Box art that is better in the US than in other territories

There's always a bunch of hate surrounding American box art, and for good reason, since most of it is pretty horrible.

However, recently, I was looking on ebay and noticed the box art for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective in multiple territories.

Now, This got me thinking... how many other games actually have North American box art that surpasses it's European or Japanese counterparts?

I'm guessing there's probably not too many, because we probably would have heard more about them if there was. However I'd like people to perhaps post some examples of box art that they specifically think is at it's bestin North America.

Any Movie poster/cover will be way more sane than any cover in Poland. Trust me

Need proof?

http://www.deathbyfilms.com/top-20-greatest-polish-movie-posters

What ever. Those are fucking amazing.

ICO's US art is a travesty but I like SotC's US art way better than the JP one.

I kinda love the darker color scheme of the Japanese SotC-cover.

The EU art also has the darker colour scheme. My main problem with both the EU and JP boxarts are the greater focus on the Wander and Agro models when they are pretty rough compared to how perfect Valus looks.

The lighting in the NA version of SotC is enough to put it on another level than the other regions. The beam of light sneaking through the colossus' arm/body and onto Agro in particular.

Granted, the US box takes full and blatant advantage of The Ring having come out the year before, and also does the "inverted cross as a t" thing for no good reason. But the Japanese box goes right past understated and lands in dull territory.

Gallery

I really like the US God Hand box art over the Japanese one because it's so dumb. "Check out this guys sweet hand tat as he punches past a post apocalyptic punk!"

@lost_remnant said:

Gallery

I really like the US God Hand box art over the Japanese one because it's so dumb. "Check out this guys sweet hand tat as he punches past a post apocalyptic punk!"

It was that way because it was censored. Originally it was this:

@corruptedevil: Holy shit, that's even better. Man, I love God Hand.

While we are on the subject of Clover Studios, Okami's US art is better than the JP art.

EDIT: Ninja'd by 17 seconds :P

I was going to comment on how cool the US Mega Man cover is, despite all the hate it gets, but then I saw the PAL cover.

@viciousbearmauling: Wouldn't the US version automatically lose because it has the IGN logo on it?

That was only first print Wii version that has different art (it is also a bad version of the game).

@somedelicook: No since only the Wii version has the IGN logo on it. Also it's a "little" different

@bbalpert: I've never seen the PAL box art of Mega Man. That's not bad.

But this topic is pretty interesting. I've never seen the flipside, and the examples so far have been pretty good. It's nice to know that some actual thought and design got through the laser focus of US businessmen trying to appeal to a target demographic.

The US cover on the left side.

@edsone: IMO they're equally ugly :D

Totally unrelated: Awesome QuackShot av. Loved that game.

@hakunin: can't argue with that! However the european, which I own, managed to be even worse. Even the title.

Videogames need more Duckburg!

Starfighter 3000 is a pretty good example.

The US cover art conveys really well what you'd imagine the game should look like, whereas the EU cover art has an ugly render of a space ship that doesn't even look anything like the ship you fly in-game:

All of the Metal Gears have differences in cover art by region, but all of them are equally awesome.

@edsone said:

The US cover on the left side.

That looks the same as the box art we had in the UK.

Those are INCREDIBLE.

@saturdaynightspecials said:

Granted, the US box takes full and blatant advantage of The Ring having come out the year before, and also does the "inverted cross as a t" thing for no good reason. But the Japanese box goes right past understated and lands in dull territory.

The North American Fatal Frame II box art is fantastic, all things considered. It's a shame that the North American box arts for Fatal Frame 1 and 3 didn't match that style.

Holy fuck. I've been dying for some crazy decorating ideas. Thanks! That Blade Runner one is sick, and I'm not even the biggest fan of that movie.

Very interesting what different territories decide to do. One of those things you never notice until someone brings it up. Cool thread

I like the US Twilight Princess box art much better that the Japanese version.

The US art looks like something I could frame, minus the title text. The Japanese one looks a little generic to me, with the big action shot of link covering up the cool background.

Everything is subjective I guess, but I never liked the cover we got for Resident Evil 2 in some parts of Europe.

The version on the right is so lazy and cheap looking. They couldn't bother to find a more high-res picture? You'd be forgiven for thinking it's a bootleg case. The font is not as cheezy as the US one though, but this is one of the few times where the US cover for a Resident Evil game is the better one.

Man europe is such a weird zone for box art. Sometimes we have our own, sometimes we have the US art and sometimes we use Japanese art. I feel like that is more good than bad though, so no real complaints.

Also as far as this thread goes, Ghost Trick is the best example. The NA box just outclasses the others.

@edsone: maybe it was just the xbox version that had that bad cover here in the UK, but I definitely have only ever seen the top one.

Yep I just checked the ps2 version here is definitely the top image you posted.

@zlimness said:

Everything is subjective I guess, but I never liked the cover we got for Resident Evil 2 in some parts of Europe.

The version on the right is so lazy and cheap looking. They couldn't bother to find a more high-res picture? You'd be forgiven for thinking it's a bootleg case. The font is not as cheezy as the US one though, but this is one of the few times where the US cover for a Resident Evil game is the better one.

I could not disagree more strongly with you on every single point you make.

I need to have prints of all of these. Tell me where I can find them. NOW!

@fattony12000 said:

@zlimness said:

Everything is subjective I guess, but I never liked the cover we got for Resident Evil 2 in some parts of Europe.

The version on the right is so lazy and cheap looking. They couldn't bother to find a more high-res picture? You'd be forgiven for thinking it's a bootleg case. The font is not as cheezy as the US one though, but this is one of the few times where the US cover for a Resident Evil game is the better one.

I could not disagree more strongly with you on every single point you make.

I'm with you. I thought that box art was scary as well when I was 10.

Yep, this. I prefer a lot of these posters over the American ones, even if some of them don't even relate to the source material (or it spoils the movie). I want to get a framed copy of that Apocalypse Now poster, hot damn.

Castlevania is another series where artwork can differ a lot between regions. Japan tend to get the best covers consistently and US and EU versions switching place when it comes to good box cover. Lament of Innocence is a good example of how much better the US cover art was compared to EU:

EU on the left. US on the right. Ayami's art has aged very well, which is not something you can say about the 3D model and horrible filters the EU publisher decided to go with. It doesn't even say Lament of Innocence on the cover! The US box cover is so good, I could put it on display. Even if the game isn't that great.

@alexw00d: really? How disappointing. I always bought multiplatform games for the xbox back then. Gaming pc was a bit more expensive then and had bad mouse support. I believe the ngc cover was the same though.

This "debate" is over.

There's a tv tropes page vaguely related to this, I think.

No More Heroes comes to mind:

@corruptedevil said:

ICO's US art is a travesty but I like SotC's US art way better than the JP one.

They're both crap. It should have had a drawing for a cover, like Ico.

@the_vein said:

This "debate" is over.

I keep forgetting about that one. It's fucking amazing.

These posters were done during the communist occupation. The reasons why they are so crazy was because more often than not, the illustrators had no way of knowing what the movie was even about, since they weren't granted ANY promo material (and no one was, ever) or even a short rundown, let alone a screener to actually watch the movie.

Hell, it's stated in the article.

I'm Polish and while I find those posters both awesome and funny, I'm also tired by this Internet stereotype how "Polish posters for stuff are CRAAAAY CRAAAAAY". No, they're not. A select few created during a time where a large portion of Europe was crazy is. More appropriately, "life in the Soviet Union was fucking insane and scary".

Yeah I've gotta get my hands on a copy of the Apocalypse Now one, maybe Blade Runner and The Shining too

I actually think they're really cool. Some of them were pretty creative.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/09/09/box-art-battles-the-kirby-series

Angry American Kirby is still one of the funniest and most depressing things. At first it hurts a bit... like, gee Nintendo is that really how you see us? We love our wars and our guns but I wasn't aware of the "hot American temper" stereotype. Then you realize a marketing move like that comes after focus testing and there's probably data indicating American kids responded in favor of the angry eyes... Wouldn't know a good character design when they saw one.