The Ugly Start of a Great Franchise

Sometimes we don’t get right to playing a game due to its uninviting box art cover. As mentioned in the first part of this article and how it was difficult to make good choices on our Nintendo game purchases due to the lack of review resources like the internet or a wide variety of game magazines. We relied on one thing - our eyes. Sometimes you got lucky and were able to flip through the instruction manual before actually buying the game. But all-in-all, they were just guesses based on what you saw on the outside but with the unpredictable nature of 8-bit graphics, you couldn’t determine what a truly good game was based on the front art and the few screen shots on the back.

I’m going to dissect the art on one of the greatest games; the US version of the original Mega Man. Before we get into it, let’s take a look at the dominant images of Mega Man. Look at his eye-of-the-tiger in image A along with his fist of defiance. Pretty tough for a blue robot wearing tights. Now look at image B – he’s looking pretty dynamic and hard.

Now we’ll take a look at the actual box art on the original European version of Mega Man. This version depicts the game correctly and even Dr. Wily looks like a real-life rendition of the in-game villian. The execution is great and all the perspectives are aligned correctly with deep coloring. The only complaint I have is that I wish they didn’t cover up that other figure beneath Mega Man (who is that?) but besides that, it’s simply a good piece of artwork. Now we’ll look at the American version and find out just what-in-the-fuck is going on.

This box art shows Mega Man sporting little league football gear and some sort of baggy futuristic shirt. I’d hate to say it but I would rather see his blue briefs than a yellow nut cup. I do not remember any level that looks like a crayon-colored version of exploding Aztec shit. I do remember a lot of people telling me that feet are the hardest part to draw on a human figure. Mega Man doesn’t have toes or ankles that you need to sketch out, he just required over-sized moon boots but the “artist” couldn’t even manage that. Sure, the European version doesn’t show the moon boots either but that’s okay because it doesn’t suck.

Even as a stupid kid, you knew your intelligence was being insulted when you read the caption, “State-of-the-Art…High Resolution Graphics,” and also at that age you tend to take things literally. You didn’t have enough analytical skills to interpret what ’state-of-the-art’ graphics they were referring too. Putting those captions and the box art together made it sound like you were going to be playing Tron with a 3-day hangover.

Because of this box art, the game never had priority to be played and what a shame being that it is such a great game. It was only when your friend came over and told you about the game’s potential then you realized how stupid you were to be playing Lode Runner the entire time while Mega Man just sat there. Thank god for the new age of game marketing.

I will now leave you with State-of-the-Art graphics of tools like these that like to relive mistakes.