Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl!
Last week, we checked out the wonderful Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS and, as expected, the western design won the day with a whopping 84%. Good effort Japan, but this one just ain’t it.
This time, we’re looking at Dragon Power for the NES. Released in 1988, this was a top-down adventure game not entirely unlike Zelda II, in which you would explore environments before shifting to a side-scrolling viewpoint when facing off against enemies. It’s said to be based on the Chinese novel Journey to the West in which a kung-fu protagonist is on a quest to recover the Crystal Balls.
We’ve got North America, Europe, and Japan all vying for the prize today, so let’s get cracking!
North America
Okay, so this is very typical of those early NES box art designs, right? We’ve got the protagonist in the bottom left sporting a pretty large foot with teeny, tiny twinkle toes, while the background is mostly covered by a menacing green dragon. Doesn’t it look a little familiar, though…?
Japan
Hahaaa, yes! Some of you might have already known, but Dragon Power in the US is actually a Dragon Ball game. Released in Japan as Dragon Ball: Shenlong no Nazo and in Europe as Dragon Ball: Le Secret du Dragon, the American design basically got rid of all references to the hit manga/anime series.
This cover art features the iconic Goku in the foreground with Bulma and Yamcha in the background, presumably either levitating or running atop the back of the dragon Shenron.
Europe
Okay, so Europe’s design basically features the same artwork as Japan, but we’ve also got some character portraits in the bottom left, with everything surrounded by a pretty basic blue background. Japan and Europe also share the same art style for the title, and dare we say that North America’s approach with this might be a tad better..?
Thanks for voting! We’ll see you next time for another Box Art Brawl.
