interesting. Definitely less direct with the hints than back in my day. I'm not a Switch person. Didn't have the first one, and no desire to get the second one. The lack of OLED doesn't bother me, and might be a plus in my book, but I have other reasons. I probably would have gotten a Vita if not for those memory prices. But buying for yourself is different than buying a gift, and that's the important thing. If I was in a position where a child really wanted the Vita, for example, I probably would get them the system and a decent card, but make it clear they would have to make that memory card last because of the massive price gouging.

Your son makes one excellent point that I fully agree with. You don't need two racing games. You need at least two. Racing games are great fun, and it's especially fun learning how different games and vehicles handle.

No hesitation for me this week. Japan is an easy pick this week. Japan's is more vibran, which I like. But what made it easy was the composition for the western cover. The way the table and Samus fade into each other just doesn't work for me and it takes away from both elements. Samus looks weird looming over, or in front of the table. The end of the table is obscured and what is visible is the least interesting part of the table.. The logo just makes the situation worse, but it has to be somewhere. On Japan's cover, Samus is off center, but I think it works better because she's behind the table which just looks cohesive as opposed to disjointed like the western cover.

I echo the sentiments of a handful of others in the comments, Paramount not getting this deal is the one positive in all this. But these gigantic mergers need to be stopped and not much good will come from this level of consolidation.

I see people complaining about Netflix, and I take no issue with people doing so. It just makes me laugh a little because I never bought into streaming services like Netflix. The funny part to me is thinking about how when I was a Netflix subscriber, it was for DVD by mail. And it was the early days of when they did that.

Very easy call for me this week. North America by a mile. The western comic book style is great, and this one is very well executed. Great composition. Very good all around.

Europe's is funny because, at first, it looked totally out of nowhere. It's like the artist did it based on a verbal description of the character. Not quite the green outfit from the game, but it is green, so points for that. Once I viewed it from the perspective of it resembling a pre-1975 or so sci-fi aesthetic, I started to like it more. It has a look similar to the likes of Logan's Run, Buck Rogers, The Phantom, and stuff like that. I don't hate it.

Japan's is well drawn, but obscuring the hero's face on cover art is a huge error. It was the first thing I noticed. It just hurts the effectiveness as a cover.

Edit: No reason not to do the Game Boy version as a "duel" at some point. The two covers for it are both interesting. I just played the Game Boy version again last week. I love the changes they made when bringing it to the Game Boy and I was surprised how good it all turned out.

I was a little bit anxious because, while I am a fan of traditional animation, digital animation often fails to do much for me for various reasons. It's not that good results are not possible, but sometimes it looks really off or allows them to do things that are better off not done. However, I was pleasantly surprised how this turned out. I enjoyed this into animation and am looking forward to it.

PS: Needs more Batman!(just kidding)

I had to sit and think about this one for a bit. I like them all. Europe's is probably the weakest because of the age ratings and that other message on the left side. Japan's is good for what it was going for, but I'm partial to actual shots of the system and games, or logos in this case, so NA gets my vote.

Both covers have similar framing issues. On the Japanese cover, the character overlap takes away from the action pose from the blond kid who looks straight out of Dragon Ball Z. Also, the logo is so big and so high up that it detracts from the other character and makes it hard to see he's holding the ball. The Euro cover has the same problem. The logo is so high that it also makes it difficult to see the ball which is an important element for that pose. In the end, I think the poses on the Euro cover work better for a cover. I think the overall composition is better for the Euro box. And I think the green background, regardless of it being a field, though that's also a nice touch, works better than the red background for Japan.

I do like the console case designs of the past. The Mega Drive/Genesis 1 & 2 had lovely cases, as did the PC Engine, among others. But I also like simpler, "bland" mini-PC style cases, so it just being a box or cube doesn't bother me. The intent is for it to not stand out much. Of course, the real appeal is what it can do and if the price is right. Valve knows from the Deck the price needs to be right, especially since this is the second attempt at a Steam Machine for the living room. If the price is fair, then I love the bland cube design.

It's worth mentioning, they settled on the cube design because that was the best way they found to get the thermal management they wanted with only one, hopefully quiet, fan. Knowing that, I like it even more.

Clearly, the dude on the NA box has that guy who has the look of a hero....in spite of his outfit....and everything else about him. Who wouldn't want to play as that guy?

Okay, in all seriousness, Japan by a mile. I like Toriyama's art(didn't always like it), but the whole thing is conceptually better and more appealing regardless. And professional. It looks way more professional. Credit to Europe for using the Japanese art without modifying it, but putting that horizontal art on a vertical box meant it had to be smaller with a lot of empty space, which is why those pixel portraits are in the lower left. It's so weird how Japan and the US used different box orientations back then. NES was vertical while Famicom was horizontal. SNES was horizontal while Super Famicom was vertical. Weird how they flipped and how out of sync things were back in the day.

They're both pretty good and well executed for what they are. And they convey similar vibes. My pick comes down entirely to composition. The west's cover is dominated by the logo, and all the elements surround it like a ring. For the Japanese cover, the eye is drawn down to the logo, but also to the portion below which is the main element of the cover that isn't the logo. I think Japan's cover does a far better job with the composition since the character elements are not stuck on th edges of the frame. Japan's cover is the one I prefer.

Also, 58 to 42 in last week's poll isn't THAT close.

They're both fine, but somewhat standard fare. They're both nothing special. I think the tighter framing of the Japanese one detracts from it. I also find the background elements of the western cover to be more interesting and purposeful, so that gets my vote.

Good to see Iron Man in it, even though that was not surprising. Also nice to hear Jennifer Hale will voice Phoenix. I've always loved her voice work when I've heard it.

Yeah, add me to the list of those saying neither one is particularly good. I voted for Japan as the better of the two. The US is extremely cluttered. The box tells you that it's the game plus the microphone and voice-recognition unit on the right. Then it tells you again there's a voice-recognition unit in the upper left. And then someone felt it necessary to show the whole setup, if it wasn't clear at that point. It's bad composition. It's redundant. And, on top of that, I hate the North American N64 box template in the first place, so it already has that going against it.

I got 17. A couple of them were tricky. I missed Duck Hunt because my brain was still calibrating to what this quiz actually was, and I think I would have gotten that one if I knew what to expect at that point. But it was fun and I'm happy.

Yeah, it seem likely that the keyboard is either a limited edition thing or it's just extra fancy with the materials. For those who just want a keyboard, 8bitdo has some normal mechanical keyboards that seem to be under $100 and sometimes as low as $60-70 in some cases. I think their Famicom keyboard is the best looking one they've done, and that would be fancy enough for me.

I see some things have changed since my last two comments. I know there was voting for this list and the problem with that is popularity sometimes matters more than quality. Mega Man 4 being higher than 5 and 6 is wrong and might even be illegal in some counties and municipalities. Mega Man 4 is in contention for my least favorite of the series.

I recently revisited the Ninja Gaiden games and, no matter how often I do that, I always come away with the same opinion. I love the first one and the Japanese version of 3, and two is just way behind. I know part two is a favorite of many people, but it does so many things that are the opposite of what I like. They made the sword much less effective than the first game. I don't really like the shadow ninja power ups. I find the environmental hazards irritating. On top of all that, visibility in the game is a problem for me because most of the enemies are a shade of red, your shadow ninjas are red, and most of the stages have a lot of red, so I'm constantly missing enemies coming at me. I don't have those problems in the first and third games.

Anyway, nice to see Sunsoft's Batman so high up, which I didn't expect. It's legitimately among my favorite NES games. It is just a joy for me to play and I never get tired of it. I can also say the same for Shatterhand. Amazing 2D action platformer. It feels like Batman in some ways(punching, the jumping is similar) which I don't think was an accident. Shatterhand led me to Natsume's other games and most of their NES output is very good.

Cool to see this update and a new skin. My favorite is still the classic ninja skin. I love the way that one looks and feels more in line with the original games. But options are great to have.

I appreciate what the western cover is going for by attempting to depict action, but it just looks very static. Terry and Geese especially look stiff. The fighters are basically expressionless. Also, the framing and composition are weak.

While Japan is the generic gaggle of characters, it works far better as a cover. Seeing them next to each other in the actual poll is very telling as the Japanese cover pops. Japan gets my vote.

It has nothing to do with color for me. The robot on the NA cover gets better the more I look at it, but I still prefer the Japanese concept and design more. The NA cover's extreme foreshortening is vary cramped in frame, and the logo being on the fist just doesn't work for me, especially with that font. I think Japan's is better overall.

Cool. I figured Iron Man would be in this. It just makes sense. I would like to see Daredevil is a beat-em-up. He's good at it. But he's not the best fit with the whole cosmic theme(not that it matters all that much). Perhaps there will be a more grounded Marvel beat-em-up later on and he'll be in. This has a good number of characters and about six of them are ones I could see myself using including Iron Man, so I'll have to check out the demo a little bit later today. Gives me something to look forward to.

The explosion at the end reminds me of the fake "Knockout" banner(different visually from the real one) that tricked so many people in the Cuphead DLC.

Some people say the western cover shows more of what the game is about, and that is a fair point, but what the cover shows means nothing to me. I don't really know what it's showing, so I'm not sure that really makes it an effective cover. I just don't think it works very well.

I've always liked full-scene box art. Sure, it looks like the cover for an animated video, but I like animation. I think the Switch logo will prevent me from mistaking it for a DVD. The scene is great. Composition is very well done and the art is good. Just a well executed scene. So my pick is Japan, by a mile.

I didn't immediately realize that was a stylus in the western cover. It's a weird choice. The overall cover is very well done. I think the execution of the Japanese one is a bit weak, from the concept to the composition, including the lack of a background. The Euro/western cover is just so pleasant, so an easy vote for me.

I like anime robots, so the change for Europe doesn't bother me. I think the cover is missing something. It could be more dynamic than it is. Composition is also a bit messed up, especially with how the second robot is covered by a logo. Japan's cover is fine for what it is, but it doesn't do much for me. I prefer the dynamic approach of the NA box. Dynamic doesn't always work, but this one looks well executed to me, so that's my vote.

I'll be curious to read the reviews to see what "open world" means for Metroid. It could mean a lot of things. It could very well just be a larger world with more exploration, but still gated in a similar way to the previous Metroid Prime games. I expect it will be done in an interesting way that is still Metroid. Not all open-world games are created equal. For example, the Batman Arkham games became open-world games after the first one, but still had a lot of structure to keep the player on a path of progression in the game, and I enjoyed those. I get some of the trepidation for those who are not the biggest fans of the concept, and I share them, but we'll have to see how that is implemented. It might be a pleasant surpirse.

I always vote in these polls, even when I hate every option. This might be the single worst Box Art Brawl I have seen. To me, these are both terrible covers. For NA, half a face in this context just looks weird(and bad) to me. But the tattoo seals that and ensures it is terrible. The background? Terrible. Font and orientation? Terrible. Red strip on the side? Terrible.

Euro cover? Also terrible. The planet with the F is there, which is the nicest thing I can say about it. Since Europe's strip is black, it goes better. The font and orientation are ever so slightly preferable to me. But I vote Europe not for what it does, but for what it does not do, and that is having the half face with the tattoo which I think is just very poor.

Modern and digital game pricing doesn't make sense. It's, honestly, not supposed to make sense. You can have a big game be less expensive than a smaller game. I recently plaid $20+ for Ninja Gaiden Ragebound and I don't feel cheated with it costing more than Silksong. Two years ago I got The Ninja Saviors(it was delayed four years on PC, so it came out in 2023) for a bit under 20, even though there are countless games that are less expensive and bigger. The Batman Arkham games are old now, but still look and play great, and I got them for about four bucks apiece. Game pricing doesn't make sense and gamers know that. Silksong isn't priced too low. Wanting it priced higher is silly. It may be a great value at $20 and that's a good thing for gamers. Rejoice. It's refeshing when a companty releases a product and doesn't price it to the extreme of what will be considered acceptable, or push that boundary, such as when there's a new console release.

As others have said, the Euro cover's vibe is that of a horror game. A farmer by day, by night a killer who travels into town to harvest souls to satisfy an insatiable bloodlust. Harvest Moon(of blood)!

North America and Japan share the same key art. The horseshoe is a nice touch. So this comes down to the background and framing. The NA background looks more like a farmhouse to me. I also think the NA cover is a better use of space. The Japanese cover has a lot of empty space as well which I don't think provides much benefit. So NA it is for me.

I finally bought Hollow Knight about six weeks ago during a sale. I wasn't interested in it for a while, but that eventually changed and I was open to trying it. So far, I've only bought it, but have not played it. Not sure when I'll get to it, but I'll get to it.

Aria of Sorrow on the GBA is where I think they really nailed the portable Castlevania formula. The trio of DS games are really well made all around and were more consistent than the GBA games. I was experiencing Castlevania fatigue by the time this one came out and waited a while to get a DS. By that time around 2009, my Castlevania fatigue was gone and I picked up all three of the DS entries. Dawn of Sorrow is really good, but the forced touch elements started to grate on me after a while. I take it Konami got some negative feedback on that since they dropped it. I've heard there are hacks to eliminate the silly touch elements of it which sounds like a big improvement to me. The bulk of the game is excellent, so such a fix could make it nearly perfect.

Both are somewhat weak. I suspected the NA version would be the main vote getter this time because of the grass, but the grass looks weird to me. I understand what they were going for, but it doesn't look cohesive to me. The flower in the corner seems disconnected from the scene, which is not what I think was intended. The logo takes up way too much space in a bad spot. It's squeezing everything else down. It's not great composition.

Japan's is not great. It's also not cohesive with all the different elements, but it's not going for cohesion as much as the western grassy cover. Composition is better overall, and that's my deciding factor today. Japan for me.