Old school games had awesome covers (that's a fact, and can't be refuted), from outlandish Atari 2600 boxes that showed a billion times more detail than the game itself, to 90s PC games which looked about like movie teaser posters, they were great. Anyway Mike Winterbauer just self-released a pdf book about his career drawing game covers, and it's free on his website (http://www.winterbauerarts.com/ClassicGameCovers.html). It's worth checking out just for the artwork inside it honestly. The Clouds of Xeen cover reminds me of a metal album from the 80s.
Worst example was Mega Man 1. Another puzzling case: Why were they obligated to change Sonic? The alterations are minimal, and made him look dumb. Tails got worse treatment in one of the USA cartoons.
Surprizingly i've never really cared about the difference between the Sonic USA & Japanese versions, the first i'd ever let it slide & it never bothered me for some weird reason. Now as for the Megaman USA & Japanese versions is where things really got me ticked about lately more to how COMPLETELY the two are!
The point I was trying to make is they barely changed Sonic, but why did they bother if he was almost untouched? The biggest change was making his head spikes only have one row therefore making them resemble fins more than hair.
What? I think this sentence is missing some words/has words it doesn't need. On topic: yes, Japanese covers are always better. The only situation where this is not the case is when a western game is brought to the Japanese market - in which case the cover is usually the same as the western version but with maybe a different label and some katakana beneath the English title. But in the case of games that came out in Japan and were later released elsewhere, the Japanese covers are almost always better.
Oh i see what you mean now never mind sorry, yeah i do agree SEGA should've just left him exactly how is japanese counterpart was instead as the both merely resembles alot in terms.
I think with your Sonic example it's more due to using a different artist than any real stylistic choice. Except for the actual covers themselves, those were stylistic differences, and I think that the US got a better cover than Japan http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_3
I wish Sega had not bothered with new art. The first game's Japanese front could have easily been used again (S3's Japan box is a bit dull). Sonic doesn't have anime eyes or anything too evil for the rest of the world. The Sonic in the right is missing hair, and his pinky is so fat it looks like he has two thumbs.
I tend to love westernized box arts for the most part. Oh, yeah. Definitely. I love the colors used in Sonic 3's USA boxart and you can tell what you're getting into just by looking at the cover. Great artwork and I much prefer it over the the other two.
Take a look at his fingers. As opposed to counting 3 with his thumb and first two fingers, he counts 3 starting with his pointer finger. It's more customary in the US to not count with your thumbs, while Europe and I believe other countries use their thumbs to count stuff out. Besides that, maybe they changed the art direction to better differentiate between the two releases?
I think it's more in line with how they drew Sonic for the covers of the first two games in the States.
Oh, that would make sense. Guess I should have thought about that. Either way, sometimes they do some wacky stuff when localizing art.
Nice book! Thanks for sharing. It's true that there were some terrible covers in the US - sadly, some decent covers did indeed get replaced! Obviously a difference of opinion / culture at the time!
I was always partial to the Japanese Sonic covers, so wacky and colourful I love them, perhaps I need to start a collection.
Those last 3 are all over the place, yet they're each distinctive enough to be memorable. Two more good examples are Ico's US cover and Deadly Premonition's US cover. I would post the side-by-sides but I am on my phone.
