Favorite Game Box Art

[Just Locus]

[Oyster Sauce]

[Finarfin]

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I remember going to a Walmart and walking down the games aisle when the World of Warcraft boxes caught my eyes. I remember picking them off the shelf, feeling the raised textures of the hard cardboard under my thumbs, unfolding the panels to look at Wei Wang's illustrations inside. I really did make you look like you holding a premium product compared to the relatively cheaper plastic boxes on the shelves. Mists of Pandaria has the best box cover, while Wrath of the Lich King has the best inside panels.






The Final Fantasy XI: Treasures of Aht Urghan cover by Yoshitaka Amano, where you are looking through a frame at the titular near eastern city.




This and the base game were the two PS2 boxes I had for FF11. Sadly I bought this box off of ebay and the codes were already used up . The dark blue sepia filter is interesting.




The Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood collector's edition box art by Yoshitaka Amano, depicting Lyse in the afternoon sun overlooking her ancestral home of Ala Mhigo which is under occupation by the empire. It has that grandiose but kinda sad vibe.




Japanese Stormblood cover by Akihiko Yoshida with the main cast of characters. Gosetsu's face looks much more fierce here than in the game.




The Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers collector's edition box art by Yoshitaka Amano. He looks really fierce.




Suikoden V cover by Kaori Fujita. Sialeeds jumping/falling adds some motion.




The cover of the first Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii. The setting of the game is that it takes place on these huge titans, and you crawl up their knees and thighs and their backs and through their lungs and on top of their shoulders and their giant swords. Novel. Also you have the promise of finality with the protagonist's sword left in the field.




Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth cover by Tatsuki Amazuyu. MoT is a direct sequel/continuation/conclusion/part 2 to its predecessor game/part 1, Mask of Deception. The ending of MoD really made me excited for MoT and wonder "how is he going to pull this off now?", and then you have the drama of his divided loyalties between the two opposing empresses.




Final Fantasy Tactics. Five knights riding off on their mission. I like the dream like quality of the white, desaturated background.




The cover of Fire Emblem: Awakening by Yuusuke Kozaki. The diagonal lines direct the eye, the characters look fierce, and you have the mystique of the masked character being a contrarian and flying in the other direction while wielding a duplicate of Chrom's sword.




I got the special (or limited? Not the collectors stuff) edition of Fire Emblem Fates, where you got all three campaigns + some of the DLC content on one cartridge, and this is the cover I got. I like the early morning background, and the colorful white and red aesthetic of Hoshido.




Tactics Ogre cover by Akihiko Yoshida. I like the heraldic flag waving in the back. The "this is our first game, but it is actually episode #6 in this huge saga!" thing that the Japanese RPG devs (or marketers?) like to do with Xenogears and such at the time is pretty funny. Maybe they got the idea from George Lucas after he finished the OT and did a bunch of interviews in preparation for the Prequel trilogy.




The Berwick Saga cover. Looks like a small band of hardened brothers out to avenge and tracking their prey. Again with the funny "chapter ### of ###" blurb.




I know it has become popular to be a contrarian against Shadow of the Colossus due to the now hated games journalists who touted it and Last of Us as their example of "games can be art too!" as a rebuttal to Roger Ebert, but I quite liked this game and must have played it three or four times. I don't think it is the bestest thing ever, but I quite liked the art direction, the atmosphere of riding across this empty, sad ruined wasteland, and the grim and bittersweet of story.




One of the few American covers of a JRPG that is better than the original Japanese, this time depicting the big bad (who was supposed to have a playable route which was cut during development. The original cover was also a 3D model but of the much less cool looking Rush staring at the viewer. Should have been a 2D illustration and played to the Japanese's strength of a more emotive image.




(Couldn't quickly find the English version of this cover off of Google). I remember getting the Creature Creator (this game pictured below) which was a teaser for the full spore game. The cover hooked my attention with the variety of creatures it promised you could create. I remember being a little frustrated by the game, because I couldn't paint/texture my creatures like what you see on the cover with all of the small bumps and scales and other details.




The cover of the main Spore game. I quite liked the small blue creature with the fur, and again was a little frustrated I couldn't really replicate that fur look ingame. I guess the models used for these covers were not taken directly from the ingame creature creator, but might have been modelled or textured out of game like with Maya or Zbrush and Adobe Photoshop, and maybe a lighting engine more advanced than the ingame was used.

[Tweed]

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[Manny V]

[Nemesis]

[Tweed]

6 Elmore
7 Vallejo
8 Elmore
9 Generic Logo ********

No wonder the company folded.

[Tweed]

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The UK boxart for Kyrandia 3 which is what I had since I bought the game at a close-out store.

► The not so impressive US boxart

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[Humbaba]

Games no longer come in boxes.

[Valter]

The cover of the first Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii. The setting of the game is that it takes place on these huge titans, and you crawl up their knees and thighs and their backs and through their lungs and on top of their shoulders and their giant swords. Novel. Also you have the promise of finality with the protagonist's sword left in the field.



The cover of Fire Emblem: Awakening by Yuusuke Kozaki. The diagonal lines direct the eye, the characters look fierce, and you have the mystique of the masked character being a contrarian and flying in the other direction while wielding a duplicate of Chrom's sword.

Man Xenoblade and FE: Awakening box arts are so kino
Also the other Xenoblades. They keep the same motif and it's really nice.

[Valter]

[Kowe]

► Cover Arts

The original trilogy has some great cover art.

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Can't go wrong with some of Castlevania's.

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Never played this one but it looks neat.

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Sad, that there aren't really any futuristic racing games anymore.

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Classic

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In case anyone has difficulties finding cover arts, here are two links to look them up:
The Games DB
DOS Games Covers
The Games DB has them for different regions too.

[Basefrog]

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[Tweed]

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Came with a poster too! Who doesn't like Fabio?

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Kyle Reese moonlights as a boxcover model.

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[rusty_shackleford]

Is that Roberta Williams on the right?

[Finarfin]

Is that Roberta Williams on the right?

Yes, along with Diane Siegal and Susan Davis. The guy is a real Waiter and his name is Rick Chapman

[rusty_shackleford]

Is that Roberta Williams on the right?

Yes

She was really cute.

[Just Locus]

[Happy Faulter]

[Roderick]

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[SpellSword]

Dragon Warrior / Dragon Quest

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The original box art for the japanese release isn't bad, and the little bat monsters in the background are more in line with what you'll actually find in the game...

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However, I think that the artist for the western box art created a masterpiece, and I prefer it.

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Doesn't that make you want to take on a dragon slaying adventure!

[Stack of Turtles]

Dragon Warrior / Dragon Quest

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The original box art for the japanese release isn't bad, and the little bat monsters in the background are more in line with what you'll actually find in the game...



However, I think that the artist for the western box art created a masterpiece, and I prefer it.

Doesn't that make you want to take on a dragon slaying adventure!

The dragon looks like he's just shown up at your door and he's really excited to tell you about the coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the stack of Watchtower pamphlets he brought for you to read.

[Tangerine]

Not a huge fan of the game, but I really liked its box art.

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[Tangerine]

However, I think that the artist for the western box art created a masterpiece, and I prefer it.

Western box art for NES games was hit or miss, but by the SNES, outside of weird cases like Phalanx, the Western box art for SNES games was usually way better than the Japanese box art. I don't know if it was due to higher marketing budgets or if there were a lot of Frazetta-inspired artists available, but it's a fairly consistent trend. I've been looking at box art here for the curious: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/

[DagothGeas5]

I have others that I really like the look of but the cover art is black and with the plastic cover it does a reflection that ruined the image One such game is Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper, but the images I found on Google are not like the one I have (the silhouette with the glowing red background is lower down, but Google shows it being right to the guys at the top. That version ruins the feel of it I think).
This one I especially like (like the Arthur's Quest one) due to being highlighted and has a difference to the texture at the touch which I always found quite beautiful (the Icewind Dale one is in the Spoilered "nostalgia" section because the one I have is not like a book and, though the art is wonderful, I do not like the orange thing cd case compared to Icewind Dale II's).

► Show Spoiler

Though I like the "Giraffe effect" and the detail, also on the back, this one looks too crowded with "ads" to me, but I do not have any other boxes of this one.

► Show Spoiler

Nostalgia ones that I just wished to share

► Show Spoiler

[Finarfin]

I might be biased since I reviewed it but I liked the way the shotgun had one part of the title and the shotgun shell the other.
Very cool.

Sure, the game is not everyone's cup of tea but I liked the cover of it, that eclipse behind Lara looks really cool.

RUNE, really fun melee action adventure and the cover is nice and simple.

Red and Black is a really good combination and I had a lot of fun with Absolution, again a little biased. Keep in mind, I played all Hitman games and never found them to be bad.

I think some that have me as a friend on Steam already know I like this one since I made a faceapp version of this. I like the complete white cover that add a dash of color through the tendrils, gun and his wedding ring plus the big title of the game.

DOOM 2016's Cover is really nice because they basically made an updated version of the Original which already was metal as ****.

Look at this. Need I say more?

Alan Wake. The colors, the fact that he is the space in the A and lights his way towards us just looked really nice.

[Nemesis]

Do you still have the original CDs? That, combined with the original box, would fetch a pretty penny.

[DagothGeas5]

Do you still have the original CDs? That, combined with the original box, would fetch a pretty penny.

They all have their respective CDs inside but I would never sell them. Would give them as gifts to someone that might treasure them as I do/enjoy them as I do if I will not be able to keep them or similar things though, as, to me, putting a price to these things is something I disdain though I know there is a market for them. (Not a critique in any way though, I wish to say, as posts lack in tone I appreciate the headsup )

[DrSneed]