Design -66- Box Art III (Comparison)

(Thank you Google for having bad formatting to where I can't simply put this images side by side without a bunch of nonsense and headaches.)

Now I'd like to take a comparative look at these two different boxes. The Japanese one is more exciting and playful with it's cartoony style, and the lighter colors. The North American box art is darker, and takes itself much more seriously.

I just noticed that the gradient on the NA box are is similar to the gradient on the 2 of the JP box. I'm not sure if they were trying to copy it but if they were thy failed at it. The Japanese one actually looks like a stream of light reflecting off of a metallic number while the NA one just looks like crap.

Something even more interesting is that the blue of the Japanese box art spreads into the Green making it more relaxed. The North American box art however, uses purple which is a dark color and it chokes the colors on the inside making it more tense.

There's also the fact that everything on the Japanese box is very horizontal while the North American one is very vertical. They even have that random save $10 banner going diagonally across the edge which is different and changing the movement of the piece.

I'm not sure how the box art affected the sales of the North American version of Mega Man 2, but it's interesting to see two totally different designs for the same essential game. This is not by any means all that could be said about this, and I could go on for hours and probably start a YouTube series about the differences in box art, but for now this must come to an end.