sdelfin

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.

This looks super cool, especially as I'm a huge fan of Shatterhand, Power Blade, and Natsume's old games in general(Just got Ninja Saviors on Steam last week as it finally came to PC). They nailed the NES look and feel, and the whole presentation is wonderfully '90s, including the game's title Prison City. I was thrilled to see it had a demo, and I tried it out to see how it felt and to get some questions answered. First off, it has nice options including some visual filters, and toggles for screen shake and screen flash. All of those things are things I appreciate. The game looks and feels a lot like Power Blade 2, with Power Blade 1's stage design. There's a bit of Shatterhand thrown in. There's probably some Shadow of the Ninja in there as well, especially with enemy layouts and how they behave. The premise is basically Escape from New York/LA, except in Detroit. And there's some amusing dialogue in the demo. Some of the level design is cleverly deceptive, though everything was pretty fair once I had a chance to examine things. The demo is really good. This looks like a winner.

@KingMike I did consider that and it is likely what they were after. I think the problem there is that Zelda as a property was already established. Zelda had the benefit of Nintendo's marketing push fairly early in the successful run of the NES, so it didn't need to stand out with its cover. The sequels sold because of the name and the reputation of Nintendo. Some people may have been drawn to the covers, the gold box. The gold cartridge was another effective marketing gimmick. But I doubt the Zelda boxes alone did much to sell the game. So doing a totally new property with that approach to a cover seems like a tougher sell for me. Then again, maybe it did intrigue Zelda fans and perhaps it got a marketing push via Nintendo Power. It does nothing for me, though, as a cover.

To use the phrasing of a previous commenter, though not intended as a knock against that person or their opinion, the US cover tells nothing about the game, and does nothing to demand that I learn more. And that's the problem with mystery and logo covers. I literally have no interest in this game based on that cover. I consider it dreadfully boring. Same for the UK/Belgium cover. The US cover is also made worse by the border and and silly corner tear, two things that both got worse for N64.

Germany is okay, though it's crushed by the aspect ratio. Japan is the one this week by far.

@HalloHerrNoob Yeah, that didn't bother me as much(though it did some), but it didn't really fit the Castlevania aesthetic, especially with it being a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow complete with the same characters. Luckily, the touch controls and the art have been addressed by the hacking community.

As this is Tengo Project's first NES remake, I didn't know what to expect. Looks like they tried to give it a SNES-like makeover. I'll definitely keep an eye on it to see how it goes. I am really into Shatterhand, and a friend recommended Shadow of the Ninja to me a while back, and that is an excellent game from Natsume as well. It is a tough one, especially at first.

On a related note, due to the teaser that previously came out for this remake, I discovered that The Ninja Saviors was finally coming to PC via Steam after nearly four years of waiting. It just came out a few days ago. I'm happy as that's the platform I prefer.

I said it before, Double Dragon Advance is PEAK Double Dragon. I missed out on it until I had a chance to play it a few years ago, and, just as a friend of mine told me, it's fantastic. It has the look and feel of the original arcade game, but with lots of gameplay enhancements that take it to the next level. I'd rather see new Double Dragon games build on Advance rather than trying to re-invent things.

@WaveBoy I grew up with Double Dragon on the Master System, so I still have fondness for that, so I get your feeling for the NES counterpart. But as for DD2, it's a bit of a mess. I don't know if you'd like it, but I think the best version of DD2 is the PC Engine CD version. Would be cool if that was made available too.

@HalloHerrNoob I played them in the right order as they came out. While the first two were good, after Aria came out and was a big upgrade over the previous games in technical terms, it also became difficult for me to go back. As for Dawn of Sorrow, it is very good, but the touch elements just get in the way for me.

@smoreon Yeah, there are a number of elements to that Flash look, some of which you mentioned and with which I agree. A lot of those come from the rise of digitally-created artwork. Thick black outlines tend to contribute to that flatness. A lot of professional visual work in older video games, traditional cel animation, and inked comic books, avoided thick black outlines which was seen more often in humorous comic strips and animation where the gags were more important than the visuals. If you think back to when Streets of Rage 4 was shown, the art was divisive with some saying it had a Flash look. I wasn't a fan of it, myself. But I did look at a "Behind the art" video which showed some of their unused concept art including some alternate designs without those thick outlines and I thought that change ended up looking way better and more serious and, perhaps, professional. You can check it out if you're curious. As for that game, I eventually did get it and I give the developers credit for the feel of the game, but for also including a couple of CRT filters which I thought did a nice job in my view.

The problem is that hand-drawn graphics doesn't really mean much. There are many styles that are possible. The issue I have with a lot of hand-drawn games(or digital art by hand) is the use of thick black outlines that are perfectly crisp and uniform, which has the effect of making everything look flat, with the characters looking detached from the background. This isn't a rule, and even that style can work depending on the theme of the game, but that's a lot of what people mean when they say something looks like a Flash game. It would be interesting to see what they could have come up with for a hand-drawn Sonic. Cuphead was a fantastic example of hand drawn, perhaps too much so from the perspective of sustainability of development, but that's a different issue. And even pixel art done at a high enough resolution can look amazing.

NA #2 is my least favorite. The frame is way too cramped between the space taken by the logo and how the group of characters are zoomed in a bit compared to the Euro cover. The Euro cover is better with a nicer background, and a better use of the space. It has room to breathe. But, that little character with the white hair front and center looks out of place and draws my eye away from the other characters which all seem to be doing more interesting things. That composition looks poorly judged in that regard. NA #1 is my favorite. The composition is well done, especially factoring in leaving space for the logo. It's dynamic as the party looks like they're ready for battle. It's not exactly purpose built to be a cover, but I think it works best overall.

I like them both, which is refreshing. This comes down to composition. The Europe/Japan cover is dynamic, but I don't think it works as well as a cover image, especially with the logos added to it. The logos detract from the image because of how dynamic the art is which is obscured somewhat by those logos. I find the composition of the North American cover to be better as a game cover. The NA cover isn't as dynamic, though it doesn't feel static either due to the artist's style and Shanoa's hair blowing in the wind, but I think it's still quite interesting to look at. The logos don't hurt it in any way. Looking at it here, I feel more enticed to play the game again, which is what a good cover should do.

I was that odd American kid that had a Master System in the late '80s. I had a lot of good times with it. There were also plenty of games that were frustratingly 8-bit hard. I wasn't sure how the Master System would be to revisit, with those tough games and its sound not being the best, and since I'm not really a nostalgia guy in the purest sense. But I did go back some years ago, and it held up better than I expected in a lot of ways. Of course, game selection matters. Some of my old favorites include Shinobi, Double Dragon, Rambo(for me, perhaps the best overhead run-and-gun of the early batch before MERCS), California Games, Ghostbusters(finally got to beat that one after all these years...hadn't forgotten a thing either), and Rastan. I really like that port of Rastan. There were other games I played a good bit, but those where the main ones for me.

Not a bad trailer. It looks interesting. I did notice some of the things people were pointing to as issues like stiff animation, but none of it bothered me. The art style is interesting. It looks like Okami in 2D. I didn't like Okami(PS2 version) for a number of reasons. I hope this game doesn't have a 20-minute intro of repetitive gibberish sounds which can't be skipped(again, PS2 version). That would be the wrong influence to take from that game. This looks interesting enough to keep an eye on.

It's case by case with Super Mario All Stars. I think Super Mario 2 is the best of the SNES versions. I had trouble getting back into SMB2 on GBA or the original NES version. The SNES version is the one that got me back into it. Now I can play the SNES or NES versions depending on what I want. The SNES cleans up some of the slowdown. The NES version is fun when I want that look and sound.

Super Mario 3 is also well done on All Stars, but it loses much of the stage-play aesthetic. And the sound is a bit muffled. SMB3 was such an achievement on the NES that I still prefer it. It looks good considering the limitations, but the music and sound effects are very strong in the original. The jump sound effect is especially fun. But both versions are excellent.

Super Mario 1 and Lost Levels are flawed on All Stars. I think they look weird from the graphical overhaul too, much of which comes down to some of the tiles they used. There are ROM hacks to restore the normal brick floors which helps. But there's also a hack to fix the REAL problem. When big Mario breaks a brick block, he gets sucked upward toward the block instead of bouncing off. Turns out, it was a programming gaffe. There's the hack I mentioned that reverses that particular momentum and then it feels and performs the way it should. Playing it with the flaw feels really odd since I'm familiar with how it's supposed to feel having grown up playing the original NES game.

As for Lost Levels itself, I finally played it a few years back. I liked it more than I expected. It is hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be. I was worried it was going to be closer to some modern games that designed to be super tough, or some Mario Maker type stuff. It wasn't. But it was definitely the right call for Nintendo to convert Doki Doki Panic as Mario 2 back in the day.

I had the original SF2 and Turbo for SNES back in the day, and the ports were mostly well done, but some of the music is disappointing. Perhaps the best bit of music is Guile's stage, but I'd rather it sounded more like the arcade. But I just can't stand Ken's stage music now. As a result, I prefer the Mega Drive's Special Champion Edition, despite its faults, and Super SF2 on SNES.

@shgamer I'd agree that the SNES version of Super Street Fighter 2 is more enjoyable. I was playing the Genesis, SNES, and arcade version of Super a few months back and, in addition to the normal ways that SF2 already cheated, the damage rates seemed ridiculous in the arcade version. As far as I could tell, the CPU players could deal more damage with the same move. On top of that, the difficulty setting seemed broken as well. The SNES port is pretty good with the one oddity of there being no announcer saying "fight" or another sound effect to start a round. It's not a huge thing, but it's also very strange.

Some might say the European cover is cluttered, and that's fair, but the composition keeps it under control. Mario and Luigi are dynamic and are the clear focal point. All the characters around them are well drawn and well placed. Color choice is great. The Euro cover was immediately pleasing to my eye. Point is, any clutter it has is more than counteracted in every other way. Europe is my pick, easily.

The other cover is killed by Mario and Luigi doing that creepy, stiff-as-a-board pose with their eyes crossed. They look more unappealing than I can remember seeing them since their modern looks were established. Who thought that was a good idea? From that cover, I'd rather play as the Shy Guy and the Boo and go on a quest to destroy Mario and Luigi with fire.

Of all the ways to backpedal on this for PR reasons, this is a reasonable way to frame it in order to save some face. I'll take it.

@Rainbowfire if you don't understand any of this, then I'd day you understand it perfectly.

@ChromaticDracula That's good to hear. It demonstrates what I said about how there are many styles of shmup, so if you're trying to get into the genre, it's important to try things out and find what works for you. GleyLancer is a very good one on a system with a lot of great shooters. I also liked having speed control and the variety in how you can use the pods. And its overall presentation is strong.

On the Genesis/Mega Drive, MUSHA is another one with speed control, an interesting weapon system, and auxiliary pods that can be set to behave in different ways. Thunder Force 4 also has speed control and selectable weapons. Both are considered among the best on the system in terms of gameplay and presentation and I believe both are available on Switch and several other ways.

I don't know if any of these are exactly good, but I do know that the NA cover is absolutely horrible. From the stupid marketing line on the bottom to the random stock picture of people fake smiling for some reason, a tactic that reminds me of the TurboGrafx 16 box(also horrible), it's a total disaster. I voted for Europe because I don't think the game's logo is strong enough to carry the Japanese cover.

@Daniel36 the Genesis/Mega Drive has a reputation for rough sound, but it's a bit complex and misplaced in some ways as there are many Genesis games that sound fantastic. The worst sounding games tend to be American games due to a few things. Some are quite awful. None of these are anywhere near that level. Here we have four games with different issues. Centy just chose some odd sound effects. The music is pretty strong in my opinion. The issue from the clip of Landstalker seems to be scratchy voice samples. That's a more common issue on the Genesis due to trying to get more out of its sample channel than it was originally meant for. Many games have better sample quality, but that's something that you may run into more often on the system depending on how ambitious the developer was. As for Ghouls & Ghosts and Revenge of Shinobi, the sound effects are a bit basic, but that is more to do with both being very early games. Both games have good music as well, if it's to your taste. I should also mention that Ghouls & Ghosts is pretty faithful to the arcade original including with the sound. That one was itself an early game for that particular arcade system.

A good set of games here. Revenge of Shinobi is an excellent classic, regardless of which version. Tough game, though. I think save states and rewind serve that one more than Ghouls & Ghosts. I had a really fun gaming weekend about a decade ago(how??) where I played a ton of G&G and Ristar and beat them both. G&G is very tough, but also not nearly as tough as many seem to think. It's a manageable game, and much more fair and enjoyable than its predecessor.

@Greatluigi I get where you're coming from. The blurred lines between RPGs and Zelda-style adventure games have always been a thing and the origins of Crusader of Centy show that. It was part of a push by Sega to provide more RPGs to appeal to more Japanese gamers at the time. So even developers didn't quite make the distinction between RPGs and RPG-like adventure games. I guess that became a stronger distinction later. It's a helpful distinction too.

I am considerably less drawn into the Japanese cover, despite what the writer for this Brawl says. I like the swirly rainbow background for the Japanese cover, but creepy Wario isn't enough on his own to make a good cover image for me. This is a case where the simpler and cleaner cover is not a positive. I find seeing Wario's friends/colleagues/associates on the western cover is much more interesting and appealing and that's how I voted.

Add me to the list of those that aren't a fan of it being first person or having rogue-like elements. But did they ever nail that classic cartoon aesthetic, so kudos to them for that. They did a good job there and it looks beautiful.

@ChromaticDracula These aren't bullet hell so they likely will be to your taste that way. My only issue is that the second and third games are all 3D, though they play in 2D and I find that visually more confusing than most 2D shmups. The first one of these seemed pretty good from what I played. When I first got into the genre, I was terrible. I did have fun at least, so I kept playing. After a little bit of time, certain parts and bosses that seemed impossible got much easier once my mind adapted. So if you're enjoying what you're playing, keep at it. Also, it's not a bad idea to find some shmups that are considered easier and have difficulty settings and other options to help you build up your skills. Some games require more memorization that others, and R-Type seems to be one of those. My favorites tend to be ones that don't require a ton of memorization, though I'm find with some of that. Good luck to you.

The Japanese one is way too busy and the logo cramps the key art. I thought the European one was also a bit visually confusing at first due to the odd character design and posing. The NA one is the easiest one to understand visually, but it's also boring. I think the Euro cover does things the best with the most interesting concept and execution.

@Koda1000 yeah, I couldn't make out her shorts until you mentioned it. I didn't notice her second leg at first either, because the two covers are so busy. She's got one leg kicking high next to her head, while the other is straight down with a bit of foreshortening going on. It's finally making sense to me visually, but it took some time.

@RobotReptile I'm prone to that as well with some 3D games. I haven't played one of these in a while, so I went to check out a video, and I did find parts that bothered me. It's definitely the camera control(same for some racing games) for me. It seems to be if the camera moves too fast. I could probably cope with it in the Katamari games since they're not super intense. Last one I played was on PSP about 10 years ago and don't recall having that issue, though the screen brightness may have been its own. But I say that because maybe playing on a bigger or even a smaller screen could help.

I was a bit concerned when I started reading that first one. But then it took a turn and became truly funny. Nicely done. Games are not high art, and I don't think they should strive to be. So called high art is often overrated anyhow, in my opinion.

Review scores are merely a tool. I've hated top-rated games, and enjoyed some lower-rated games(not low enough to be broken). Some years back, Nintendo Life stopped providing review scores, and people were always asking for scores to return, as imperfect as they are. A review is only as good as the points made within. Anyone who is only looking at the scores is doing themselves a disservice.

For me, it comes down to composition. The cover image for the western version looks way more cluttered to me, and it's not as dynamic as it wants to be. The Japanese one isn't dynamic at all, but it's not trying to be. The thing that really brings down the western box for me is the side and bottom border, and that "only for" in the top right corner. DKC is looking like a prototype for the N64 boxes which I hate. While the Japanese one has borders, they're not crushing the art. I picked Japan.

The North American one is the most dynamic which, to someone like me that is not into this series, seems to be the most interesting one. The Japanese one is not bad, though a bit boring. The European cover is also a choice in the poll, which is about all there is to say about it.

I also have some concerns with the visual and audio presentation, and some of the gameplay choices, but I will definitely be checking a review or two to see what the game is like. It is interesting how much of a departure it appears to be from the early games. Double Dragon Advance is peak Double Dragon in my opinion, and would be a great foundation for a modern edition. That was quite an upgrade over the arcade games while still feeling like them.

I chose the European cover. Obviously, Japan would be a close second. The NA cover is horrible.

The Euro/Japan cover is arguably not a great image for a game cover. The characters are small and the composition is odd. However, it is colorful and conveys a lot about the game. The NA one may have better composition with the characters in the center with the game title underneath, but the background is rather boring. I prefer the Euro/Japan cover.

I don't know if the Pixel Remasters fixes things, but there are bugs in the original where certain magic and maybe items and stats don't work properly. I got Final Fantasy back in the day after a friend recommended it, and I loved it though I couldn't beat it then. It's funny because I would not go on to get strongly into RPGs. I've always been picky about that, especially with pacing. But I enjoyed how straightforward FF1 was. I finally went back to it last year and had a great time beating it twice, which felt like righting a wrong from my youth. I wanted to try some different classes which is why I played it twice, and the Thief/Ninja seemed limited in use. I thought the class change would help more than it did, but the Ninja was weaker than I hoped and made for more of a slog getting through the game.

So strange to see this here, as I was just thinking about this game yesterday. It was on my radar when it came out and I was planning to get it. The game's failure to sell well enough led to it being marked down to $10 a few weeks after its release which worked in my favor. One of the best deals I ever got.

As for the boxes, I think they both end up communicating the same overall vibe, but I prefer the composition of The European cover. It's a bit more dynamic while also having more room to breathe, which I think works better in this case.

Japan, easily. As others have said, I don't think the 3D renders on the US cover really hold up. But on top of that, US N64 covers are the worst due to the red strip on the right side and the peeling corner on the top right. Both of those box-art features were ill advised in my opinion and always drag down the quality of the box art.

edit: the more I look at the western cover, the worse the composition seems to get.

Regarding the Streets of Rage 4 art style, I also was not a fan of the direction they went(in fact, I thought some of their unused concept art was better). However, to their credit, the retro CRT filter largely addressed my issues and I thought it looked wonderful that way. It's worth looking at again for those who may have found SOR4 unappealing and were not aware of the retro filters.

As for this, I think it looks good in some ways, but I also have concerns. I don''t hate the visual design, though I probably would have preferred they just build on Double Dragon Advance, which I think is peak Double Dragon. I'm not sure the tag-team mechanic is something I want in a beat-em-up, so we'll have to see how that turns out. I also find it weird how Marian has yet another version of herself. Based on design only, I am partial to the River City Girls 2 version. Besides that, there's the typical concerns I have regarding general gameplay, screen shake, and other visual effects. I'll definitely want to see a review, but it's definitely interesting to see this as a concept.

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.

While I tend to prefer box art that features detailed art over minimalism, the Japanese cover doesn't really do much for me. It doesn't feel as polished as I expect cover art to be. As someone else mentioned, it feels like a rough sketch or unfinished. On top of that, it's not really dynamic either. And for Final Fantasy, the minimalist covers tend to work to some degree. I prefer the white background in this case, so I voted Europe.

@Nebnosneh The pixel resolution is 448x224, but the games were meant to be displayed in 4:3. The graphics were drawn wider and the graphics would be squeezed when displayed and would look correct that way. Capcom's CPS arcade games also had a wide pixel resolution, but when displayed in that resolution everything would look too wide. The reverse is true for NES and SNES. Their pixel resolutions are more narrow than 4:3, so their graphics were designed to be stretched a little bit to look correct.

While things have gotten better in the last few years, add this one to the long list of examples of retro games and collections being sold for money while presented with significant issues regarding the emulation or options. I'm glad to see these IGS PGM games made available as some of them are quite good, but this sounds like a poor product. There are those who condemn emulation, but when the companies that make their old games available show over and over they don't care about their games and their customers, it comes across as a silly viewpoint.

I voted NA for having what I consider to be a better layout to the Japanese cover. One thing that was immediately clear to me was that I would not even be considering the Euro cover. That one looks just awful to me. I absolutely hate it.

Funny to hear people saying there's nothing Ghibli-inspired here. I hit play on the trailer and I was seeing the Ghibli inspiration everywhere, from the premise and setting, to some of the enemy designs. Based on that setting, I'd say a lot of inspiration came from Mononoke Hime. Regardless, I think it's looking very nice so far and I would like to see or hear more.

Unexpected, but very cool news. IGS's PGM is a cool platform. Obviously, their games were targeted to various Asian countries which is why many do now know these. Martial Masters is an impressive fighter to see in action, though I have only played it a little bit. My favorite two games here are Demon Front and The Gladiator. Demon Front appears to be a shameless Metal Slug rip off at first, but it's different enough to be its own thing and has some interesting ideas and a good number of secrets that can be found. It's slower and more defensive than Metal Slug. The Gladiator is quite a good beat-em-up with an interesting control scheme and great looks. It has some crazy secrets and alternate paths and bosses that are super tough to find even when you know what you're doing.

This brawl reminds me that I tend to hate covers for survival-horror games. They seem to favor weirdness and mystery over good cover art. For me, the worst one here is the US cover. The symbol being so prominent doesn't do anything for me. Japan tried something, whatever that is, but it doesn't really work in my opinion. That leaves Europe as my pick by default as being least bad, but I don't like it either.

I also voted for the western cover. It's eye catching due to how big Kirby is, but it's also a clever concept having him inhaling the background. But this duel is going to be a case, I think, where the result is an easy victory in the voting, though with a lot of those people actually having to think about it and considering the Japanese cover nearly as good. That was the case for me. I like both covers and did consider voting for the Japanese one and it seems others like it too regardless of their vote.

I can see the Shovel Knight influence others have mentioned. That's fine, and it's also different enough. It reminds me how Panzer Paladin(which I have played) and Cathedral(which I have not yet played) both also looked similar to varying degrees. This one sounds good and I'll have to make a note of it.