Mario Party Advance - BAB
Image: Nintendo Life

Hey everyone, welcome to this week's edition of Box Art Brawl!

Last time, we saw three 3DS covers go head-to-head as we matched up the regional variants for Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. Despite having all those options, it was Europe that walked away with a commanding win after taking 56% of the vote. North America followed behind with 27%, while the paired-back Japanese edition brought up the rear with 17%.

This week, as we gear up to Nintendo's next big release of 2024, we're taking a look at the Mario Party series. Specifically, we're putting the series' first full portable title, Mario Party Advance (yep, we're skipping over the e-Reader's Mario Party-e there), under the microscope as we match up a duo of different designs from this 2005 GBA release.

Europe and North America opted for near-identical covers on this one, so it's a good old one-on-one battle against the Japanese variant. Let's roll those dice and hop straight into things.

Be sure to cast your votes in the poll below; but first, let's check out the box art designs themselves.

Europe / North America

Mario Party Advance - EU / NA
Image: Nintendo / Moby Games

The European and North American design hardly goes all-out on the board game aesthetic (heck, if you didn't know the series, then you'd be none the wiser looking at this), but it's pretty nice on the eye all the same. Mario and pals all leap from the central logo, while Yoshi reels in a fish in the background. There are also some neat Koopa Kid colour variations here — looking uncannily similar to one Bowser Jr., we might add.

Japan

Mario Party Advance - JP
Image: Nintendo / Launch Box

The Japanese box art makes use of the region's rectangular formatting to pack in even more detail. A bunch of bonus characters make the cut on this one (including even more Koopa Kid colours) and we're particular fans of the rollercoaster Luigi in the top left, even if it does look a little disjointed. All this is plastered over a starry background which seems fitting for the series when you think about it.


Which region got the best Mario Party Advance box art?

Thanks for voting! We'll see you next time for another round of Box Art Brawl.