Colourful and full of fun, this cover for a relatively obscure Konami release (it only came out in Japan, though a Game Boy version did appear in 1993) sneaked onto the list thanks to its clean, simple style and playful typography. Just as Parodius provided a more light-hearted, surreal angle on the Gradius series, so Akumajo Special sent up Konami’s Castlevania games, with a young, white-heard Kid Dracula waking from his sleep to battle through a series of side-scrolling levels. Wakelin’s box art for Green Beret is infinitely better than the artwork generated for the coin-op cabinet or the console versions – and as we’ll see later on, Wakelin’s artwork would appear time and again on classic cover illustrations throughout the 80s and early 90s. Other than these (somewhat arbitrary) rules, we’ve chosen freely from the realms of computer games and consoles with a range of origins – from America to Europe to Japan. We’ve gone for covers which are hand-rendered rather than photographic (though some are drawn from photographs), and original pieces of artwork rather than replications of movie posters. This list is therefore dedicated to the artists and designers responsible for a golden age of cover design, which we’ve limited to the years 1982 to 1992. At a time when games couldn’t come close to replicating the sights and sounds of movies, the best box designs provided a stronger sense of identity and place. For those of us raised in an era when games still came on cartridges, discs or (whisper it) cassettes, box designs were an integral part of the experience – not necessarily because we judged the games by their cover (though that probably did happen now and again), but because the best examples expressed a level of movement and detail that the games themselves could only hint at. The thing about Punch-Out is that it never really had more than two objects moving at once.It’s weird to think that, as the videogame drifts inexorably from the physical to the digital, the days of buying treasured experiences in boxes is drawing to a close. I don't think there's anything speical about the MMC2 that allows for large sprites. Does the VRC4 allow sprites to be large like the MMC2 does or something special like that? I just played through the whole game tonight and as far as I can tell, its a real techincal achievement on the Famicom. VRC4 has some IRQ features that I don't understand, so I guess those may have helped with that as well (but I really don't know). The no-flicker part of it is probably due to good programming. The smooth animations are probably due to the low CHR-RAM bank sizes, which allowed them to swap in new graphics in a more precise manner. I'd guess you'd be able to pull off something like Gradius II with an MMC3. the question is basically does the VRC4 do something say the MMC3 wouldn't and does Gradius II FC as complex as it is due to the VRC4 chip or just good konami programming? Many of the later bosses have such smooth animation, the game allows four options at once theres no slowdown and sprite flickering is kept at a minimum.īoth chips (VRC4 and MMC3) are pretty powerful. Quote from: satoshi_matrix on January 03, 2011, 02:20:42 am
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