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I just realized/noticed how bad was the cover art of SF: Alpha: Warriors' Dreams

13909-street-fighter-alpha-warriors-dreams-playstation-front-cover.jpg

WTF is this?? Most Street fighter series art has been anywhere from good to great... But maaan, they dropped the ball on this one, maybe I was too young back in the day to care about this cover art, or maybe I thought it was cool. But looking at it now, ugh! it's pretty amateurish for Capcom (Specifically SF) standards.

Any other Game Cover Art, you guys have revisited recently and thought "Whoa! This hasn't aged well!" or "I don't remember this looking this bad/ugly etc"
 
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These were the days of the bad art covers for PS and Saturn games. Seriously it was even a point made in game mags at the time about how much cooler the Japanese art was and the US art was absolute dog shit. After a few years of this somebody finally got it into their heads that actually using the original artwork did a better job at attracting attention in stores and we were pretty much good since.
 

dalekjay

Member
Wow jus my by looking at this I can remember even the smell of the room where I played so much SFA and SFA2.

Damn I’m old
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Could be worse.

megamanbox.jpg
 

120v

Member
funny how early ps1 era games were the dying last bastion of inexplicably bad western cover art. i think suikoden was the final hurrah
 

ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
"warriors dreams" was also stupid

also no reason it couldn't have been zero in the states either

I hated those localization changes in the 90s so much
 
Original art can be stupid too

Street_Fighter_Alpha_2_US_OVP_Basis.jpg


I always thought they were his weird ass pecs, because they were the same color as his arm and face...
Hello there, uncomfortably shaded monk beads :messenger_grimmacing_

Also never forget OG SNES SFII!

15232-street-fighter-ii-the-world-warrior-snes-front-cover.jpg


And by googling that... poor sad sad Sagat! :messenger_tears_of_joy:

He had to lie down for the shot!

2364796-snes_streetfighteriiturbo.jpg
 
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Elcid

Banned
Original art can be stupid too

Street_Fighter_Alpha_2_US_OVP_Basis.jpg


I always thought they were his weird ass pecs, because they were the same color as his arm and face...
Hello there, uncomfortably shaded monk beads :messenger_grimmacing_

Also never forget OG SNES SFII!

15232-street-fighter-ii-the-world-warrior-snes-front-cover.jpg


And by googling that... poor sad sad Sagat! :messenger_tears_of_joy:

He had to lie down for the shot!

2364796-snes_streetfighteriiturbo.jpg
I like these...they're not amazing but they're good. Japakese Ken and Ryu is awesome though.
 
These were the days of the bad art covers for PS and Saturn games. Seriously it was even a point made in game mags at the time about how much cooler the Japanese art was and the US art was absolute dog shit. After a few years of this somebody finally got it into their heads that actually using the original artwork did a better job at attracting attention in stores and we were pretty much good since.
Very interesting, I was too young to pay attention to these events I guess, even though I was an avid reader and collector of EGM and GamePro and Playstation Magazines.
Could be worse.

megamanbox.jpg

Honestly looks like they contracted the same artist to do the Alpha (one) cover above.
On the other hand, the japanese covert was great.

ps1-street_fighter_zero_1_ntsc-j_1.jpg
This is indeed, at least 10 times better than the Western Cover
 
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Original art can be stupid too

Street_Fighter_Alpha_2_US_OVP_Basis.jpg


I always thought they were his weird ass pecs, because they were the same color as his arm and face...
Hello there, uncomfortably shaded monk beads :messenger_grimmacing_

Also never forget OG SNES SFII!

15232-street-fighter-ii-the-world-warrior-snes-front-cover.jpg


And by googling that... poor sad sad Sagat! :messenger_tears_of_joy:

He had to lie down for the shot!

2364796-snes_streetfighteriiturbo.jpg
There really isn't too much issues with these, save from some horrible choices in facial expressions and poses, Sagat's face of course is hilariously bad "sad", his entire body as well, what is he doing, falling over? The Alpha 2 one is pretty good, I am sure the beads were a bit different in colour/shade in the original, high quality print ... The World Warrior box isn't so bad either, except for the creepy faces, Ryu's super exaggerated twisty wrists and the very 'transgender' looking Chun Li face/head.
 

lock2k

Banned
I have a nostalgic spot for the great and the terrible covers. Love them all.

Rose-tinted glasses and shit.
 
Very interesting, I was too young to pay attention to these events I guess, even though I was an avid reader and collector of EGM and GamePro and Playstation Magazines.

Check the letters section. You'd get a few commenting on it and responses from the editors pretty much in agreement. I recall them more in GameFan mags though.
 

AlexxKidd

Member
Original art can be stupid too

Street_Fighter_Alpha_2_US_OVP_Basis.jpg


I always thought they were his weird ass pecs, because they were the same color as his arm and face...
Hello there, uncomfortably shaded monk beads :messenger_grimmacing_

Also never forget OG SNES SFII!

15232-street-fighter-ii-the-world-warrior-snes-front-cover.jpg


And by googling that... poor sad sad Sagat! :messenger_tears_of_joy:

He had to lie down for the shot!

2364796-snes_streetfighteriiturbo.jpg

These are all classics my dude.
 

kingbean

Member
As a huge SF mark, it blows my mind when the sprites look better than the art that supposed to sale a casual gamer on the game.

That goofy ass artwork would draw my attention to it in a bad way.

The Alpha 2 art with Ryu and Akuma is class though.
 
Yeah it's terrible but to be fair, they did replace it with new art for the jewel case release:

CfirPPK.jpg


Unfortunately it's still plagued with that Fighters Edge shit that was ruining all the Capcom box art at the time.
 
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Nymphae

Banned
Yeah it's terrible but to be fair, they did replace it with new art for the jewel case release:

CfirPPK.jpg


Unfortunately it's still plagued with that Fighters Edge shit that was ruining all the Capcom box art at the time.

Yeah what was up with that? It was used so often back then, and I actually have no idea what Fighters Edge even means or refers to.
 
Yeah what was up with that? It was used so often back then, and I actually have no idea what Fighters Edge even means or refers to.

It was more or less Capcom's version of Club Nintendo where buying their Fighters Edge branded stuff gave you points or whatever to trade in for various items. Unfortunately they decided to design their box art around it...
 
Holy Moly dat Akuma though!
And yes, I know that quality wise, those I posted, were leagues over DAT AKUMA!

But those small things like the beads (and no, in magazin ads and on real boxes, the color was always misleading) and the faces were always hilariously off putting for me...
 

What I want to know, is what is that blue translucent curtain to the left of Ryu that merges into the dark clouds above and then there's this terrible M. Bison laughing. The worst part is this doesn't look like actual clouds, if you look at the arch above Ryu you can actually see blue skies (as well as outside the windows), so the clouds are actually in the foreground right above Ryu and M. Bison is composed of blue skies with some white wisps for eyes/mouth and then his hat is just there because.
 

lock2k

Banned
What I want to know, is what is that blue translucent curtain to the left of Ryu that merges into the dark clouds above and then there's this terrible M. Bison laughing. The worst part is this doesn't look like actual clouds, if you look at the arch above Ryu you can actually see blue skies (as well as outside the windows), so the clouds are actually in the foreground right above Ryu and M. Bison is composed of blue skies with some white wisps for eyes/mouth and then his hat is just there because.

The curtain is Bison's cape and he makes the Sky dark. It's actually a cool concept with poor presentation.
 
The curtain is Bison's cape and he makes the Sky dark. It's actually a cool concept with poor presentation.
Definitely poor presentation, wow.

It's just horrible all around really, the Bison implementation seems like a very bad afterthought. The "artist" here is just ignoring all the rules of what gives art great sense of 3 dimensional space and depth of field, I mean he's done some neat stuff with the cast shadows of the arches of the Colosseum, but then he done all goofed it up with Bison... Is Bison a ghost? is he hovering just above Ryu? Why some elements of his ghostly figure are fully formed at random spots? ie His cape at the lower left corner and his hat? why are they just solid and the rest of him is a foggy, ghostly figure? if he's like middle of teleportation or something shouldn't his "materializing" be a bit more in unison? like start from one end of his body and go down to up or left to right? I guess he's going for the MC Escher thing with depth of field and dimension.. Since Bison seems to be right next to Ryu with the hint of his cape at the left corner, but also at the same time being this huge ghostly cloud in the sky with his head in the clouds. It's waay too ridiculous and bad, he should've established some more spacial and psychical rules for Bison, either he is Galactus in the sky or he is just a normal sized Bison hovering his ghostly body above Ryu.. The hint of both isn't working well at all.

Then we get to the "faces" of all the other characters and oh boy, looks like he finished painting their bodies and then just went "Ohh maaan, now I also gotta do their faces!? Ugh!" he just gave up... because he just hates doing faces... like What's going on with Charlie's face? Does he even have one? I am totally picturing him standing against the wall and watching Ryu fight and cheer him on , A'la Beavis pumping his fists while watching something exciting on TV. Don't even get me started on the extreme cheesiness of the "Kanji" cast shadow.... ugh!

couch.gif
 
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