Bits and Pieces: NES Cover Art

 

Remember when game covers weren't as uniform as they are today? There was once a time when every developer had their own design theme, and when cover art was somewhere between the literal definitions of "art" and "garbage." With over 700 titles to choose from in its hit-and-miss library, the NES was notorious for harboring many of these unique design themes, quite possibly containing more variations than any other system. In the years to follow, game companies began transitioning to a more conventional form of cover presentation, usually making sure every single game box (excluding "greatest hits" editions) looked almost exactly alike.

Seriously though, whatever happened to those bizarre mixtures of cover art we used to see on videogames? Don't get me wrong, today's designs are nothing short of spectacular. Regardless, yesteryear's label illustrations still possessed a classic charm, one that seemed to create an elevated level of joy (or nausea) among young and old gamers alike. In honor of many spectacular, mediocre and just plain weird pieces of cover art, we'll take a look back at some of the most common styles and themes seen on NES games.

The "Here's what you get" design

These covers are commonly seen with in-house developed Nintendo titles, and they get the point across perfectly. The overall presentation is quite conservative, simply showing you a small screenshot of what you're actually getting. For instance, the covers of Super Mario Bros. and Metroid feature the 8-bit protagonists themselves, spruced up with a background of environmental ornaments. These classic silver displays -- usually highlighting a special "series" of other NES games like "Action" or "Sports" -- were some of the most memorable covers seen when the console first went on sale in North America. Many of these games also have later revisions, like Metroid's yellow label featuring a more animated depiction of Samus.

This was really a sign of things to come, as most first party companies preferred to keep similar label types on all their games. Though many previous companies -- including Atari and Sega -- also had a habit of doing this, Nintendo was still the first to put an official "seal of quality" on every title the company had approved, first and third party alike. Most collectors will notice how other off-brand cartridge companies like Tengen and Wisdom Tree are missing the seal altogether, as these games rarely received any sort of official consent from Nintendo.

The "This will probably appeal to Americans" design

In the world of videogame box art, Marketing can be a very funny concept; it's a practice that will either make or break the games up for grabs. Even under more extreme circumstances, some consumers will continue to support products containing an awkward presentation, but scratch their heads as to why certain types of art were chosen in the first place. The funniest part in all of this? Even if it's strange or wrong, it's somehow what the company felt consumers wanted all along.

In the 80s and 90s, Japan had a hilarious habit of transforming anime themed covers they felt were unpopular, converting them into something they figured was on a random North American movie poster for a terrible action flick. One classic series that really took a hit on this one was Megaman, mutating the beloved cartoon character into a strange, genetic nightmare. Seriously, it's like Dr. Light decided to see what happened if Megaman contained the DNA of Sylvester Stallone and the Six Million Dollar Man. Most of these covers -- though strange and revolting to some -- still represent a golden age in North American gaming, while others are considered abominations that should have been avoided altogether.

The "Accurate arcade" design

These covers are usually the greatest, outlining a realistic image of the games without greatly exaggerating appearances. Companies who commonly ported arcade games, like Data East and Konami, usually preferred to go with this classic style. For example, the cover art on Gradius simply presents an illustration of the same title screen offered in the arcade version. Marble Madness -- another arcade classic -- portrays the three-dimensional playing field with multiple marbles, another illustrated version of what's actually offered in the game. Even if these designs aren't exact replicas of what you would see on arcade cabinets, these third party developers still did a fantastic job in attempting to recreate the same ideas and concepts for a home arcade environment.

Most titles that received this treatment spawned from the arcades, but some were also exclusive to the home console world; these were games that wanted to capture an arcade essence, regardless of the fact that your first experiences with them were on home consoles. For instance, the cover art for Rare's R.C. Pro-Am featured a drawing of lifelike R.C. cars battling it out on the track. In most cases, gamers could simply look at the cover without being surprised or disappointed by the end result, all thanks to these arcade inspired themes.

The "Incredibly corny and highly misleading" design

These covers are my personal favorite to find, and can either be good or bad depending on the game. One great representation is a game called Astyanax, which features a rather dorky looking hero attempting to fight some kind of preschool storybook dragon. Even the game's cheesy anime-like introduction was almost more humiliating than the cover, but the actual game turned out to be a reasonably stable hack-and-slash platformer. Some of the levels are more annoying than others, but it was still nice to find a game like this that's actually playable on the NES.

Moving on to the "bad" side of the spectrum, we also have games like Puss N' Boots: Pero's Great Adventure. These games will go out of their way to make sure the initial product presentation is looking extremely polished, just so they can fool you into buying a terribly developed game. Some folks will strongly admire these fantastic collages -- which are quite stunning at times -- as they tell themselves it's well worth the purchase, figuring there are Nintendo published titles that don't have the same kind of initial appearance. Unfortunately the consumer will soon, however, discover that marketing has paid off for the company, in place of their initial failure to develop a quality program. Keeping this in mind, if you haven't yet read a review or walkthrough of the videogame(s) in question, avoid "tie-in" merchandise titles from movies or TV shows if you can.

It's, um... a design.

Even if a cover featured cheesy artwork or highly dramatic interpretations, at least these images still gave us a general idea of what we were about to get into; titles like Anticipation neglected to give players any sort of clue at all. Honestly, when I saw this game for 50 cents in a thrift store, I almost refused to pick it up. After loading it into my NES console for the first time, I was pleasanty surprised. I had initially expected some kind of unplayable casual nightmare with terrible controls and shady graphics, when in reality it's something I wouldn't be (too) embarrassed to play with another friend.

 

The game itself is best described as a pictionary-like quiz game, where you can take turns with up to four players. Your main goal is to answer questions by identifying objects or shapes, all as you attempt to race towards the final goal on your virtual game board. I'll admit, the cover photo still does a good job of implying how Anticipation requires a rather social crowd, therefore making it some kind of interactive "party" title, but how in the hell are we supposed to know what else this game has to offer? All you get is a tiny amount of flavor text reading "Nintendo's first video board game," accompanied by an already vague photo of people who probably jumped out of an 80s sitcom. Even I found myself waiting in anticipation (funny coincidence), since I found this thing on a trip away from home, without an NES to immediately throw it in. 

Looking at the big picture...

Of course, there are dozens of art and label designs to consider, especially with a console containing hundreds upon hundreds of videogames to choose from. These five basic themes mentioned today represent a fraction of these "artistic" oddities the NES -- and other consoles alike -- had to offer in the way of upfront presentation. Taking a look at the big picture, what were some of the most memorable pieces of cover art you can recall seeing? Did they fall into one of these categories mentioned, or was it a completely different kind of animal?

Author's Note: With permission from our fearless leader, I also decided to share the love and submit this article to Bitmob.

Comments

[8bit_mike]

i love the "The "Here's what you get" design". i enjoy the "series" aspect to them. its tough knowing what you get sometimes. that the problem with finding games at thrift stores. usually i just buy em and figure it out later. that Anticipation game though, is probably the game i've passed on the most. i see it at thrift stores all the time and havent ever bought it.

[Seandood]

Anticipation is a funny one all around, and I've definitely played many worse NES games. Cover designs like these really solidify the statement "don't judge a book by its cover." I completely agree that those NES series labels (among the "here's what you get") are always the better ones to come across; there's nothing more annoying than getting fooled by a wonderful cover.