Good – NeoGeo Battle Coliseum (PS2, SNK Playmore)

Eisuke Ogura is talented, and this may be one of the finest works he did while at SNK. The logo does block out Kisarah and Akari, but otherwise the artwork is allowed to shine all so brightly. Great colors, a nice mixed selection of faces from the roster…a grand effort.

Bad – Castle of Dragon (NES, Seta)

If I didn’t have such animosity for the NES M.U.L.E. box or such disgust for the awkward Code Name: Viper box, this would have handily won the Worst Box of 1990. What good is there on this box? The dragon is not all that imposing, really, what with its malformed limbs and tiny size. The background is a masterwork of lazy fog and minimalist detail. The atrocity of the knight and damsel top everything else, though. The human body should not have been given to this artist to render. They couldn’t do it. The knight is in one hell of a bizarre pose, and that woman is appalling. Both lack clarity and solid proportions. And mixed in with everything else, it’s an absolute disaster of a box.