Turbografx covers are rubbish

[GUTS]

The US cover is way better, who wants to play as a bucktoothed chink?  Player 2 really got the shaft in the japanese version.

[Spector]

I've just seen the US cover art of Ordyne. What a dreadful cover, and vaguely racist too. The way that they've changed the hairstyles and widened the eyes to make all trace of the Orient absent is a bit tasteless. On a simpler level, it's offensive because it's utter crap.

Sounds almost as racist as all those japanese games, manga and anime that draw all races as looking 'asian' and darker skinned people like minstrel performers who are almost always portrayed as violent thugs.

I never saw that in anime, to be honest, but maybe I've not seen enough of it.

The point of "localization" is true I suppose, but it's just the idea of a committee in the US somewhere saying "right, get rid of the slitty eyes, because the kids won't buy it if we keep them in".   
I see the westernisation of Japanese games as a sort of diluted version that can never be as good as the original. Keeping it Japanese makes it much more interesting - as long as the instructions are in English of course

[offsidewing]

Yeah, why even bother with the language translation then.

That way when I want to play as an effemiate hero, or butch heroine, I'll have to do it in Japanese!

You've got to localize to be successful, a la an old American Express commercial.  I found my days in stand up comedy unsuccessful because no one in Tokyo got my Ringette or Hurling jokes.

[Kaminari]

Does anyone dare disagree with me?  Eh???

I always thought the TurboChip covers were in an artistic league of their own. Point in case.

[Spector]

You've got to be joking, surely! That isn't a real cover...

[ccovell]

Wow!  I'd forgotten about that.  That is definitely a mastery rivaling that of Seurat's.

[sunteam_paul]

Does anyone dare disagree with me?  Eh???

I always thought the TurboChip covers were in an artistic league of their own. Point in case.

Case well and truly closed.

[offsidewing]

The Dungeon Explorer Box Art is the crown jewel of the TG-16.

They're radioactively decaying.  It must be a good game.

Anyone know the half-life of the fighter in Dungeon Explorer?

[FM-77]

I've always found the DE cover pretty fascinating. It doesn't really fit the title of the game though.

[GUTS]

Yeah DE has an awful cover, but it's an interesting awful.  I like it mutch better than the usual cartoony awful stuff.

[kenomac78]

i think all the early covers totally sucked. trying to use the TG font for all the titles doesnt work. and many of them had that late 80s tough syle to them. and most of them look like the were done on the same day by the same artist. i didnt like it at all. but i was able see past that.  they should have gone the route of early NES games and put a mock screenshot on the box, it might have fared better. of course if anime had gone mainstream here 10 years before i did, the TG might have had a chance by bringing out some of those series's games to cash in on it.

of course stuobborn japanese people dont want to be told what is right in fron of their face, and that if people were into nintendo and ninja movies and etc then we must have some fondness for japan, and would like to welcome it more. hence why anime finally started to creep onto american tv without disguising it as something else only after a lage number of trurly japanese styled games hit the saturn and ps1 and it slowly went off from there.

if only they had ditched the water color art and just shown cut scenes from Ys and said 'this is what our machine can do' things might have gone different

[2X4]

Wow!  I'd forgotten about that.  That is definitely a mastery rivaling that of Seurat's.

Is that Saturday in the Park?

[Bonknuts]

 Heh. Dungeon Explorer US cover doesn't look as bad as some of the others. My over all impression of the US covers: they just look ghay-ass. Back then, I always preferred the anime style artwork over whatever embarrassing artwork they decided to use in place of.

 On a side note: I've seen people complain or rant about anime in games. I know some people don't like anime, but IMO if you don't like anime in your game(s) then why even play games that originated in japan in the first place? It was part of the game and part of the culture from which it came from. Go play some non-japanese computer games instead.

[Joe Redifer]

Good way to stereotype.  I shall now stereotype as well:  Most Americans who like anime are usually overweight, wear glasses and have had little experience with the opposite sex.

[MrFulci]

Many of the US covers had that, "hmmmmm" thing going. Dungeon Explorer is definitely one of them. Another one was Legendary Axe. A unique set of artwork on some of those boxes. I'd be curiouse to know how they went about putting the artworks together for certain early releases.