Cover Art Chronicles: Overseas Wandering

When you think about it, box art has really come a long way, mainly in territories outside of Japan. The world of the east has always had it good from days dating back into the NES and SNES era (well, Famicom and Super Famicom, to be specific). For everyone else? Well, we'd be glad if we got box art that was actually good. And by "good," I mean something that actually represented what the game was supposed to be. Unfortunately, they were incredibly spartan, and you could classify it as a sort of dark ages for covers.

Well Sega doesn't! Because with the cover for Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer nearly set us back about 15 years because of how bad it is, and how much it misses the point. See, Shiren is a roguelike; it has the benefit of being in a genre that's more niche than the genres the more dedicated gaming crowd classifies as niche. It's the kind of game that needed every element of its marketing to be perfect so it would find an audience, the majority of which would undoubtedly find the game their entry barrier to the genre.

But not with a cover like this. I don't know what they were thinking, to be honest. This isn't one of those cases where I turn into a moronic internet weaboo for the sake of liking all things Japanese, and moronically declare that Japanese covers are always better. But there are quite a few people who like Japanese anime and its art these days, and therein lies the reason why their  decision for this art was so poor. Back in the 90s, no one knew that this stuff was, and a person's reaction to a cover like that would've been one of sheer, utter bewilderment. Now, though, people think it's neat, and it's accepted as something unique. And if you think that your average person who browses the video game aisle would express incredible befuddlement at that now, well, these are people who've probably seen stuff like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Dragon Ball Z. So even they're used to it.

So yeah, it would've been nice to see this cover along the aisle. Roguelikes are a damned tough sell in any territory, even in Japan sometimes. But it's overseas where it really needs the help. Your average person who also watches anime doesn't need that much of a description of what the game is actually about. They'll find the RPG-esque anime style appealing, and decide to give it a curiosity purchase -- we are talking about a $30 DS game here. I like Sega of America's output recently, and they've been taking a lot of chances with some, but not all, of their niche titles recently. So seeing this bomb kind of bites.

Fortunately, it's not over for Shiren in the US. Around the time of E3 (not at E3, because then no one would know), Atlus announced that they're localizing Shiren 3 for Wii, which is due for a US release sometime in 2010. As good as Sega is, I think Atlus will be a little more successful at marketing it simply because of their experience with appealing to an audience that adores games like this, like with Izuna (which is in the same genre). If it's successful, it's possible that they'll also localize the second DS game -- unless they plan on releasing them simultaneously, but let's not get ridiculous here.

Of course, if you want to buy Shiren now, it's available in budget bins nationwide! Check your local retailer, folks.