Be sure to cast your votes in the poll below; but first, let’s look at the box designs themselves.
North America
The North American cover simply oozes courtroom drama, Is it? There’s the showing off, there’s the judge sitting on top, there’s Miles’ tie proudly occupying a good portion of the art. It’s not the most subtle indication of what the game is about, but to give you an idea of what you’re about to get into, you really can’t go wrong here.
Europe
To be fair, if your game’s title is 50% name, then why shouldn’t that character be the sole focus of the cover? In this starkly stripped-down approach, the European cover is all about Phoenix himself, striking a sleek power pose in front of a blank white background, with the game’s logo taking a much more prominent place than in the North American variant. It’s not really clear what the game is about, but it’s certainly attractive.
Japan
If this style looks familiar, it’s because many of the subsequent entries in the Ace Attorney series would use a similar cover approach in the future. This one shows the four main characters – Phoenix, Miles, Mia and Maya – in stark close-up against a black background. Like the EU cover, this doesn’t say too much about the game itself, but you’ll have no doubt who the main players are.
Bonus – TAKE IT
We removed this option from the vote because, well, it’s a completely different system and only released in Japan, but we thought it would be nice to throw in a Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (or Gyakuten Saiban, as it was originally titled) GBA box art for hidden view.
Yep, this lawyer wasn’t always around dual screens and actually started life on the GBA in Japan. This version never received a global release, but we’d like to think it would have carried over the stripped back cover design if it had…
Thanks for voting! See you next time for another round of Box Art Brawl.
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