What box art did Boris Vallejo do?

[Emperor Megas]

Right, so I guess you look at that now with adult eyes and want it to look appealing to adult eyes...

Not exactly. I'm just indifferent to it now. Hell, I was by the time I was 16.

I don't think the cover is bad or anything, it's just that it was one of my first Genesis games, and I was a Master System kid before the Genesis so I don't have to tell you what the box art for those games were like.

[Bronty-2]

fair enough if box art isn't something you're really into. I got into it in the 11 years since and went from not liking boris and julie to quite liking them for what they are. Their non-game stuff doesn't interest me but as game illustrators I dig them the same way a comic book fan would care about, I dunno, alex toth but not care about the artist who did the newspaper editorials in Tulsa, you know?

Even fine art is really more much about 'context' than the image itself.

[Aussie2B]

IMO that's looking too deep into it and drawing connections that weren't really there when it comes to matching in-game styles and box styles. Its as simple as western audiences weren't receptive to eastern art at the time, and so the standard practice was to re-do the art for almost any game. Sometimes that worked out well and sometimes it didn't.

I spoke with the artist of dragon warrior 3&4 (US covers) and he said he the language issues were huge. Given very little to go on, apart from a bit of time with technical people to whom he spoke through an interpreter (who in turn should have had an interpreter...engrish ) and a bit of in-game on a vhs tape.

These american artists had a hard job and precious little time to do it. Easy for us to pick it apart 25 years later but that's how these things were back then. The industry was still growing and globalization hadn't arrived yet. I for one think the stuff they came up with, generally speaking, was great. Yeah some are better than others but the same can be said of the japanese and european pieces too.

My post wasn't in criticism of the quality of the art, though I would say that US covers for Japanese games are generally worse, especially back in those days. I'm not surprised that the localizers/publishers back then would go cheap and make it extra difficult for the artists, though their cheapness is probably why they would also often hire artists who clearly were lacking in technical ability, producing very amateurish drawings with all sorts of proportion issues and what have you. We were lucky if they'd spring the money for someone like Boris or Julie.

Anyway, to get to what I was commenting on, I get that stuff like manga and anime was still very niche in the US at that point in time, so I understand the mentality of replacing a cover with something in a familiar Western style. But when the actual graphics of the game also have an anime aesthetic, it seems really half-assed and lazy to replace JUST the cover. It's like they were trying to dupe consumers like "Oh yeah, this is totally not a Japanese game with Japanese-style art." Not only did the covers usually look bad, but they were misleading on top of that. To the "credit" of some localizers, they did try to Westernize the full game. Like with Warsong (aka Langrisser), they replaced Satoshi Urushihara's art with some generic Western-style piece, and they even redrew parts of the in-game character portraits, which were also based on Urushihara's art, to look less anime-ish (more like they beat them with the ugly stick). So at least you have a semi-unified look between the cover and in-game. With Chrono Trigger, since they didn't edit the graphics and used a piece of Akira Toriyama art for the US cover (not the same art as the Japanese cover, but just a different piece of his), what you see on the cover matches what you see in-game when looking at the sprites and menu portraits. I'm not at all in favor of needlessly Westernizing foreign media, but if you're gonna do it, it only makes sense to go all the way with it so that you don't have clashing elements.

And for what it's worth, I think the Dragon Warrior III and IV artist had the right idea. He didn't try to give us Westernized renditions of Toriyama's characters and monsters, rather he just gave us depictions of weapons and items, which fit in fine with the look of the games. Compare with, say, the US cover of the Dragon Warrior spin-off Torneko: The Last Hope on PS1, which is a disgusting-looking Westernized 3D rendering of Torneko and various Dragon Warrior monsters. Same kind of deal with Dragon Warrior Monsters on GBC. Thank goodness Enix themselves localized Dragon Warrior Monsters 2.

[Bronty-2]

My post wasn't in criticism of the quality of the art, though I would say that US covers for Japanese games are generally worse, especially back in those days. I'm not surprised that the localizers/publishers back then would go cheap and make it extra difficult for the artists, though their cheapness is probably why they would also often hire artists who clearly were lacking in technical ability, producing very amateurish drawings with all sorts of proportion issues and what have you. We were lucky if they'd spring the money for someone like Boris or Julie.

a couple assumptions in there I want to address

a) go cheap and make it extra difficult - I didn't say it was a budget issue, they spent a lot on this stuff - but there were deadlines deadlines deadlines same as ever and given language issues and tight deadlines.. it was a difficult job. Not necessarily cheapness - just... circumstances. Though on a few you could argue cheapness heheh but not on the capcoms and konamis of the world.

b) lacking in technical ability - plenty of very talented people worked on this stuff.. the less talented... I would say were more on the earlier NES side, or unlicensed pieces, where you get some stuff that's hard to look at.. by the time even SNES rolled around, they are all pretty sound pieces

[Bronty-2]

And for what it's worth, I think the Dragon Warrior III and IV artist had the right idea. He didn't try to give us Westernized renditions of Toriyama's characters and monsters, rather he just gave us depictions of weapons and items, which fit in fine with the look of the games. Compare with, say, the US cover of the Dragon Warrior spin-off Torneko: The Last Hope on PS1, which is a disgusting-looking Westernized 3D rendering of Torneko and various Dragon Warrior monsters. Same kind of deal with Dragon Warrior Monsters on GBC. Thank goodness Enix themselves localized Dragon Warrior Monsters 2.

Oh the DW3/4 artist is super talented. Its a shame he didn't do more. He did do an ad or two and age of empires as well, and that's about it.

I don't really have a problem with Torneko personally. Its serviceable. I kinda like it (shrug).

[ccovell]

Ironsword, which was a port of a Conan game on microcomputer.

And to fix up a little misinformation: Ironsword is a unique game. What is true is that MYTH on the C-64 (etc) became Conan on the NES, with the blocky C64 backgrounds intact...

[Aussie2B]

a couple assumptions in there I want to address

a) go cheap and make it extra difficult - I didn't say it was a budget issue, they spent a lot on this stuff - but there were deadlines deadlines deadlines same as ever and given language issues and tight deadlines.. it was a difficult job. Not necessarily cheapness - just... circumstances. Though on a few you could argue cheapness heheh but not on the capcoms and konamis of the world.

b) lacking in technical ability - plenty of very talented people worked on this stuff.. the less talented... I would say were more on the earlier NES side, or unlicensed pieces, where you get some stuff that's hard to look at.. by the time even SNES rolled around, they are all pretty sound pieces

Deadlines are one thing, but when you're not providing artists with proper resources, like communication with people who are fluent in the artist's language and an adequate amount of materials that depict what the artist is supposed to capture, then it's either a matter of not caring and/or being cheap. If other staff are busy, then you pay somebody who DOES have the time to make sure the artist gets what they need.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the technical ability and talent of the artists. I think there are still countless horrendous covers for 16-bit games and later, even from big publishers like Capcom and Konami. Some are just ugly but sound on a technical level, like the aforementioned Demon's Crest, others are ugly AND have a slew of technical problems.

[Bronty-2]

Deadlines are one thing, but when you're not providing artists with proper resources, like communication with people who are fluent in the artist's language and an adequate amount of materials that depict what the artist is supposed to capture, then it's either a matter of not caring and/or being cheap. If other staff are busy, then you pay somebody who DOES have the time to make sure the artist gets what they need.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the technical ability and talent of the artists. I think there are still countless horrendous covers for 16-bit games and later, even from big publishers like Capcom and Konami. Some are just ugly but sound on a technical level, like the aforementioned Demon's Crest, others are ugly AND have a slew of technical problems.

Yeah we'll agree to disagree. I just thought it would be fun to post the list.. I did not start any discussion of technical merits in the first place, I'm not super interested in that discussion to be honest. I like appreciating what was done.