Super Mario Bros 3 box

jajajajajaja
in Collector's Corner
I saw a guy in another forum asking about the backside of the SMB3 box. If you look at the top picture of the 1st map you can see it looks very different from the game. I've tried the japanese ROM, but its just like the european and USA version. Anyone know why this picture of the map is different from the retail?



EDIT: Direct link to the box here so you dont have to get your original box to check image



http://www.nintendoage.com/ind...&Game_Variation_ID=344



EDIT 2: I also checked the manual (atleast the FRG-1 manual, the one i had handy at the moment) and it shows the retail map inside there, not the one thats on the back on the box.

Comments

  • Dr. MorbisDr. Morbis
    You'll also notice that one of the other screens on the back is of a level that doesn't exist in the game. That's what happens when your marketing and design departments are that far removed from the actual development of the game (literally an ocean apart, in this case). The box has to be ready to roll when the game is done, not a year later, so, naturally, they had to use an earlier build of the game.
  • jajajajajaja
    You mean the one with the flying red thingies? Hehe image The guy on the other forum also mentioned this, but i mean i remember this from the game, atleast those red monsters. Another thing that is wierd is that the first SMB3 box (atleast the USA one) got different pictures on the back, which all seems to be in the retail game too, so i would guess the other box was made later (can still be from the same build tho, but still i find it wierd).



    http://www.nintendoage.com/ind...840F-F146F6067740E98F



    There are over 700 NES games and i have never noticed anything like this before so i think its pretty wierd. Do any other boxes like this excist, where pictures on the back are different from the retail game? If boxes were made long time before the game was done, wouldnt the chances be that alot of screenshots on the back of the box would looks different from the retail game?
  • Dr. MorbisDr. Morbis
    Well the thing about Mario 3 is that it was released in 1988 in Japan, (even before we got Mario 2 in the US, in fact) so they had like a year and a half to tinker around with the game code and the box design for the US release, so who knows what happened.



    The flying beetles in the second picture are in the game, though I don't think they appear in red, and definitely not within the level style predicted. (They exist in red in the ROM if you hack the code though).



    As for other games using misleading pictures, I've seen it a few times on my NES boxes but I don't remember specifics. I do know that a couple publishers liked to use arcade screenshots to trick us - Taito is a good example of that (check out the pics on the back of Bubble Bobble, for example). Next time I'm around my collection, I'll see if I can find any more.
  • SivakSivak
    Interesting box.  World 1 is laid out similarly, but differently.  The para beetles, in screenshot 2, only appear in World 5...  I think it's 5-6.
  • jajajajajaja
    Ye, i guess that makes sense, thanks for the info image But how was it with manuals? Were those made later that the boxes? Like i said, the FRG-1 manual (only one i checked) got screenshots of the map just like how it was in the retail game. I notice it says -1 so maybe something is fixed/changed. Does anyone have a manual without -1 that could check if the screenshots of the map is the same as in the retail game?
  • dangevindangevin
    They exist and you can play with/against them



    http://www.themushroomkingdom.net/smb3_lost.shtml



    http://www.themushroomkingdom..../maps/smb3_lost09.gif



    As far as the topic of the thread, Atari 2600 in my memory was the WORST offender. On both cover and rear art, they would always cram in more sprites than were possible (Defender) and make the graphics appear higher res than possible. Some like Boxing would have action added with motion blurs. Almost every game had something fabricated..



    ..and the reason? They're drawings. Technology of the day had no "screen capture" to export to a .gif - in fact, .gif and .jpg compression didn't exist until the late 80's, right around VGA graphics started producing (then-)huge filesizes that needed compression image I remember the days of a 1MB hard drive. Those things were heavy!



    All the same I loved the games but remember consistently studying the catalog that came with each one and being a little disappointed, and feeling slightly jilted when I finally put it in the console.
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