Man, old MSX box art is the best. Maybe even better than old Spectrum box art.
I miss the days when the videogame industry was perfectly OK with slapping any kind of amateurish junk on a box and hoping for a million-seller. It’s all too glossy now, all pre-rendered and probably put together on more than just a shoestring budget. Bring back the good old days! The days of, you know…
- Mega Man: Fight, Mega Man! For some braces to correct your crippling polio!
- The Foreign Prince: As interpreted by Sega’s artists, the hero of The Prince of Persia was actually Luke Skywalker on a mission to rescue the sex princess from the scary dark men who liked to make her adopt seductive poses at the door to her prison cell.
- Frogger: And there are simply no words for this box, but to make me rue the fact that the MSX never caught on in the U.S. — once again, Japan gets all the good stuff. And by “good” I mean “pathetically laughable.” But in a charming way.
Oh, right — it case it wasn’t clear, clicking the links above will take you to character profiles from GameSpite Quarterly 3.
Clown frog is total win.
That is a frog in a pair of pink crotchless overalls. That’s A- a bold new frontier in fetish wear, and B- weirdly similar to the look of the Incredible Hulk.
On closer inspection, not so crotchless. But what the hell is with that logo Konami? Kjonami?
That’s the old-timey Konami logo from before 1985 or so.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
Actually that Prince of Persia cover looks pretty faithful to the graphics in the MS-DOS version, and that is the definitive version after all.
They swapped out that old Konami logo for the “double wave” one in mid-late ’86.
Something always struck me kinda weird about it though: the red/orange variant of the latter, which came into common use during the following year, was first seen, to my knowledge, in Vampire Killer for the MSX, which came out before that in late ’86, even though Nemesis 2 and Salamander, in spite of coming out afterwards in ’87, used the colorless Konami wave logo.
I can’t work out if the tree is bored, unimpressed or high.
Oh, and don’t get me poring through fine examples of Speccy boxart!
Man, I hated the tree boss in Frogger!
Honestly I hate today’s game box art and movie poster/box art as well. It’s not artistic… it’s lost all passion. I don’t know if it’s BECAUSE it’s done on a computer (doubtful), but I really miss paintings. I love fantasy art of the 80s.