Box Art Thread

[Anonymous No.10348716]

Appreciating classic box art thread. Remembering the time when you'd go into a store and the boxes would catch your eye. Sit on your shelves for years like fondly remembered books.

I have embraced the digital world long ago now. I used to own boxed games but I grew up, moved around some and they got thrown out or lost along the way to save space and time. Maybe it is the not recession we're in, but part of me misses physical presence of products hallmarking their ownership, hell we don't even own anything now.

Anyway post box art, maybe a few sentences on memories of a favorite game. Or hell a game you fucking hated.

[Anonymous No.10348732]

CRPG classic. From the mid 90's.

It wasn't my first might and magic game, but it was a hell of a lot different than the ones before it. It was a notable entry in the genre at the time. Still the best one IMHO - I hated that there were only human playable characters at the time but as the years go on I kind of wish more RPG's were that bold - there are humans and there are monsters. Not all monsters are evil, but none of them are human vibe.

[Anonymous No.10348736]

>>10348716
Most games for the 2nd gen had fantastic art. It's crazy to see what we had and what become of most western game covers in the 90s. I choose pic related because it was one of if not the first game I ever played as a small child(circa late 80s early 90s) on my older siblings 2600.

[Anonymous No.10348768]

>>10348716
That one isn't technically bad compared to this one, but I really used to dislike how a handful of western artists approached them as if they were illustrations for toys, with conventions such as suggesting animation with tacky airbrushed motion trails like in a "SLASHING ACTION!!!" action figure packaging.

Granted they WERE electronic toys, but I believe even early on the audience already understood a different quality to the medium.

[Anonymous No.10348771]

>>10348716
Walmart would have these bins in the middle of the aisle where people would rummage through the non-selling products at a heavily reduced price. I remember both Darkened Skye and Dungeon Siege would have these anime girls with the "come hither" face on the shelves just magnetically pulling me towards them. Dungeon Siege never made it into the bin or someone bought them all and just all disappeared, only Darkened Skye remained in the clearance bin and I had to pounce. It is an advertisgame for Skittles, and I don't know if the game or 5 packs of Skittles would be worth more.

Game stores tend to have these boxes for sports games like Madden, random baseball, horse race betting, etc. at the front for $1USD each. I've never played MotoGP 3, but it had a unique cover amongst the bunch that spoke to me to give it a chance.

[Anonymous No.10348774]

[Anonymous No.10349025]

>>10348736
Yeah its kind of a lost art. They don't need to produce eye popping art to sell the game anymore, product is moved largely through social media exposure. The upside - wheat is separated from the chaff as it were. Games need to actually be good to move product (er... get licensed and legally copied as no product is actually moving anymore*). The down side: that art is all gone now. Maybe for the best given that most companies would just AI generate it nowadays. I do lament the loss of that human touch though.


* furthering that thought - why the fuck have games gotten so out of hand expensive now? I remember a brief period when digital distribution (steam exclusively at the time really) was easily 20% cheaper than buying physical. The pretty much explicit stated benefit of online distribution was price reductions to the end customer because of the elimination of physical production and warehousing/storage and shipping. Now we pay the same price in store as we do online. There's just an industry accepted price point and that seems to be all there is to it. You will pay $79.99 (CAD ... which means its actually ~$90 CAD after taxes because for some reason we don't have taxes included mandated into our sticker prices). Whatever, different rant for a different topic.

This was the second last game DW Bradley did before fading off the map. It was an alright game actually just clearly unfinished/rushed. It has a little too much RNG for its own good and a lot of the systems don't make much sense and are absolutely obfuscated to the point of never being decipherable (like the wizardry series it branched off of). Doing a playthrough of Wizardry 8 at the moment but this ones fun too.

[Anonymous No.10349090]

>>10348774
I raise you this interesting bit of NES obscurity. I think this was the first time I had ever seen a first person grid based dungeon crawler. I remember watching my father play it back in... hell I must have been 5 so 1990 maybe? I remember hating it because you couldn't see your guy doing things. It was the classic behind the scenes dicerolling combat... I think. My memory on this one is pretty hazy. I might have to play it at some point.

[Anonymous No.10349121]

>>10349025
>The pretty much explicit stated benefit of online distribution was price reductions to the end customer because of the elimination of physical production and warehousing/storage and shipping.
Because it was never actually about benefitting the customer. The industry push for switching to digital was always meant to kill off the second-hand market, further erode actual ownership, and help publishers to pocket the profits. Set up a system so that five years down the line you can delist a game, shut off the servers, revoke the license, and make the average customer buy a remaster at full price on a new system if they want to play it again. Those incentives were never going to last once they'd done their part in getting the consumer to willingly help limit their options.

[Anonymous No.10349128]

>>10348716
I think that the box art for Sonic & Tails, known as Sonic Chaos outside of JP, is probably my favorite artwork for classic Sonic and classic Tails, love it!

[Anonymous No.10349281]

>>10349121
>The industry push for switching to digital was always meant to kill off the second-hand market, further erode actual ownership, and help publishers to pocket the profits
This^^^ also just recently both Walmart and best buy announced that they are going to stop selling movies. Gaming is next.

[Anonymous No.10349837]

I was enchanted by this, I'm not even gay but it spoke to me as something whimsical and beautiful

[Anonymous No.10349852]

>>10349837
Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell single-handedly boosted the Genesis' sales by a sizable margin 2bh

[Anonymous No.10349952]

Love all those old box art paintings, but I also have a huge soft spot for box arts that use actual models. They rarely ever did that and it always looked badass.

[Anonymous No.10350515]

I thought I was in for some hardcore space action, what I got was a very strange old arcade game

[Anonymous No.10350542]

The Phantasy Star II box art really captured my imagination as a child. Does anyone have a high quality version of the art?

[Anonymous No.10350564]

>have the tech to finally match the moebius artwork
>give the remake rights to some eurojank studio instead
I will not forgive

[Anonymous No.10350928]

[Anonymous No.10350965]

This'll be a stretch, but does anyone know the process for illustrations like these? I've drawn a cover for an indie game attempting the style, but it took me forever and I still didn't feel like I nailed the look. I'm assuming it's airbrushes.

But yeah if anyone's ever seen websites or magazines with pics or interviews of the process for covers like this I'd be forever grateful.

[Anonymous No.10351407]

>>10350928
how did they not get sued by tolkein for using "orcs" which he invented

[Anonymous No.10351431]

I've always really loved the theme they had going on with the NES Super Mario Bros. trilogy. It continues with World but sort of dies off after that. The Japanese equivalents of these games also have good art but it's kind of a standard kitchen sink "here's everything in the game" approach. The western versions feel prestigious to me.

[Anonymous No.10351467]

The Sonic 2 cover reflects this level of...confidence from Sega. This was when they were starting to really whup Nintendo and were at the top of their game and I feel like that's reflected in Sonic's cocky smirk and Tails's subtle smile. I love the colors and lighting in this art too. This game was pretty ubiquitous and I remember seeing it on countless store shelves and bookshelves at friend's houses. I think Sonic 3's cover art looks a little too...boilerplate for me?

[Anonymous No.10352123]

>>10348716
Dino Dini's Soccer has, to me, a perfect cover for a soccer/football video game... I mean, Romário and Maldini fighting for the ball in a World Cup final, USA 1994... one of the most complete and deadly strikers against one of the smartest and most elegant defenders, playing in what's by far the most important match in the sport that takes place every 4 years... this played quite well too.

[Anonymous No.10353117]

>>10350542
nicey nice

[Anonymous No.10353123]

>>10348716

[Anonymous No.10353136]

>>10353123

[Anonymous No.10353240]

>>10351431
They kinda remind me of the old zelda covers in that feeling of being prestigious that you’re talking about. I think there’s something impactful about a game’s only selling point being boldly declaring it’s own existence. When a game that isn’t good enough makes an attempt at this sort of thing, it just feels like a marketing fuckup. But when a great game does it, it really feels special.

[Anonymous No.10354040]

>>10353240
Yeah they obviously had a lot of confidence in these titles to style them like this. I mean, they even made the cartridges GOLD! Very impressive as a kid.

[Anonymous No.10354047]

>>10353136
still no translation

[Anonymous No.10354059]

[Anonymous No.10354063]

>>10353123
>>10353136
I like the SNES PAL version more

[Anonymous No.10354067]

[Anonymous No.10354068]

[Anonymous No.10355880]

>>10351467
Sonic 2s art is more impactful, Robotnik looking absolutely deranged says "he's back and not fucking around". Robotnik absolutely hates Sonic.

[Anonymous No.10355902]

>>10348771
motorcycles and baseball, my dude.

[Anonymous No.10355903]

Pretty much any PS1 game made by Squaresoft captured my imagination. I bought this just based on box art

[Anonymous No.10356030]

>>10354063
Never saw this. Super cool.

[Anonymous No.10356038]