Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Cover Art Localization: Spirits & Spells
I've never heard of this title before but came across it when searching for a children's horror game that I played once before. This wasn't it, but discovering the cover art for it is wildly different in each reason and I had to share!
Castleween started out as a European title for PS2, GC, and GBA. It's odd for a game to start out with such a terrifying cover, but here it is. It came out in Europe a month before in Japan, so I take it that this was the first version. The 3D renders are pretty terrifying. If it were just the background and title image I think the cover would be a ton more effective.
Here we have Mahou no Pumpkin. Unlike Castleween, this version has separate cover art for PS2 and GC. Personally, I find them both pretty damn cute. I like the PS2 version a bit more for the focus on the witch girl, but the GC version is no slouch. I'm especially a fan of the menacing pumpkin-headed man in it.
Finally the game came to the US under the changed title Spirits & Spells. It seems to take a page from both other covers. It focuses on the two main characters, but in a much less terrifying fashion than Castleween. There's an attempt at cuteness that doesn't match the Japanese covers, but it looks fine.
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3 comments:
Woof! Those EU/NA covers are kind of terrifying -- and not in a good way, IMO. I like the Japanese covers quite a bit, though.
Have you played any version of the game? If so, what do you think about it?
The EU cover is going to haunt me for a few nights :P. I don't know who ever thought that gross renders should be used for covers, but it happened a lot. Publisher Phoenix Games in particular is notorious for disastrous covers like this and I will probably have to post some of their "art" soon.
I've yet to try it, but I'm looking into at least picking up the PS2 version. From what I've seen it looks relatively cute and simplistic.
Yeah, the game itself looks at least OK, but the cover art of the NA and esp. EU versions is really, really bad.
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