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Most Misleading Box Art

Beastro

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May 11, 2015
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7,952
Remember those lovely days when you'd go browsing a store to buy or rent a game and had, largely, only the cover to go by.

And the cover had nothing to do with the game itself?


I'll start with Robinsons Requiem, a game I very much wanted to get when I was out searching for a Jaguar to buy. Fortunately I never found the Jaguar or this game, as it's a pure (and primitive) survival sim game and not the space/planetary exploration game I was expecting:

iu


Anyone have some good ones to post?
 
Joined
Apr 5, 2013
Messages
2,430
Most of pirate Famicom carts has some fancy shit on their covers desping being jus simple collections of SMB/BattleCity/Bomberman/Whatever hacks.

Plus, Wolverine in Mortal Kombat?

mkfamicom.jpg
 
Last edited:

Shackleton

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What I bought:

hFAKko3.jpg


What I got:

Bs54I3S.gif

In fairness, every one of Psygnosis's games had such awesome art there was just no way the game could be anything other than a disappointment.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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What I bought:

hFAKko3.jpg


What I got:

Bs54I3S.gif

In fairness, every one of Psygnosis's games had such awesome art there was just no way the game could be anything other than a disappointment.

I remember that. First (and only) game I've ever owned that came on more cassettes then it had colors.

BTW, this is what you can squeeze out of an Amstrad CPC+ when you put the effort into it:

 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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Oct 3, 2015
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11,760
What I bought:

hFAKko3.jpg


What I got:

Bs54I3S.gif

In fairness, every one of Psygnosis's games had such awesome art there was just no way the game could be anything other than a disappointment.
Actual Shadow of the Beast screenshots from the Amiga original:

173481-shadow-of-the-beast-amiga-screenshot-bloody-thorn.png


283097-shadow-of-the-beast-amiga-screenshot-surrounded-by-monsters.png


173484-shadow-of-the-beast-amiga-screenshot-you-be-dead.png


283103-shadow-of-the-beast-amiga-screenshot-you-meet-new-types-of.png


283111-shadow-of-the-beast-amiga-screenshot-fighting-the-hydra-the.png


ShadowOfTheBeast_Loader.tft1.png


427863-shadow-of-the-beast-amiga-front-cover.jpg


The cover art was wonderful and appropriate. :obviously:
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
But on a serious note, the original idea of box art was to be misleading: To give people a hyped-up idea of what the game inside contained... if you strained your imagination.

Every game box released before 1984 fits this description, and almost every game box released up until 1988 as well. Fortunately by around then some software houses found a fine line to toe: To have box art show imagery of things in the game - only looking a little better than they really did. Instead of straining your imagination the box art played on it instead. This is an art that's been completely lost on box art designers for the past 15 years BTW.

Take Shadow of the Beast above as an example. It shows beasts in a forest. The opening level of the game has trees, and there are plenty of beasts in it. Roger Dean being a master artist helps seal the deal, and sends the message that the graphics are truly spectacular. And they were - if you had a 16-bit version of the game. It's only misleading if you're the kind of sod like me and Shackleton that got an 8-bit version of the game. :argh:

Even so, during and after that time there were box art designs which truly baffled the mind - Palikka bringing up Phalanx is an excellent example.

Another one I brought up a couple of years ago was Legend of Kyrandia 2: The Hand of Fate. The box art was created long before any info about the game was publicly known. As a result the box art designers had to guess what the game was about. Here's what they came up with:

152292-the-legend-of-kyrandia-hand-of-fate-dos-front-cover.jpg


95032-the-legend-of-kyrandia-hand-of-fate-dos-front-cover.png


Box Art #1 (Europe) goes into Tarot territory, even though there's nothing Tarot-related in the game, while Box Art #2 (USA) plays with the 'hand' aspect of the title and almost hits the mark, though it feels more like a shot in the dark rather than an informed decision.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
Nice necro.

My all-time favorite for this has always been Mob Rule.

The box art:

1f850bfe-aba2-11ed-a5ec-02420a00019b.webp



the actual game:


0FF48EA0BF1AB643CC32ECF69A563CE129498DE7

2862a99a-ab78-11ed-934f-02420a0001a0.webp



I adore the game itself, but the box art is hilariously hardcore for what it really is.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
Gotta love these kind of threads that pop up from time to time. Shame cool or zany boxarts are mostly gone as well nowadays.
 

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