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Video game cover art (and more) : Who covers the covers?

Kishi

Little Waves
(They/Them)
Staff member
Moderator
Oh, thank you for finding these Ningyō Tsukai scans. They're much better than what I've been able to find in years past.

I've always liked the concept for the PCE Advanced V.G. package, with the other fighters showing in windows formed by Yuka's truly endless hair. The original game's illustration also continues onto the back of the package, which is interesting:

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I'd never looked too long at Asuka 120% before, but that butch karateka is a dead ringer for Tereshkova from Yawara!, which would still have been near the height of its influence in '94.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
There's probably a fairly sizable feature waiting to be written in finding all the Yawara analogues in fighting games created in the manga's wake, too. Always enjoyed that ouroboros of recursive real life and fictional influences trading back and forth.

I should mention that I remember the very good sprite rips you put together of some of this stuff in years past, which helped in the mental process in deciding what to cover. They're a good indication of the merits found in sometimes dubious contexts with works like this, like other individual aspects of the games--Asuka 120%'s soundtrack is an easy recommendation on any platform it turned up on, for example.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
I am continually disappointed that we almost always see only pretty thin girls in fighting games while the men get to be old or overweight or enormous walls of muscle. Of course, I know it's not just in fighting games, this sexual dimorphism is in other genres as well.

That said, those are some pretty awesome covers.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
Good stuff there, Peklo. It does make me wonder how big of a roster you could make for a crossover game that only included female fighters who fight in Japanese schoolgirl sailor uniforms.

I am continually disappointed that we almost always see only pretty thin girls in fighting games while the men get to be old or overweight or enormous walls of muscle.
The exceptions to that seem to be few and far between. But I feel like that is a topic for another thread.

The back of the box talks trash about the ostensible competition and mischaracterizes the Mario brothers as "pudgy little painters."
Box copy and ad copy trash talk is another topic which I feel could easily fill another thread.

Speaking of competition or rivals, here's the next cover:
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Here we have a colorful scene of absolute bedlam on a basketball court that reflects the in game action where punching other players is allowed. The players are depicted with quite realistic looking forms but with somewhat cartoony and exaggerated expressions. This is fairly faithful to how the sprites appear in the arcade version of the game (even if they don't exactly or even closely match).

The spectators in the background seems to be quite amused by the spectacle they are witnessing and are just sitting back and enjoying it.

I do wish I could find out who drew this cover art. It seems so very familiar and reminds me of the cover art for either Mad or Cracked magazine (or maybe even the art from Garbage Pail Kids). If it was not made by an artist involved with those then it does an excellent job of triggering my nostalgia for them.

One nitpicky complaint I have about this version of the game - it does not use the same title logo/design as the arcade game. The design of this version looks like a cheap knockoff when compared to a version that is the same as the arcade (like this one). Amusing side note - that link show the cover art for the German version of the game and replaces the "A real basket brawl!" (no, not that one) tagline with "ein basketkrawall" which apparently means "a basketball riot".

(Arch Rivals is a 1989 basketball arcade game released by Midway. It was ported to the NES in 1990. Two years later it was ported to the Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Gear and published by Flying Edge, an Acclaim subsidiary. )
 
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Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
And now for my next presentation.

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Here we have a nice action shot of some kind of space dune buggy tearing across some alien badlands and doing a sick "wheelie" while being chased by some ... small flying saucers I guess?

The space buggy has a nice design but doesn't look too flashy or ostentatious. It is a working vehicle which has seen some use (but has not been used up). Its greyish-white color contrasts nicely with the earth tones of the terrain that it is moving through. The design of the space buggy and the fact that the planet looks only slightly alien contribute to the feeling that this art is still science fiction but is somewhat grounded in realism.

(Critical Mass is a 1985 action game developed by Simon Francis and published by Durell Software for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum. It was released in North America as Power! The vehicle you control in the game is a hovercraft.* )

*Which makes me wonder what the wheelie equivalent is for that type of vehicle.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
Did someone say "Atari games not living up to their box art"?

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There is definitely a lot ot live up here - the spectacle of the sleek, futuristic vehicles firing their weapons while zipping along the tracks that run through the skyline of a futuristic metropolis. And above all of this we see "The Driver" as a massive presence among the stars impassively guiding the action with his eyes enigmatically shaded by his helmet.

Also, the moon looks quite odd - perhaps it was colonized in the far-flung future. Or this might not even be Earth and could be an alien planet light-years distant. But no matter when or where it is this place seems to know of only one thing - Slot Racing. Will you dare to embrace it? Are you ready to join the Slot Racers?

(Slot Racers is a 1978 maze racing game developed and published by Atari for the Atari 2600 / VCS. It was designed by Warren Robinett who created another little 2600 game you might have heard of called Adventure.

Per BOX=ART this cover art was created by artist John Enright who had a very brief career creating cover art for just a handful of Atari games.)

Here are some screenshots of the in-game action if you want to see how it compares to the cover art. (Hint: It really doesn't.)
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
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When we did game art top 50, I put this at number one. It teaches you programming but it looks like some sort of Civ game where you are in charge of a planet sized Generation Ship setting forth on a quest both to find new life and allies in the universe and rebuild and restructure society into something transcending all our ills and failings on Earth becoming advanced not only in technology but perhaps.... our humanity. But I think the game just teaches you how to make a bunny hop across the screen.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
Wasn't there a term you (or someone else) used for those type of 2600 covers? Wasn't it something like "Serious men doing important things."
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Yeah, I really miss the era of drawn/painted cover artwork for gaming, which mostly died a silent death (in the US at least) in the early '90s.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I feel the same way about movie posters. Generally fan and alternate international posters tend to look much cooler these days.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
It's hard to overestimate how influential Record of Lodoss War has been for the popular cultural understanding and depiction of fantasy media in Japanese works and beyond. Traces of its genealogy exist in such taken-for-granted profundity across the genre that its ubiquity has looped all the way back to framing its very nature as the ultimate cliché, and maybe that's just what Lodoss ultimately always aspired to be to begin with: well-presented stock scenarios and concepts in a genre that on a baseline rejects innovation and experimentation as if by instinct. The iconography at play is comfortable in its predictability, and for its all-purpose applicability has been wielded by many artists and authors over the years, as the working material continues to lend itself to any nerd-adjacent venture as aptly as anything. A license that became so from communal roleplaying sessions can not be better served than by the set of universal semiotics it's since birthed and popularized--its own living heritage reflected in subsequent works, as strong as ever.

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Lodoss-tō Senki: Haiiro no Majo / JP / PC-98 / 1988

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Lodoss-tō Senki: Fukujinzuke / JP / PC-98 / 1989

Fukujinzuke is a type of vegetable-based relish that often incorporates many different kinds of vegetables. Thus, the humorous companion game to Haiiro no Majo adopts the moniker; a grab-bag gift basket of jumbled-up treats to discover.

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Lodoss-tō Senki II: Goshiki no Maryū / JP / PC-98 / 1991

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Lodoss-tō Senki / JP / PC Engine CD-ROM² / 1992

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Lodoss-tō Senki: Fukujinzuke 2 / JP / PC-98 / 1992

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Lodoss-tō Senki: Fukujinzuke 3 / JP / PC-98 / 1993

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Lodoss-tō Senki / JP / Mega-CD / 1994

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Lodoss-tō Senki II / JP / PC Engine Super CD-ROM² / 1994
(mook cover)

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Lodoss-tō Senki / JP / Super Famicom / 1995

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Lodoss-tō Senki: Eiyū Kishiden / JP / Game Boy Color / 1998

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Lodoss-tō Senki: Jashinkōrin / JP / Dreamcast / 2000

The only Lodoss title released in English-language territories before the recently-debuted and in-development Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, the Dreamcast-exclusive dungeon crawler is well worth tracking down as a curiosity, artefact, and a great game in its own right.

~~~

~Bonus Round~
Lodoss is the brainchild of one Ryo Mizuno, a tabletop game designer and novelist, and whose extensive works in the field are not limited to just his most famous creation. Sword World intersects with Lodoss in that they share a common setting, Forcelia, where the island of Lodoss is one of but many regions of the world that Mizuno's other works explore. As a set of tabletop rulebooks and replay novelizations, Sword World had its own set of video game adaptations that ran parallel with Lodoss for a time, further solidifying the complementary relationship between the two.

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Sword World PC / JP / PC-98 / 1992

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Sword World SFC / JP / Super Famicom / 1993

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Sword World SFC 2: Inishie no Kyojin Densetsu / JP / Super Famicom / 1994

As seen in the previous iteration of this thread, this cover was painted by prolific fantasy illustrator Jun Suemi. Such titans of the field inevitably show up in the wider annals of Mizuno-related works; Nobuteru Yūki worked on the character designs and animation for the Lodoss OVA, while Akihiro Yamada collaborated with Mizuno in illustrating a Lodoss manga, and Yoshitaka Amano's drawn covers for the Sword World RPG gamebooks.​
 

Wolf

Ancient Nameless Hero
(He/him)
There's just something about the late-80s to mid-90s Japanese fantasy anime/manga/video game aesthetic that really grabs hold of me. I wish I knew what it was.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Nintendo's Family Computer was not the first home video game system of its kind, but as increasingly proven by the passage of time, it was the first commanding its level of ubiquity, global reach and cultural entrenchment. It shaped the concept and perception of video games as a medium like no system before had and few have since, and so its legacy and impact is unavoidably relevant in reconciling the trends and conventions maintained, established and upheld during its lifetime and beyond. A perennial subject of this is the portrayal of women in video games, and while much of that has and continues to be observed and studied in academic and more informal contexts, video game box art offers a particular view into a subset of that whole, showing how women and their presence were used as marketing tools and artistic expression alike. Many accounts over the years have reflected a general recollected consensus in nascent video game culture of the time having been, in some sense, a more open playing field for girls and women participating in it as both the audience and developers, before drastic cultural and corporate shifts in the '90s and forward drove many who'd previously enjoyed or worked in the industry out of it, sometimes never to return. As such, the Famicom's heyday for the better part of the '80s and its long-term dominance marks it as the driving example and existing record of not only the material that many women players interacted with, but what they were exposed to in witnessing reflective aspects of themselves in the material they consumed. None of this is to say that other platforms had no say in shaping the currents of pop culture, but as the more expensive, niche and out-of-reach options that most of the contemporaries were, their influence was lesser, and even as the Famicom is the primary vector of examination here, its global counterpart in the NES experienced sufficient bleedthrough--even through differing marketing and localized presentation--so that these formative works could find an audience elsewhere contemporaneously, and especially in hindsight as the system's continued cultural imprint maintains interest in its history and library. Now is the time to step into the annals of the Femicom.

Some notes on the curational aspects here, and what this selection of box art and their respective games is not:

1) comprehensive. There is too much to the Famicom library to make any definitive sweeps through or claims about it, especially as that context is limited for a layperson making these observations decades removed, from the other side of the world with no inherent language skills to rely on.

2) internally consistent in what's showcased or not. Generally the only guiding rule was that a cover should portray a woman as a focal point of the piece or composition, for the purposes of promoting the material through that aspect. As such, box art like Metroid was not relevant, even though in retrospect Samus is about as iconic a woman protagonist as video games have a claim to. Other de-emphasized qualities were things like character ensembles and compositional favoritism in places: both apply to Doki Doki Panic and Dragon Slayer IV, which portray families that have gender parity in promotional contexts and in play, but where the covers themselves favour the men in display prominence. At other times I might've ignored something just because I thought it wasn't that interesting even if it "qualified" for the exercise, or similarly shrugged my shoulders at the just-listed guidelines if something warranted it. It's an arbitrary thing, but I hope it's enjoyable to parse through.

3) a showcase of games with female protagonists. While personally of the greatest interest, this isn't about uplifting only the "deserved" examples of women's portrayal; rather, it's meant to shape a picture into a vaguely holistic direction in understanding how sometimes even just women's bodies were used to market video games at the time, in this context. Please understand that a spotlight is not necessarily an endorsement of the material, though I'll attempt to comment and contextualize as needed.

Finally, in the interest of a more exacting chronology and better delineated timeline, precise dates are included in addition to the release year. I would still take these with a grain of salt as who knows of the particular sources where such information is pulled from for the databases that cover game libraries like this, but it's mostly a tool to order the entries en masse covered here. Famicom Disk System games are included and incorporated to the selection as well.


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Pooyan / JP / Famicom / 1985 September 20

One of the earliest heroic mothers in video games is also early on the scene for the Famicom.

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Chōjikū Yōsai Macross / JP / Famicom / 1985 December 10

Minmay is not the protagonist here, but as in the source material, she is the most iconic single character in the series and the centerpiece of its most famous and persisting iconography and imagery.

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Bird Week / JP / Famicom / 1986 June 3

Another animal mother protecting and nurturing her young. While a gendered cliché, Bird Week represents an early step into more unconventional, less violence-defined play spaces than its peers.

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Volleyball / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1986 July 21

While played competitively and recreationally by all, the cultural perception of volleyball as a sport is often preferential to women, perhaps explicating the player showcased here, for a game that includes both women and men's teams.

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Valkyrie no Bōken: Toki no Kagi Densetsu / JP / Famicom / 1986 August 1

The titular Valkyrie may be one of the least-represented should-be-famous heroines in the medium, for the scant availability of her games globally and their increasing vintage. Even her cameos and crossover appearances are rarely seen. The cover is illustrated by prolific Namco designer and artist Hiroshi Fujii, who imbued the Valkyrie series with a stunning depth of considered visual and conceptual design. His work will show up later too, as he was a regular Namco cover artist at the time.

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Space Hunter / JP / Famicom / 1986 September 25

As with many other Kemco games, the cover art here reflects a derivative but charmingly earnest aesthetic. Still, it's over a year to Alis Landale from here.

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I am a Teacher: Teami no Kiso / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1986 September 26

The Disk System had several "lifestyle" application software released for it, marketed as it was as more than a diversion and a toy. Sewing is a feminine pursuit, they tell us.

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Urusei Yatsura: Lum no Wedding Bell / JP / Famicom / 1986 October 23

Jaleco's licensed venture into the Urusei Yatsura universe was somehow exempt of its related license in its arcade incarnation, leaving the alien slapstick rather inexplicable, though perhaps not so in the context of most other video games. In the Famicom port, that context is reinstated, and Lum has the starring role once again. Life ends at marriage for our heroine--or is it just the start of the second loop?

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Gall Force: Eternal Story / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1986 December 10

A tie-in to the debut of the weirdly expansive Gall Force OVA franchise, the cover here displays what the series was at its heart always about: a vehicle for Kenichi Sonoda's top-of-the-zeitgeist character designs and aesthetic.

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Madoola no Tsubasa: The Wing of Madoola / JP / Famicom / 1986 December 18

Another fixture of the era is well-represented in Madoola's scantily-clad warrior Lucia, though not to the extent other games and media would take it, as the portrayal is more concerned with adventuresome aspects than titillation.

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Layla / JP / Famicom / 1986 December 20

This was the era of Dirty Pair, and in their wake many hopefuls arose. Layla is a very worthy imitator.

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Family Trainer 3: Aerobics Studio / JP / Famicom / 1987 February 26

More gender-coded activity games.

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City Adventure Touch: Mystery of Triangle / JP / Famicom / 1987 March 14

A somewhat inexplicable adaptation of Mitsuru Adachi's hit of hits, Touch, but Adachi is one of the most recognizable artists in his medium and enough of a selling point for most.

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Lost Word of Jenny: Ushinawareta Message / JP / Famicom / 1987 March 25

An action game based on the Jenny doll, about and starring her as the protagonist. A very fascinating curiosity, with some truly wild theming.

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Dirty Pair: Project Eden / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1987 March 28

The genuine article arrives, in a tie-in to the sublime motion picture featuring the Pair. Unbelievably, this is the only Dirty Pair video game to this day. I feel so let down by this industry.

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Apple Town Monogatari: Little Computer People / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1987 April 3

David Crane and company's seminal life simulation game underwent a change in adaptation from a nondescipt male avatar figure to a young girl's daily life. It's about as good a virtual dollhouse for the platform as you could ask for.

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Cocona World / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1987 April 10

A super-cute adventure-ish exploration game about a witch in a fantasy world and her unpredictable whims.

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Athena / JP / Famicom / 1987 June 5

The most famous bikini in video games? It could be. Whatever the opinion about Athena's garment or lack of them, the searing pink works wonders for the cover.

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Cleopatra no Mahō / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1987 July 24

Another "pictured: not the protagonist" case here, Cleopatra still cuts a striking figure for this adventure/roleplaying game hybrid's cover. Square really tried everything before finding their voice.

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Titanic Mystery: Ao no Senritsu / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1987 July 24

An underwater exploration game featuring a woman diver, in a pretty brazenly open-cut diving suit.

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Miracle Ropitt: 2100-nen no Daibōken / JP / Famicom / 1987 August 7

An uncharacteristically charming game for Micronics, Ropitt sees the player guide a girl wearing a robotic battle suit across various futuristic and fantastic landscapes. The protagonist is left without her protective shell if suffered enough damage.

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Mugen Senshi Valis / JP / Famicom / 1987 August 21

There's much to more to Valis than this lone adaptation of the initial game, but it's a good showcase even on its own of the series's oddly compelling aesthetics.

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KiKi KaiKai: Dotō-hen / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1987 August 28

As covered in a previous post, once, KiKi KaiKai on the Famicom was packed with figures of the Seven Lucky Gods that Sayo is tasked with rescuing. It's not the only Famicom release of the era that came with such "feelies"--Genpei Tōma Den's port was as equally ambitious and iconoclastic as the arcade original, taking the form of partly virtual, partly physical board game with all the related apparel needed for playing included with the game.

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Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1987 December 1

The idol industry of the 1980s was serious business, and maybe this media crossover exemplifies a fraction of it. Major creative figures from both Nintendo and Square collaborated on this early dating sim themed around singer Miho Nakayama, featured extensively in the game's marketing and the content itself. She appears to feel as uncomfortable about the whole thing as I do, judging from the cover.

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Attack Animal Gakuen / JP / Famicom / 1987 December 26

An absolutely shameless Space Harrier clone, Attack Animal Gakuen nonetheless manages to distinguish itself with its evocative box art that is... pretty much dead-on for being representative of the game itself, down to the conspicuous sunglasses.

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Sukeban Deka III / JP / Famicom / 1988 January 22

Legendary delinquent girl exploitation manga has one of its many adaptations here, based on one of the later seasons of the TV serial. Uncommonly, it's a live-action source being adapted to this promotionally cartoonish format.

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Guardic Gaiden / JP / Famicom / 1988 February 5
(art)

Perhaps the least demanding of explication among these, Naoyuki Kato's depiction of the Guardian is the stuff of science fiction illustration legend.

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Elysion / JP / Famicom / 1988 April 28
(advertisement)

A terrifically interesting game where the player has a choice between four different character classes or races starting out, with two of them coded feminine, or alternatively, all of them coded fairly agender.

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Risa no Yōsei Densetsu / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1988 May 10

Another idol-themed game, but this time a fantasy adventure game, teaming up with the titular Risa Tachibana as one of her fans.

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Maison Ikkoku / JP / Famicom / 1988 July 21

The years roll on by and one Rumiko Takahashi pillar is replaced by the next.

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Ki no Bōken: The Quest of Ki / JP / Famicom / 1988 July 22

The serialized narrative that takes place across all of the Druaga games is one of the most interesting in video games, and Ki's solo outing is perhaps the most inventive of them all.

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Sylviana: Ai Ippai no Boukensha / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1988 August 10

Rad-as-heck action RPG about a girl scouring the land for treasures in exchange for medicine for her sick mother.

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Super Dyna'mix Badminton / JP / Famicom / 1988 August 26

The texture and technique here is admirable, even if the opportunistic sexualization of sportswear isn't.

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Erika to Satoru no Yume Bōken / JP / Famicom / 1988 September 27

An experimental adventure game featuring either simultaneous control of two characters, or genuine co-op play. Mostly known today for a hidden programmer's diatribe about their coworkers in the code. I would say the brother is given preference in the art, but then, the sister comes first in the title, which works out for a kind of parity.

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Kidō Keisatsu Patlabor / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1989 January 24

It's Alphonse! Poor Noa barely fits on the cover, or in the composition.

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Fairytale / JP / Famicom Disk System / 1989 April 28

Blue boy, pink girl. Really lovely literal framing and texture, evocative of a storybook.

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White Lion Densetsu: Pyramid no Kanata ni / JP / Famicom / 1989 July 14

The barely-seen motion picture turned into the barely-played Famicom RPG itself. As someone who recently played through this and found it worthwhile in spite of... things, looking at this makes me mostly happy.

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Faria: Fūin no Tsurugi / JP / Famicom / 1989 July 21

Spoilers for a thirty-year-old game: I know the pictured heroine turns out to have been a dude magically transformed "into a woman" halfway or somesuch through the game. It's pretty shitty given how much of a selling point "rad action RPG with a woman protagonist" was before I found out more about the game, and gleaning some kind of queer narrative out of it would be arduous at best. Just a sore spot for something that's superficially so appealing.

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Idol Hakkenden / JP / Famicom / 1989 September 14

Adventure game about an aspiring pop idol out to prove her sibling superiority, caught in a competition with her sisters for the right to inherit the fortune of their ailing business tycoon grandmother.

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Marusa no Onna / JP / Famicom / 1989 September 19

An adventure game based on the Juzo Itami movie of the same name, though using the poster art from the sequel for the cover. Very worth looking up for the gorgeous visuals, and adult woman protagonist.

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I Love Softball / JP / Famicom / 1989 December 19

Love softball, hate pants. Probably wouldn't even mind so much if the most focal figure wasn't posed butt-first in the center of the frame.

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Dragon Quest IV: Michibikareshi Monotachi / JP / Famicom / 1990 February 11

Akira Toriyama as a visual artist peaked, by my recognition, somewhere around '88 to '90. It would never be as good as we got from him then, but what a visual legacy. Sofia, as she's informally known since, is real important in depicting not just her own character, which has greatly diverged in subsequent portrayals, but in general for depictions of buff, built and stocky protagonist women. It almost never happens to the degree it's present here.

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Yami no Shigotonin Kage / JP / Famicom / 1990 August 10

Maybe the most flimsily justified inclusion on this list, but somewhat amplified by the knowledge that Kaede and Hayate truly do have the parity in play that the box art professes: either both are in action at once, or the player can choose between them, with no mechanical differences between them. Just a nice thing.

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Magical Kids Doropie / JP / Famicom / 1990 December 14

A real system highlight from a developer that did much to define its outer curiosities. The development process sounds pretty troubled, though:​
Some developers had an opinion that "NES is for boys" and objected to having a girl as the protagonist of the game. The rest of the game's staff told the character designer that most video games during its release had male characters as protagonists because players couldn't relate to female protagonists as playable characters.​
Reassuring creative environment!

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Fushigi no Umi no Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water / JP / Famicom / 1991 March 15

The first of the boatloads of Nadia-derived licensed games, even though there was nothing to the longevity of the material except the one TV series. I guess even back then Gainax were proficient at merchandizing what they had.

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Itadaki Street: Watashi no Omise ni Yottette / JP / Famicom / 1991 March 21

The inaugural game in the virtual board game series, sometimes known as Fortune Street in English on the rare occasions it turns up. Most or all of the playable characters here appear to be girls, and so is the presenter or host.

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Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen / JP / Famicom / 1991 April 12

A once-in-a-lifetime confluence of political factors and timing, this game sees the player, farcically or not, fostering the improvement of Japanese-Soviet relations through constructing a pipeline between the nations via the context of a puzzle game. While Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is eponymously featured, the player character(s) are a pair of girls clad in Russian national costume, cheerfully building the pipe of dreams aided by one another's coordination.

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Chibi Maruko-chan: Uki Uki Shopping / JP / Famicom / 1991 October 4

Another beginning to a licensed dynasty, Uki Uki Shopping features Maruko and friends in a board game making full use of the series's easily recognizable art style.

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Chitei Senkō Bazolder / JP / Famicom / 1991 November 15

One of the shining stars of multi-genre innovation and experimentation on the system, and a fantastic cover to go with it. Known by the evocative and slightly distressing WURM moniker elsewhere.

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Monster Maker: 7-tsu no Hihō / JP / Famicom / 1991 December 20

There's so much to say about Monster Maker that seems in direct contrast to how inaccessible it feels from behind a language barrier. A very prolific series for a number of years that always had a consistent aesthetic and as seen here, prominently featured women, but that seems almost invisible in any English-language space it might come up in. It's a damn shame.

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Mahō no Princess Minky Momo: Remember Dream / JP / Famicom / 1992 July 29

Bow down to the queen. Minky Momo is one of the most (in)famous magical girls who ever took up a candy-coloured sceptre, and she's here to assert her dominance. This is a tie-in to the early '90s second TV series that revived the series after nearly a decade-long absence.

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Double Moon Densetsu / JP / Famicom / 1992 October 30

An RPG for the system where you do not play as the portrayed woman, but as her twin brother seeking her during his travels. An arresting illustration, regardless.

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Yōsei Monogatari Rod Land / JP / Famicom / 1992 December 11

A mega-cute game about a pair of fairies on a mission to rescue their captive mother from imprisonment in a succession of towers.

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Ai Sensei no Oshiete: Watashi no Hoshi / JP / Famicom / 1993 March 26

A throwback to the Disk System glory days, perhaps, this more-app-than-game involves astrology-based fortune-telling and features a cover that's probably more exciting than the content itself.

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Puyo Puyo / JP / Famicom / 1993 July 23

Again, it seems almost unfair to just casually brush up against the colossal entity that is Puyo Puyo, in passing. For what it is, this early port is a little calmer is composition than the series usually goes.

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Nakayoshi to Issho / JP / Famicom / 1993 December 10

It's beholden to a factual chronology, but still the best might have been saved for last. Nakayoshi to Issho is a crossover RPG featuring characters from the pages of Nakayoshi magazine, a shōjo manga publication that at the time was riding high on its Sailor Moon coverage, and so features that series among several others in this RPG mix. I love everything about the presentation and concept here.

~~~

~Bonus Round~

This is one of the weirdest and coolest discoveries I've had the opportunity to make in looking at hundreds upon hundreds examples of video game box art. Namco was one of the earliest, and most prolific Famicom developers, and their game boxes developed a particular style in the visual design that anyone could make out from the rest; a very effective piece of branding. They also employed regular artists for the box art, the previously discussed Hiroshi Fujii among them. In his body of work, the Namco port of Side Pocket and its cover starts a fascinating trend that goes on for over a year in the sports/recreation line of games: that of a central, mascot-like representative figure, a brunette ponytailed woman. I have no idea if this character is named anywhere, or if her existence is even acknowledged by any of the surrounding material... but there she is, wearing as many hats over the years as Namco made games about. In addition to being just plain charming of a visual continuity, Fujii's inimitable aesthetics and techniques lend all of these covers dealing with the subject an extremely dynamic, lively atmosphere that's just a joy to behold. Overachieving game packaging in every way.

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Side Pocket / JP / Famicom / 1987 October 30

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Family Tennis / JP / Famicom / 1987 December 11

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Family Circuit / JP / Famicom / 1988 January 6

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Namco Classic / JP / Famicom / 1988 May 27

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Family Pinball / JP / Famicom / 1989 March 24

~~~

By my count, this is the 20th post I've made dedicated to the exploration, curation and presentation of video game box art, so I figured I'd go a little harder with it this time. Hopefully the subject is as fun for others as it is for me to research and compile for viewing.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Oh, yeah, that was meant to be a nod to Rachel Weil, to whom I associate the word, but it seems like an obvious enough portmanteau others could arrive at independently too.
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
Oh, yeah, that was meant to be a nod to Rachel Weil, to whom I associate the word, but it seems like an obvious enough portmanteau others could arrive at independently too.
Oh wow, I had no idea! As I'm planning on publishing this work next year I'll reach out to Weil to share what I've done and about the use of "Femicom"...she came up with it far before I did so I don't want to step on any toes. Appreciate this!
 

Kishi

Little Waves
(They/Them)
Staff member
Moderator
Bazolder was what I was hoping to see as soon as I realized what the post was about, and I was not disappointed. I love the art-nouveau-by-way-of-anime style of Watashi no Hoshi, too.

Nintendo recently gave a nod to the Volleyball box art by making "Volleyball Player" a Spirit in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. I've even seen fan art based on it since then. Also, the game's advertisement features a number of players from different countries, including multiple women of color. That was a pleasant surprise.

And I, too, just became aware of the Namcot cover girl recently. It must have been around the time they had Fuji bring her back for "FamiSlo," a series of Namcot-themed slot machines, in 2018:

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Slot Pac-Man

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Slot Family Stadium

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Slot Galaga
(Someone apparently forgot to disable the ® and "Slot" parts of the logo here...)​


Here's a Tweet by a fan who hunted down a full set of her appearances (and even fashioned some replica packages (ウソパッケージ) using the FamiSlo illustrations):




Even this person just refers to her as 冨士宏先生の女の子 ("Fuji Hiroshi-sensei's girl"), so she really must not have a name.
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
And I, too, just became aware of the Namcot cover girl within the last year. Here's a Tweet by a fan who hunted down a full set of her appearances (the Slot Family Stadium and Slot Pac-Man illustrations are really cute, too):




Even this person just refers to her as 冨士宏先生の女の子 ("Fuji Hiroshi-sensei's girl"), so she really must not have a name.
Wow, I was planning on doing a feature on her appearances in the future...that is an awesome help!
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
I'm so glad she made a return after so long. Wish she'd ended up in Namco × Capcom and things of that nature, too. The recent Namcot Collection that includes a number of the games she was in would've been perfect to feature her in, but I'm not sure if she's there.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
Haven't posted for a while so I guess I need to catch up by talking about a few different things.

It's hard to overestimate how influential Record of Lodoss War has been for the popular cultural understanding and depiction of fantasy media in Japanese works and beyond.
So did it popularize the elf shieldmaiden in a mini-skirt look with Deedlit or was that based on something earlier?

Odd how this "Sword World" seems to be dominated by non swords - only 40% of the weapons on this cover are swords!

It's almost as misleading as this cover:
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I mean is that guy in the middle supposed to be the "Lord of Sword"? If so then why is he so prominently wielding a bow? I don't blame the snake and the treant for laughing at him in this case. Or that skeleton for eyeing him like that. And is that other skeleton sitting in on a treant taunting him or is that actual Lord of Sword? Lord of Sword cover - you truly are an enigma of fantasy art.

(Lord of the Sword / Lord of Sword is a side scrolling action-adventure RPG for the Master System developed and published by Sega. It was released in 1988 in Japan and in 1989 in North America and Europe.)

Next I'm going to compare and contrast the covers for SotN. No, not that one. I'm talking about the other one - Shadow of the Ninja.
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Here we have the the covers for the European(/Australian) version on the left and the US version on the right.

The Euro version does have a nice ominous orange and red sky background and the massive looming presence of the red-tinted angry-looking bearded man (the main antagonist I presume) but the two heroes seem a bit less than impressive to me. The ninja lady seems to have been caught completely off guard by the red-tinted giant behind her while the ninja bro is strking a cool pose and showing off his muscles and Winter Soldier-esque metal arm but seems to not be focusing on the real threat behind him. This feels like the dumbed down Saturday morning cartoon version of the original source material (or a bastardized American comic adaptation). This version also commits the common cover error / sin of slapping the title and other box decorations all over the art.

The US version has a far better layout that keeps the box decorations from interfering with the art. I like the nice ready for battle pose and the dramatic framing (even if the geography doesn't really make all that much sense). The color of the sky and the giant flame (?) running through it are also pretty cool looking (even though they also don't make much sense). I also like the design of the enemy ship. The robot is OK but I am not sure what it is supposed to be shooting or what it is trying to hit with its payload. I see that the ninja lady has lost her armor (of questionable utility) and gained pants and sleeves and an actual weapon. She also managed to jettison about 3 or 4 feet of extraneous hair (which it must have been quite a chore for her other version to dye green).

Here's the Japanese version of the cover. I guess I can appreciate what it's trying to do and it is laid out better than the Euro version. However the different elements of the artwork just don't seem to come together and it just seems like a big old mess to my eyes. Overall I prefer the NA version of the cover out of all three of them.

(Shadow of the Ninja is a side-scrolling action game developed by Natsume for the NES in 1990. The Japanese title of the game was Yami no Shigotonin Kage or 闇の仕事人 KAGE. It was released in Europe by Taito in 1991 with the title Blue Shadow.

Per BOX=ART the North American cover art was created by artist Greg Winters who did the cover art for a whole bunch of games including quite a few Mega Man games.)
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Lady warriors wearing a leotard w/skirt and shoulderpads attached is the quintessential 80's look, yeah. Remove the shoulderpads and it turns into the quintessential look for the 90s.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
Haven't posted for a while so I guess I need to catch up by talking about a few different things.
And a few more things.

Hey, did somebody mention Gun-Nac?

Gun-Nac is a shmup which has ideal box art for the genre (per Octo's definition) - it has a CSS flying away from a Bad Space Monster which in Gun-Nac's case is

...

a giant robot bunny rabbit.
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The cover has a nice mix of threat and whimsy with cute looking enemies that are glaring at the CSS. The background does a nice job of establishing the outer space setting and provide a good canvas for the action. The border around the art frames it nicely and does not intrude upon it (for the most part). The title logo also looks pretty cool with the shiny multi-colored letters that sort of look like sharpened metal. I also like how the tail fins of the CSS sort of mimic rabbit ears. (But I that design is not very faithful to the in-game sprite. Still looks cool though. The GRBR is quite faithful to the design of the in-game sprite which is the stage 1 boss.) If I was going to nitpick I might complain about how the Tonkin House "badge"/logo intrudes on the art work but it doesn't intrude very much so it's not a big deal.

(Gun-Nac is a vertical scrolling shooter developed by Compile and published by Tonkin House. It was released in Japan in 1990 and in North America in 1991. The art above is from the Japanese version.)

And now on to our next item.
Hey, did somebody mention Tomba!?

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Uh, do I even want to know what's going on here? I must admit I have never played this game so I don't have any context for this scene. The cover has the style of a classic cartoon or comic book. It is showing things in the middle of the action with a shirtless man in mid-air about to come crashing down on some fleeing pigs in little red jackets. The shirtless man seems to be quite enthused about this and is mugging for the "camera" but the pigs seem to be quite frightened of whatever the man is about to do to them. One of the pigs has a nice cartoony shocked face with eyeballs bulging out more than is naturally possible (but not so far as to be extremely cartoony and silly).

(Tomba! s a platform-adventure game developed by Whoopee Camp and published by Sony for the PlayStation 1. It was released in 1997 in Japan and in 1998 in Europe and North America. Per BOX=ART this cover art was created by artist Greg Harsh who had a brief career creating cover art - mostly for PlayStation 1 games.)
 
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Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
So in honor of the new game in the Ghosts 'n Goblins series - I am going to re-cover some covers that were covered on TT2 and also cover one new thing.

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This is a cover that I stumbled upon while creating my list for the Top 50 Video Game Box Art on the previous forum iteration. I was so struck by it that it instantly became my favorite. I could try to express why I like it so much but another Tyrant summed it up in a few simple words: "That GnG cover is metal AF."

Ghosts 'n Goblins has been ported to many different systems including the Commodore 64. For that version of the game the following cover art was used in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

It depicts Arthur fighting one of his classic adversaries - a red-furred werewolf in a cape that attacks with flying jump kicks.

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... They must have changed the graphics for the European version.

And finally we will cover something new. But it's actually old but it's never been covered in one of these threads before so it still is new. But it's not actually a cover - it's an arcade flyer. But that falls under the "and more" part of the thread title so it's fair game.
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The flyer has some nice appropriately spooky imagery on it with the skulls and bats and grim reapers and the giant horned devil in the background. I do like the symmetry of the reapers posed like guards or gatekeepers. The white background does feel like a missed opportunity to provide a place for this art to live - right now it's just sort of floating in a white void. Arthur is not faithful to the in-game sprite but I think the depiction on the flyer is very true to the spirit of who and what Arthur is.

(Ghouls 'n Ghosts is a 1988 side-scrolling platform arcade game developed by Capcom. The SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive versions of it were released in 1989. It is the sequel to Ghosts 'n Goblins and the second game in the Ghosts 'n Goblins series. The Japanese title for the game is 大魔界村 - Daimakaimura, lit. Great Demon World Village.

Ghosts 'n Goblins is a 1985 side-scrolling platform arcade game developed by Capcom. It was ported to the Commodore 64 in 1986. The Japanese title for the game is 魔界村- Makaimura, lit. Demon World Village

Per BOX=ART the Mega Drive cover was created by Yuji Kaida. The arcade flyer art was created by Frank Cirocco who has done cover art for quite a few other games. The flyer art was reworked by Ian Naylor for the cover art for the European non-console version of Ghouls 'n Ghosts. However I think the reworking only served to diminish the artwork so I am not going to comment on it.)
 
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Kishi

Little Waves
(They/Them)
Staff member
Moderator
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Not to be missed for Daimakaimura is the illustration painted by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (of Gundam fame) for 1990's PC Engine SuperGrafx version (also used in the print advertisement).


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Illustrating the package of 2002's Chohmakaimura R for the Game Boy Advance was one of Shinkiro's first jobs after joining Capcom. It demonstrates his moving away from the relentlessly detailed soft shading he'd used during his final days at SNK and back toward the cartoonier style he'd used in the early '90s, though traces of the former are still present. He also had a thing around this time for grouping a variety of figures in a monochromatic haze behind the focal subjects; see also Psy-Ops, Capcom Classics Collection, and of course Gun Survivor 4: Biohazard: Heroes Never Die. The Art Nouveau styling on the Princess's hair is a nice touch.


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In 2006, Shinkiro returned to the series with Gokumakaimura for the PlayStation Portable. You can see he had grown more comfortable rendering not only the monsters but even Arthur in a more comical style. The monsters also feel like they're part of the same scene as Arthur, implying the game's sense of overwhelming mayhem with how they crowd the composition.
 
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