Welcome back to Box Art Brawl, our series of retro box art polls where we all decide the best regional variants from two or more territories.
It's been a while since we witnessed the last Box Art Brawl — an East vs. West duel between a pair of Metroid: Zero Missions, if we recall. Looking back we can see that it was a very even match, although Japan managed to snag victory in the end with 53% of the vote versus 47% for the combined might of North America and Europe.
This round we'll be taking a look at lesser-known (and less well-regarded) F-Zero racer F-Zero: GP Legend on GBA. This 2003/4 entry in our favourite dormant Nintendo franchise was developed by Sunak Inc. and tied into an anime series that aired around launch (only 15 episodes of which were localised in English).
So let's strap in for a three-way bout to see who's gonna captain the Falcon...
North America
Using the same key art as the Japanese cover, the North American box features characters from the series including ol' Cap himself wearing a confident grin on the right. It's bold, colourful, characterful (in both sense) and we like it.
There's a little negative space in the middle, but we'll forgive it that because we enjoy how the Blue Falcon breaks over the border of the silver GBA bit on the left side.
Europe
The European version is totally different — perhaps because we never saw the anime over here. It's more in keeping with the F-Zero Maximum Velocity box art which also focused on the craft over the characters.
The vehicles themselves look pretty cool, and once again the border on the left can't contain the epic speed of the Blue Falcon, but it doesn't really stand much of a chance against two other covers, both of which show Captain Falcon grinning, right?
Japan
The landscape orientation of the Japanese GBA box gives more space and scope to play with the key art without the negative centre space of the North American version. The logo gets embossed here and the spacing just works better for us.
Yep, this would be out personal pick, but we're not the ones voting, are we?
So, you’ve seen the options, but which one's your personal F-Hero? Click on your favourite below and hit ‘Vote’ to let us know:
Thanks for voting — we'll see you next time for another Box Art Brawl (there won't be such a big gap next time. Promise!
Comments 27
Europe for me - too little racing in other two boxarts.
JP for me, It just looks so, nice, just, it looks like you just want to take all those people out for Ramen or Something.
Captain Falcon and pals look like a bunch of *****. Europe easily wins this brawl.
Europe all the way this time. I don’t like the generic anime in the other ones.
Btw, anyone watched the F-Zero anime? Is it good?
Bit of a tough call for me between JP and EU ones. But I went with JP because that one just shows more character, which is just one of the enjoyable aspects of F-Zero that's completely missing on the EU boxart.
Europe for me. All about the racing
Yeah, I'd say Japan takes the cake on this one. Owning the game myself, I can tell you guys that it leans heavily into the story modes for several different characters (eight, to be exact), so it makes sense that the characters have to be on the box art. But with Japan's box art, you get more characters (i.e., Samurai Goroh's wife, Lisa Brilliant) than the North American version.
I also watched and loved the anime, and it was a darn shame that it only lasted for 15 episodes here in North America. But then again, it was localized by 4Kids Entertainment, the company notorious for absolutely butchering numerous anime (they also dubbed "Kirby: Right Back at Ya!" and "Sonic X").
Maybe if Funimation or Sentai Filmworks were to pick up the series to give an English Dub another shot (which Funimation actually did with "One Piece" after 4Kids ditched the series after finding it too difficult to localize to their standards; as in, change or omit various elements that they thought were too offensive for American kids), I'd be more than happy to pay money to see it.
Box Art Brawls Current Total:
Europe: 30
Japan: 34
North America: 35
Australia and New Zealand: 1
Yes! Sunday morning brawl
Damn, these all suck.
Poor Europe. Ugh.
Voted for Europe,the anime characters on the boxart only make sense in Japan.
That aside,@fafonio i think the anime its good,unless someone goes expecting Smash Bros Captain Falcon,he's basically a parody of the original F-Zero one,they will like it.
I was going to vote for the Japanese version, but then I realized that the bird on Captain Falcon's helmet got Mike Wazowski'd by the Nintendo logo, and I will not stand for such injustice.
Europe got the only one that LOOKS like a racing game.
No wonder this game flopped.
Uh, neither one does anything particularly well or artistic. Future polls should include a “neither” for us art snobs LOL
Went with one of the less popular one, which is the Europe one. I just found it to be rather cool compared to the other ones. Hoping to grab this one on Wii U, I missed out on picking it up during the GBA days.
Europe, the other two are literally the same other than the different ways that they are set up. Honestly they all are bad, but Europe at least has racing in it.
Japan for me. The Euro cover just has no personality.
I voted Japan due to the better composition resulting from the landscape orientation. It gives us an extra person on the box. I like seeing the actual characters on the box. It adds style. Nintendo went to the trouble of designing actual characters, so they might as well use them. Europe's box looks boring and low effort to me. They're supposed to be racing, but the ships could just as easily be sitting still in that shot.
I actually like the Japanese one for some reason. Appeals to me moreso
Man this is some bad box art. Japan is the best of the worst
Since this game is based on the anime, one would expect to see the characters and the European box art doesn't have that. Overall, the F-Zero Climax box art is better in that it shows the machines and the characters, much like the Japanese box art of F- Zero X.
I gotta vote for tue European box art.
I voted Japan, Europe's looks bland and generic.
it makes sense that they only showed the machines in the european version because we didn't get the anime here
@fafonio the anime is great!!
Ok... I'll watch it then...
Here's the full anime for anyone who wants to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFCE0DFF6CF0C799D
wowww we really got done dirty in Europe on that one hahaha
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