{"id":117338,"date":"2020-08-30T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2020\/08\/poll_box_art_brawl_duel_57_-_shadow_of_the_ninja_blue_shadow"},"modified":"2020-08-30T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-30T11:00:00","slug":"poll-box-art-brawl-duel-57-shadow-of-the-ninja-blue-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/08\/30\/poll-box-art-brawl-duel-57-shadow-of-the-ninja-blue-shadow\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Box Art Brawl: Duel #57 – Shadow Of The Ninja \/ Blue Shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Main\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Welcome back, one and all, to the latest edition of Box Art Brawl<\/a>. After a week-long hiatus to charge our hadouken, we’re returning with another bout featuring regional box art variants battling for your pleasure (and votes).<\/p>\n

Last time<\/a> we took a look at Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door<\/a><\/strong> in a particularly close-run duel between East and West. Ultimately, Japan that emerged victorious from that bout with 58% of your vote. The European \/ North American variant came away with a bloodied nose, then, but it can still hold its head high. Good game, good game.<\/em><\/p>\n

This week we’re back with a three-way bout as Natsume’s NES side-scroller Shadow of the Ninja<\/a><\/strong> takes on its deadliest foes and dances around not one, but two<\/em> of its own shadows. Released in Japan in August 1990, this co-op action game is available to play on Switch<\/a> for anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, so check it out if it’s a new one on you.<\/p>\n

Let’s see how the game with three names holds up thirty years on…<\/p>\n

Japan<\/h2>\n
\"JP\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Known in Japan as KAGE<\/strong> or Darkness Worker Kage<\/strong>, the ninja protagonists Kaede and Hayate feature in the bottom right against a swirling green mass in the background. The red-hued ‘KAGE’ logo, styled and embossed with red blade-like lettering, takes up the majority of the landscape-oriented Famicom cover, with the intimidating white-eyed chap in the opposite upper left corner to the heroes.<\/p>\n

We enjoy the sharp lettering of the title, but otherwise it’s all a bit messy and hard to pick out individual elements on this cover.<\/p>\n

North America<\/h2>\n
\"NA\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The North American version again features curved, blade-like stylings in its logo, with the retitled Shadow of the Ninja in red again. The protagonists take centre stage this time, with Kaede adopting a very similar stance to the Japanese cover as they battle against robotic enemies in a retro-futuristic cityscape. It certainly gives you a better idea of what to expect from the game.<\/p>\n

The fiery orange and red background brings to mind the Ninja Gaiden<\/strong> cover<\/a>, and the off-kilter border gives the whole thing a shifting, unpredictable nature; it keeps your eye from getting comfortable and has you cycling around the image looking at different elements.<\/p>\n

The logo could be a little bolder, perhaps, but we like this a lot. Plenty to chew on.<\/p>\n

Europe<\/h2>\n
\"EU\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Kaede and Hayate are interpreted a little differently on the European cover, as if Axel and Blaze from Streets of Rage<\/a><\/strong> were on their way to a fancy dress party. The white-eyed, red-skinned, beardy guy (Emperor Garuda, we presume) is the star of the show here, and we like the heat of the colours on this cover.<\/p>\n

Retitled Blue Dragon<\/strong> in Europe, we’re torn on the logo. It almost looks like someone started with a shark stencil and carved away the negative space around the letters, adding a strikethrough line for good measure. The less we think about it, the more we like it (yes, that definitely makes sense!<\/em>), and the logo of European publishers Taito is always a winner.<\/p>\n

\n

So, three very different covers, but which one is the best? Pick your favourite from the options below and hit ‘Vote’ to let us know:<\/p>\n

That’s all for this week, folks! Thanks for voting and we’ll see you next time for another round.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome back, one and all, to the latest edition of Box Art Brawl. After a week-long hiatus to charge our hadouken, we’re returning with another bout featuring regional box art variants battling for your pleasure (and votes). Last time we took a look at Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in a particularly close-run duel between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}