NES Box Art

[digitalpress]

The NES had one of the most variant palettes of styles for box art. As stringent as Nintendo was, they certainly allowed almost anything to go on the packages. What are some of your favorite box styles/art when looking across the entire library?

[Gapporin]

What concedience! I was just about to post a similar topic.

I always liked the "pixelated" black box covers. As far as a single game, however, I liked Castlevania's.

[studvicious]

The first Mega Man always amuses me LOL

But my favorite, huh? Well, I can remember being in a video rental store back in the day and seeing this crazy looking box. It immediately caught my eye and I knew that I had to try it out.. and thus, my love for The Legend Of Zelda was born.. :love:

[Bratwurst]

Konami's lineup of psuedo-silver boxes were usually good, if they didn't re-use the original Famicom art then they typically hired a competent artist for the North American release.

Tengen was another group I liked, dull bronze! That sort of packaging doesn't scratch up like real foil but it still stands out from a distance.

Capcom boxed games for the NES tend to look goofy, the purple shade they went with seemed to change from game to game, it's like they were trying to be consistent, but not too hard.

[tholly]

the pixelated black box games are my favorite boxes

simple, yet refined

[Ruudos]

Mega Man 3 (PAL box art)

[Lady Jaye]

The boxart I liked the most: The Legend of Zelda and the early black boxes...

The ones I liked the least: Mega Man (or how to replace a cartoony mascot with an ugly serious rendition of an adult!)

[Kilik Kurosawa]

I think the first time i saw the SMB3 box i wet my pants. but I agree with most everyone that the black boxes best all

[NESaholic]

I like Arkista's Ring most.

[The Plucky Little Ninja]

Arkista's Ring did have a great box. My favorite, though, would have to be Gradius. At least I think it was Gradius. I always get my NES shooters mixed up. The silver box with that huge star cruiser on the front. I need to find a poster with that box art.

[Half Cab Leroy]

I liked Ninja Gaiden III's box art the best.

[NESVIDIOT]

I love the Mario boxes(anything with Mario on it)
but I think NOA kinda cheaps out compared to the original game
boxes from Japan. The Japanese box art and game art is always so
awesome. I have friends who collect Famicom and Super Fam just
for the art- not even to play the games!

[xaer0knight]

Shadow Gate and Ninja Gaiden 1

[Qixmaster]

Now F' me for being the person to bring it up... but i really like the color dreams/bunch games box art. Great art, shitty games.

[Emily]

The games I remember being the coolest looking at the movie rental store were Adventure Island ?
Section Z
MagMax

Robots and dinosaurs rule.

[Kepone]

I love the pixellated artwork boxes. I was working on getting more of them but I've stalled recently in all of my collection efforts.

[Nesmaster]

Fire n ice, Zoda's Revenge, and the Koei games

[Dr. Morbis]

I too like the black-box art, and I LOVE most of Konami's silver-box art. My alltime favourites are:

-Castlevania
-Adventure Island
-Ghosts 'N Goblins
-King Neptune's Adventure

I really do miss hand drawn box art.

[GarrettCRW]

The two Zeldas, the black/silver box scheme of Nintendo's early games, and Konami's silver label boxes were the most consistently pleasing types of NES box art for me.

However, I do have an affinity for Capcom's standard-style boxes (the early grid and the later purple border styles), but they always seemed to apply it poorly, particularly with the Mega Man games, where the Famicom art was jettisoned for being "too Japanese".

[pseudonym]

konami box art were usually good. gradius, life force, and castlevania are my favorites. i remember buying those three games partly because they looked really interested/exciting based on the box art.

[cracked8ball]

I also like the original black boxes by Nintendo. I also think the art for Chiller is pretty damn cool.

[Graham Mitchell]

The black boxes were pretty cool. I also loved the first-generation Capcom carts with the colorred grids. In particular, Section Z had an exceptionally cool cover.

I've always liked the cover of the Guardian Legend. I have no freakin' clue what that is or how it's related to the game, but I dig it anyway (I don't necessarily think the box art has to reflect the game as long as it looks cool).

I also really dig the pulp-novel/comic-book/technical-document style of the first Golgo 13 (Top Secret Episode).

[MacNes]

I like the castlevania boxart and smb1-3.

[Dangerboy]

- Metal Gear 1

- TMNT II

- The anime version of GunSmoke's cover.

- Mega Man II's style, just not his regular hand :/

- Konami's late NES era / early SNES artist freaking *rocked*, the Castlevania III artwork (and non NES.TMNT IV) are still some of my all-time fave.

- Almost all of Capcom's "purple border" games, including the Neo-Futuristic "Captain Commando" with the monkey inside the manaual's cover. Especially the first Chip n' Dale, as it really captured the scope / size of the characters

- Snake's Revenge - Sure the game sucked, but damn the chick was hot! LOL

[-hellvin-]

Another vote for the black box art....just awesome.

Also Ninja Gaiden. The city is being nuked and a ninja is floating above the city like 300ft in the air. Kickass.

[studvicious]

Another vote for the black box art....just awesome.

Also Ninja Gaiden. The city is being nuked and a ninja is floating above the city like 300ft in the air. Kickass.

Indeed. That was the first NES game that I got and I can remember staring at that box for the longest time thinking... yes. I...MUST...be...a...ninja

[Ruudos]

I also like the box art of the following games:


Adventure Island Classic
Adventure Island II
Adventures of Rad Gravity
Batman: Return of the Joker
The Battle of Olympus
Blue Shadow (=PAL version of Shadow of the Ninja)
Double Dragon
Faxanadu
Gargoyle's Quest II
Gremlins 2
Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja
Little Samson
Mighty Bomb Jack (PAL)
The Newzealand Story
Princess Tomato and the Salad Kingdom
TMNT
The Simpsons: Bart vs. The Space Mutants
The Simpsons: Bart. vs the World
Solomon's Key 2
Wizards & Warriors
Wizards & Warriors III

[StealthLurker]

Konami was the king of box art.





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