Thumbnails Repository Facelift

Xunkar · 23 May 2022 21:47

And 6 new Game Boy games

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (USA, Europe)

Makaimura Gaiden: The Demon Darkness (Japan) || 魔界村外伝・THE DEMON DARKNESS

Mario’s Picross (USA, Europe)

Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge (USA)

Mega Man II (USA)

Mega Man III (USA)

Xunkar · 27 May 2022 12:10

(GameBoy)

Mega Man IV (USA)

Mega Man V (USA, Europe)

Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible (Japan) || 女神転生外伝・ラストバイブル

Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible II (Japan) || 女神転生外伝・ラストバイブル II

Metroid II: Return of Samus (World)

The previous art for Metroid might’ve looked OK, but besides the heavily saturated colors a few details were different. I suppose it’s the European cover but I couldn’t find any evidence that this exact cover was ever used, so I based my work off of the US release.

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (USA)

Xunkar · 28 May 2022 18:32

Today I come seeking your input. I wanted to work on the cover for the GameBoy game “Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands” but I’m faced with a little conundrum. This game has the same ROM for the US and European versions, but it was released under a different name in both regions: in Europe it is called “Mickey Mouse V: Magic Wands.”

Until now when a game had a different box art per region but the ROM was multi-regional, I simply decided to use the cleanest art. Not in terms of scan quality but rather how much of the art is actually showing. For example, European release usually have less stickers than US ones due to the lack of ESRB rating. So when both arts are the same I favor the European one.

However in this case, the game has a different title, which is not a minor detail, and I don’t know which one should be used. The other problem is that the game was apparently only ever released in the US as part of the Player’s Choice program, featuring a unique bronze border and a large sticker… All in all a less appealing edition in my opinion. I believe the best solution to this would be to “de-specialize” the US version. In other words to use the European box art, but minus the mention of the “V” in the title.

Nothing impossible here, but it’s a matter of conventions and expectations. It’s important to note that, unless new evidence comes to light, such a cover would be a pure invention: it never existed in the form described above. In that particular case, could it be interesting to actually have a (USA) and a (Europe) box art for the game? Naturally the game would still be recognized by RA as (USA, Europe) when scanned, but the end-user could rename the game to pick the version of the thumbnail they want. It would mean either having a box art for (USA, Europe) too, defaulting to… whatever, US release I guess; or getting rid of it to force users to rename their library entery to select the correct edition.

What do you guys of this?

hunterk · 29 May 2022 00:26

hmm, that’s a tough call. I think you can’t really go wrong with the objective, purist approach, so I would probably make that the default, but having an idealized one is cool, IMO.

Xunkar · 29 May 2022 10:30

But even doing things exactly by the book, I end up having to decide between US and Europe art for the game. A different art can be OK I think, but the name of the game isn’t going to be correct no matter what choice is made and that’s a whole different story. And unfortunately RetroArch does not handle such a case.

Perhaps a great solution would be to implement a region preference setting in RA. Something like… “Use thumbnails matching this region first in case of ambiguity.” Then we could have both a (USA) and a (Europe) box art. In case of a match failure, RA would need to try to select the art according to the setting. So, first try to download the art for “Mickey Mouse (USA, Europe)” and seeing that no thumbnail exists for it, try “Mickey Mouse (‘Preferred Region Setting’)” if you see what I mean. This could solve all issues regarding editions and user expectations.

hunterk · 29 May 2022 12:04

Yeah, no perfect solution. I think in these purely judgment-call cases, just go with whatever looks the best. If the USA release is covered in junk and the EU release is the same game, it’s reasonable to go with the EU cover.

Xunkar · 2 June 2022 13:38

(GameBoy)

Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands! (USA, Europe)

Like discussed earlier, I went with a mix of european and american box art to completely recreate a de-specialized, more neutral art for the game. It’s not a perfect solution, but a perfect solution is currently impossible considering how RetroArch works. However I’m quite happy with the result.

Picross 2 (Japan) || ピクロス２

Pocket Monsters Midori (Japan) || ポケットモンスター・緑

Pokémon: Blue Version (USA, Europe)

Pokémon: Version Bleue (France)

Pokémon: Red Version (USA, Europe)

Pokémon: Version Rouge (France)

Not super happy with this one. Considering the popularity of the game I’m surprised by the absolute lack of good scans. Might be able to revisit this in the future, but this is the best I can do right now with what’s available.