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Lazy Box art

Another one I don't entirely understand.

8Kaow.jpg

Haha oh god, I'd forgotten about this. They could have at least put some actual Bubble Bobble art on the TV screen and not just 'random_toxic_waste_wallpaper.jpg'.
 

Danchi

Member
That quote lol

Actually I have the game (pal version) and the cover is different. It's similar to the japanese one. Maybe they discarded this one when people started laughing at it.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's just the UK cover. The game can get quite pricey now and I remember looking around and noticing a different cover from sellers in mainland Europe.
 

SirNinja

Member
Ico's NA cover isn't "lazy" so much as "utterly horrible". Granted, a lot of it might have been due to laziness (couldn't bother checking whether Yorda actually had creepy purple eyes, eh Sony?), but still.


Just paste together the box arts of DMC 1, 2 & 3

All it needs is a "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series" sticker and it'll go from lazy to masterpiece.
 

Vidpixel

Member
final-fantasy-xiii-cover.jpg


This is lazy. Just the character stuck on a plain background with a logo in the top right. I like minimilistic like the MGS Cover , but this just screams laziness to me.

I actually like the idea behind this box art, but I just don't care for Lightning's pose at all. It just strikes me as kind of awkward.
 
Every modern shooter for copy pasting the other one and just adding a filter.

modern-warfare-3-box-350x300.jpg


pic696403_md.jpg


pic833182_md.jpg


pic778119_md.jpg


pic778200_md.jpg


Extreme filters? Check
War torn guy? Check
Head turned to the side? Check
Assault rifle in hand? Check
Flying Debris? Check
 

Virzeth

Member
I can't say I agree with these. I think it's a simple, cohesive design that is immediately recognizable to fans of the series. I like that consistency from game to game. You look at it and there's no question it's an Ace Attorney game.

The games are about their characters, first and foremost, and I always felt the covers did a good job of reflecting that.

I completely agree with that, wasn't 'accusing' them of not bothering to find a new style - I just find the covers to be lazily executed: four pieces of pre-existing artwork with the logo slapped on top.
About 2 minutes of work for each, once the characters were picked.


Unrelated - your avatar is terrifying.
 

redcrayon

Member
The Final Fantasy logo over white background is somewhat a tradition of the series in Europe going back all the way to the PSOne.

Yeah, it's decent branding and graphic design, the covers have had a simple illustration behind the logo on a white background since FFVII. If anything, I disliked them adding Lightning on the last one. It used to be that covers for the US prefer to have disembodied heads or the protagonist waving weapons around as they felt the customers needed to see the protagonist as an action-type hero, as opposed to the JP and EU art where conceptual stuff sold just as well. There tends to be much tighter control over global releases, marketing and the art assets these days, leading to more similar US and EU cover art.
 

Cheeky

Member
I love Japanese FF covers by the way.

When you realize that the PAL art was always white background + logo, it makes the FFXIII art seem even more silly(It has lightning on it).

*Insert joke about Toriyama forcing Lightning into everything here*
 

KiteGr

Member
EU box-art of the HD remaster. Always thought it was a placeholder until I actually saw a real copy.

That's actually a long standing tradition with Final Fantasy tittles in Japan and Europe. They always take a minimalistic aproach.
Only the American versions actually have anything more than a tittle in a white background!

final_fantasy_anniversary_edition_frontcover_large_HLrVfcKti53EZDh.jpg

FinalFantasyIII_DS_cover_US.jpg

1090429-ffvi_ps1_pal_front.jpg

243063-7eceed3119710ad5ddee939e2610cfac20080630175407.jpg

634070-final_fantasy_viii_au_ps_front.jpg

825749-ff9_ps_uk_plat.jpg

611352-ffx.jpg

finalfantasyx-2cover.jpg

635399-final_fantasy_xii_eu_ps2_front.jpg

final_fantasy_xiii-2_frontcover_large_RbVa1483BzjcpZn.jpg

_-Final-Fantasy-Tactics-The-War-Of-The-Lions-PSP-_.jpg

dissidia-limited-edition-box-art.jpg

boxart_eur_dissidia-012-final-fantasy-legacy-edition.jpg

image_312710_320.jpg


In Final Fantasy's case, the crime is NOT to have a minimalistic cover...

The only games that had brocken the said tradition where FF13 (though the CE still had the usual minimalistic cover), a couple of remastered versions, the MMO expansions and some spinn-offs.

EDIT:
Dang it! took to much time to write it!
 
Yeah, that and most Master System boxes. How the fuck did somebody actually say "yeah this is good, let's go with this" in an era of awesome over-the-top paintings as boxart?

I liked that they were attempting a uniform style so people could easily pick a Master System game at first glance (meanwhile NES boxes were all over the place), but yeah. A lot of early SMS games were just way too simple and shitty for their own good.

Luckily things eventually improved.

nYta9ur.jpg
0TJmftl.jpg
qGEDKO2.jpg
 
At some point, Capcom became a true genius of laziness, mostly with fighting game covers. The truly lazy thing would have been to just take the already awesome Japanese covers and just replace the name with the US/PAL name. But no, they instead replaced the Japanese covers with dull covers that quite often just took in-game character select avatars, and hideous ones at that. So, double fail Capcom!

Some examples:

The Ryu and Ken pictures are in-game character selection avatars:

Street_Fighter_3_Third_Strike_ntsc-.jpg


Kyosuke, Sagat, and Maki pictures are in-game character selection avatars ("SNK" grooves, I think), but the laziest and worst offender is that IIRC the Kim picture is his in-game "Capcom groove" avatar From Capcom vs. SNK 1.

600full-capcom-vs-snk-2%3A-mark-of-the-millennium-2001-cover.jpg


Whatever the hell this laziness is: Ryu's character selection avatar from... Street Fighter Zero 3 (again, a completely different game!) and some lazily thrown together drawing of Terry that just brings tears to my eyes:

7273_front.jpg
 

Rychu Supadude

Neo Member

To this day, I still can't understand how this turd made it all the way through conception, planning, design, and production without somebody asking the question "Who the heck would actually be interested in this?" My local EB Games has half a dozen used copies on hand, and they always put them front and centre at a heavily reduced price to say "Look, we're practically giving them away! Just take them off our hands, please!"
 

sits

Member
I wouldn't necessarily label some of these as 'lazy'. Given the sheer amount of noise happening on most boxarts, it's often nice to see a more clean presentation like the FF ones.
 

GoodlifeX

Member
The Okami Wii art is the new level of lazy. A water mark for a game review site. Implying they didnt have any art laying around at all to put on the cover so instead they relied on good ol google image search.
 
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