Box Art Brawl – Duel: Super Ninja Boy

Welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl, everyone!

In last week’s battle, we looked at the N64 classic, Mario Kart 64. And goodness folks, it really wasn’t a close one, huh? North America and Europe absolutely killed it with 88% of the vote; surely one of the most resounding victories we’ve ever seen!

This time, we’re going a bit further back to the SNES with Super Ninja Boy to celebrate its recent addition to Nintendo Switch Online. Originally released in 1991 in Japan, this one made it to the States in 1993 but sadly skipped out on Europe altogether. It’s a decent action-RPG for the most part, though its frequent random encounters did admittedly slow the pace considerably.

So, with Europe out of the picture, let’s get our competitors in the ring for our latest bout. Who will triumph..? Find out next time, ON DRAGONBA… Ahem, sorry.

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

North America

We feel like it might well be a close call this week, because both variants are pretty awesome. In the North American design, our protagonists make up the bulk of the composition on the left and right respectively, while various creatures can be seen dotted around in the background.

The environment in the far background curves around quite nicely, making the foreground poses seem even more dynamic. Very nice stuff.

Japan

Japan’s design is similar (and, obviously, the original), but there’s a slightly brighter, more stylised tone going on here. With the portrait orientation, the characters are in slightly different positions with slightly different poses, and the creatures in the background are changed up a bit too.

The background environment is perhaps the most comparable aspect of the piece, but even that replaces much of the detail seen in the Western design with cleaner colours and more simplified illustrations.

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