NES · 1987 · US · Art: Unknown (Capcom USA)
Widely regarded as the worst box art for a great game in NES history, the US cover depicts a middle-aged man in a blue suit firing a pistol — bearing no resemblance to the Japanese original's iconic robot boy.
The Japanese Famicom box for Mega Man, painted by Keiji Inafune's team, showed the blue robot hero in a dynamic pose against a cityscape — energetic and immediately legible as science fiction action. The US localisation by Capcom's American division produced an entirely different image: a human-looking man in a plain blue outfit holds a small gun against a painted city background. The result became notorious in gaming culture as a defining example of Western localisation teams producing covers that actively undermined their games. The contrast between the Famicom and NES box art became a stock example in discussions of regional marketing differences, and Mega Man's cover is now one of the most parodied images in retro gaming.