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Hello folks, and welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl!
Last time, we took a look at The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS, pitting North America against Europe and Japan for a good old-fashioned Duel.
With its more colourful aesthetic and focus on sea exploration, the European and Japanese variant won the brawl with an impressive 67% of the vote. Nicely done!
This week, we’re heading back to the GameCube with the classic shmup Ikaruga. Released back in 2003 after appearances in the arcade and on Dreamcast, the spiritual successor to Radiant Silvergun was a hit with critics and players alike for its slick gameplay, lovely visuals, and brutal difficulty.
Despite the European and Japanese variants being fairly similar here in terms of box art design, we’re going to keep them separate and go for a proper three-way brawl. So let’s get to it.
Be sure to cast your votes in the poll below; but first, let’s check out the box art designs themselves.
Europe
We won’t lie, the composition for both the European and Japanese variants is simply excellent. The ship at the bottom, the title in the middle with the Japanese characters above. It just works so well. The colour palette here is significantly warmer than Japan’s, with a distinct orange glow highlighting the text and background.
Japan
Not a great deal to say here that hasn’t already been said, but the colour palette for Japan’s variant is definitely a bit cooler, focusing more on blue with a hint of orange in the center. The black background definitely makes the rest of the image stand out, but we’re not sure it’s quite as striking as the European version.
The text itself is also a bit smaller here, which adds a certain elegance to the image, but again, might not be as eye-catching as its European counterpart.
North America
“Our frothing demand for this game increases”.
Is there really anything else that needs to be said?
Thanks for voting! We’ll see you next time for another round of the Box Art Brawl.