Box Art---We were Robbed!

[aarond]

Check out this article on US vs. Japanese/European box art. The Tron Bonne box art for the US is horrible when compared to both regions. I actually think I like the Europe one a little better.

opmboxart.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=4&cId=3137582

[WoodleDiaper]

Yep...seen those before. There was also one with a piece of toast that had a servbot head burnt onto it, but I forgot which country it came from.

Capcom really gets on my nerves sometimes...

[feldinaut]

Ahh, the toast. That wasn't actually a cover. It was on the front of the game manual for Toron ni Kobun. The case was a double-decker... So the manual was placed on the inside rather than as a pull-out like our American case was. You know, this is awfully hard to explain. I own both, so let me just grab some pictures from my digital camera.

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Feldinaut's Illustrated Guide to Game Boxes

OR

Feldinaut Makes This Thread Take an Hour for Dial-Up Users to Load

First up, we'll look at the American Box with that nasty 3D stuff on both the front AND back.

It's the same size as any regular Playstation box.

The front cover insert serves as both the manual and the front of the box, as with a normal Playstation game.

However, it's one of those secret 2-CD cases. You flip it out from the inside. The center there is nothing but a paper insert. The demo disc goes on the far right but mine completely vanished, so it's not pictured.

Now the Japanese case...

You may not have been able to tell from those angles, but it's a "double-decker" size.

HOWEVER, it's not the standard American type you may have seen... Instead of having two hinges, it only has one. Open it up to reveal the game disc and the manual.

Pull out the manual and SURPRISE! There's a demo disc back there!

May I also mention that while the American manual is in black and white, the Japanese manual is in full color and has about twice as many pages?

And I know my carpet is nice. You don't have to tell me.

THE END

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But I've actually seen another version of the UK box art... At least, I think it was the UK box art. It certainly wasn't Japanese, and there has only been one U.S. version that I know of...

That's the one. The picture is tiny and grainy, but every website I could find had the same one so... *shrug* Anyone know anything about this cover?

The Legends series boxes we got in the states all had those crazy 3D renders on them... Something I don't quite understand. It seems like it would take more time to do. Why spend more time coming up with something new to put on the cover when the Japanese version is even better?

The thing I was most disappointed by upon first viewing the Japanese covers, however, was how much more impressive the title logos were. They somehow just fit the game better. While I couldn't expect Capcom to keep a Japanese logo on the American version of a game, I think they could have done a lot better than the Microsoft WordArt™ crap we ended up with.

And just the title itself is kind of annoying... How did "Toron ni Kobun" become "The Misadventures of Tron Bonne?" Why not call it "Tron and Servbots?" It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but what we ended up with is just so...random.

The one thing I can't complain about, though, is the art on the discs themselves. I prefer Toron ni Kobun's disc art a little better, but The Misadventures of Tron Bonne's looks pretty swell as well. I do like the bright green...

[WoodleDiaper]

Ahhhh....Oh, and I thought your descriptions were fine, but it was nice to include the pictures =) Thankie.

[feldinaut]

I enjoy being much too thorough. And that was just for the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with the Japanese case. MMLS has the disc art and things, but nothing on the actual cases since I guess it's not that notable. But I find it interesting.

[aarond]

About the title...

I can't think that really they could have done much better. Call it "Tron and the Servbots" and everyone just would have been scratching their heads (some, admittedly, still were). The actual title makes it sound a little wacky, though, as we've said, the box art doest nothing to support that wackiness.

Maybe it would have been better, from a sales perspective, at least, to call it something with "MegaMan" in the title. Now that I've said that, I'm having trouble coming up with something that doesn't sound like "Jimmy Olsen: Superman's Pal."

Maybe "Tron Bonne: MegaMan's Rival/Girl?" Yeah, I've got nothing.

[TiFa]

I remember seeing that Kobun toast pic when I was in Tokyo. The Playstation floor of the Sony building had case inserts/manual cover pictures in little albums. I spent nearly an hour digging through those albums looking for covers of all of the RMD games

[Shelldragon]

Poor Americans always getting the shaft with gaming graphics and design. We also seem to get worse coding and don't get cool features like kicking dogs around and shooting birds.

[TronBonne]

Wow, I really like the Japanese case. The book with the toasted Servbot is cute. What was the point of putting 3D stuff on the American box art? When a game comes from Japan do you have to change the box art? (I know the name has to be put in english, but why change the whole thing?)

[feldinaut]

Initially, I think the boxart for Mega Man Legends was changed to convey to American audiences that "THIS IS A 3-D GAME OMG!!! LOOK HOW 3-D IT IS ON THE COVER!!!" I can kind of see how Capcom USA might have thought this was a good idea (though poorly excecuted) because if you've ever seen the original Japanese cover, it's nothing but the game title and a shiny, metallic Bonne logo on black. While insanely awesome-looking, that's just not the sort of thing that sells in the States.

The MoTB box was probably changed just to keep in the same style... Although the cartoony style cover would have made tons more sense because, unlike MML, the cutscenes are all in that style and not using the in-game character models. Go figure.

[Dashe]

You bring up an interesting point--when I first got MoTB, I expected more of it to be executed in 3-D because of the box art, and agree that in this situation (where the cutscenes are mostly two-dimensional), a cartoony box would have been more appropriate. Capcom probably decided to use 3-D box art because it resembled the box art on Mega Man Legends, and assumed that people would notice the similarities and make the connection that the two games are related (of course, any idiot who has played MML knows that Tron's from that series).

I guess they made it 3-D so that people playing MoTB could make the connection that, based on the box art, Mega Man Legends is an extension, sequel, or prequel of MoTB

[Notmyname]

Feldinaut,
I also got scans of the box art ;D

I'm not sure about the last one either, for some reason i thought it was russian, but when you pay attension and use logics, you'ed relize the english in it. i forget where i posted the scans, they were big... i think...

[kobun40]

I would rather have the japanese cover and case than the us one because the Japanese one is a lot better and cooler...why do they get the good stuff and we dont ...i think i will buy the japanese verson and ask to borrow my friends playstation2..she has a playstion 2 she baught that is specificly meant to play Japanese Games (she got it so she could play Saiyuki)

[aarond]

You could always photoshop the art into a CD-shaped thing and put it on your American version. That would work. I may do that, now that I've thought of it.

[kobun40]

i don't have a computer i use either my local libraries, a relatives or where im at now Lan freax A computer?video game Player area thingy and all these place dont have the tech to do that (runs to miss Tron And starts begging for the Tech Needed)