Poll: Box Art Brawl - Duel: New Super Mario Bros.

I voted the PAL version.
The Giant Mario on the left for USA cover looks quite distracting.

The Europe/Japan version.I like Mario and Luigi jumping together.
It's just iconic.

Both of them look like fanmade collages. There is zero atmosphere or shading to either piece, with the renders looking completely disconnected from each other (seriously, what is that Goomba doing in the European one), but at least the US one has slightly more interesting composition.

I will never understand the need for different box art. Especially ones as close as these.

Good lord, Wonder makes both these covers look sedate!

Europe/Japan as it looks cleaner, but both of them have a bland soulless art style that leaves me cold, much like the New Super Mario Bros games themselves do.

Not a patch on the beautiful boxarts of old... now this is what you call art:

Nintendo went a bit bonkers with the gigantism for a period of time, didn't they?

staring at these makes me rather sleepy. thanks nintendolife! gonna catch some z's.

NA ver because I like the soil texture..

Both are stock art hell but I guess they fit the generic art direction these games are infamous for.
@Daniel36
NA marketing likely felt it was too bland and tried to breathe a bit of life into it, having Mega Mario there is comparable to 3 and World ‘s boxes showcasing Raccoon Mario and Yoshi respectively.

Both are pretty decent and sum up the vibe of the game well.
Though I think EU/Japan takes the edge as giant Mario was done dirty in the NA one!

This one's tough.
Japan's box is more vibrant and fun.
But North America's gives a glimpse at the gameplay.

I have to go with the NA version, but only because of the wave of nostalgia that just hit me

Biiig Maaarioooo!

Mario and Luigi in sync is all I need. Europe.

NA shows Mega Mario. PAL just looks like it could be any Mario game.

NA all the way. Though I wonder if there’s been a closer race.

Both great but europe japan wins it for me

Not something that I thought about at the time, but Mario looks pretty menacing in the NA cover. I’m hindsight, giant Mario is also not as iconic a power up as it might have seemed at the time. Like the cartridge inside, the Japanese box promises comforting old-fashioned 2D jumping around the Mushroom Kingdom, no more no less.

North america this time. The big mario really shows the game’s gimmick

@romanista Same for me, both covers are largely the same yet one shows a gameplay gimmick. I can see kids saying you can be mega Mario!!!

Both covers work, but I went with North America. When your game plays things safe in most corners, it's helpful to show off one of the most fun, game changing mechanics.

I like the original New Super Mario Bros., but the "New" Mario 2D titles played things way too safe IMO.

NA. I like that it shows off the mega mushroom and it could be interpreted that Luigi is running from Mario like in the local multiplayer gamemode!

New Super Mario Bros. wasn't ACTUALLY as lifeless as the rest of the 'New' series.

But the box art absolutely was.

Not the best artwork for a Mario game. I'm just gonna go with what The Lonely Goomba says, and pick the USA one. Why? Just because there's a giant Mario killing innocent enemies while smirking about it. That darn smirk! Plus I own that version as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMAEpTR1VxU

I chose the North American box art because it's the one I grew up playing. Not to mention the visuals are a little bit more interesting. Mega Mario on the side brings some interest to the box art, while the European one is a collage of random enemies with Mario and Luigi slapped on the middle.

Both of these are equally bland but JP/EU wins on virtue of not having giant Mario making the box art worse.

Both are fine for what they are, but I'm going to give the edge to the US art for Mega Mario.

And, yet AGAIN NL gives shared box art top billing to EU, even though it's a JPN origin game (art) that EU got an entire month later. The way it's presented indicates that JPN is using EU's box art, when in reality EU is using the JPN art. It should have been labelled as "Japan/Europe", rather than " Europe/Japan".

Whenever two regions share a box art, the region that received the game first/the game was developed in should get the top billing.

Box Art Brawls Current Total:

Europe: 61

Japan: 65

North America: 68

Australia and New Zealand: 1

The NA one kind of just makes more sense because the Mega Mushroom, while not actually in the game much, was kind of its big selling point while the game pretty much completely buries how you go about playing as Luigi so it makes sense to comparatively downplay him.

Don't really like either. I've always found the artwork in these games to be clean, but dull and uninspired.

BEEEEG Mario for the win!

Only just noticed this but why is Luigi kicking Mario in the back on the JP/EU boxart?

@chapuH the same reason Mario’s trying to squish Luigi in the NA version, I guess😂

Yeah, I'd like JP/EU way more if there was a little space between Mario and Luigi so their silhouettes read better. As it is, I think I gotta go NA.

I don't like either cover. I think they're both rather poor. Both have messy composition due to trying to make it look like a scene from gameplay which also keeps things from being dynamic. Both have elements just placed anywhere. The NA cover is worse because it's zoomed out to feature giant Mario, but having him on the edge of the frame is not good. It draws the eye to the extreme left and up towards his face. That's why I say its composition is worse. So I voted for the Japan & Europe cover for being less bad.

They're pretty close, I'll say I'm not really a fan of the big mario so I voted for the EU one.

@PedroMatos it really reminds me of those fake boxarts from the 2000 made in 10 minutes by sticking together random renders.

They're so similar it doesn't matter.

Big Mario bullying the goombas is a nice touch for the NA in my opinion. I do like the EU/JP, Mario & Luigi synced up like they are is fun, but the spacing makes it feel a little weird to me, mostly because of how Luigi's foot looks squarely planted on Mario's back

I like both of them, but this time, unlike most of my votes, I'll go with the North American one for nostalgia reasons. When I got the game on August 2006, that was the last time I visited the land that saw me grow up from a kid to a teen from 1991 to 2003 before I moved to my current city.

This is also more or less the game that kickstarted my DS collection. Makes me glad I got it on the Wii U Virtual Console before it was closed.

EDIT:
Cartridge art (pretty much the same everywhere, only with different logos for each region)

There's a slight difference on the European and Japanese covers. The Japanese one, and the Korean one for that matter, has a yellow stripe with the Japanese/Korean name covering the bottom part.

And not many people may know this, but there's a Chinese version as well for the iQue DS, which shows the non-American cover with a smaller logo and the yellow stripe at the top. This version came out in 2009.

For me, this one comes down to strictly nostalgia. I am all in on the North American variant.

For this one I had to opt for North America even if it feels like nostalgic waxing. It fits what I’ve been saying most of these tho that hey if I saw it on a shelf I would buy it. I think it perfectly draws the eyes and shows the cool new thing of the game. Absolutely lovely if you ask me hahaha.

Both kind of give off the vibe of "haphazardly fan-made box art from the mid-2000s Internet" but I guess at least the NA one tried to set itself apart a little more from other games in the series with the Mega Mario gimmick.

Starting May 2006 I would call the game store daily to check if they got NSMB early. After a few day they would pick up and immediately say "no, it's not here yet". Needles to say, I was the happiest kid in the world when I finally had it in my hands.

Europe/Japan looks bland with a massive sense of "been there, done that" which put me off bothering with this series until the Wii version. At least the US version has the tease of something different in the giant Mario imagery.

@Clyde_Radcliffe Super Mario All-Stars' cover art really did capture my 9-year-old imagination. Same as many other SNES games like Street Fighter II, Super Mario Kart etc. Those were the days.

For this weekend, I gotta go with the North American artwork.

I'm just coming to the realization, but is it me or Mega Mario looks bigger on the NA cover compared to how big he is in-game?

İ have voted for the North America one. İ have liked that more. İ have played this game but İ do not remember it, no more. İ must play it again. İ remember it was a good game but İ think Super Mario Bros Wonder will be more, more, more a better game than this game.

Nintendo 3DS have so much games and it is better than the Nintendo DS. İt looks way better to. İt have more good games than the Nintendo DS.

Super Mario Bros Wonder 1 thing that İ like about Super Mario Bros games and that is you can pick different characters that is incredible. Yess Super Mario Bros Wonder have that. So happy.

İf İ can buy the game İ want to play only with Princess Peach.

I went with the NA box art, as it shows one of the new game mechanics (that being the effects of the Mega Mushroom, which turns Mario and Luigi into giants). I like box art that shows gameplay elements, so I know what I'm getting into. That being said, I am also quite partial to more artistic-based ones.

@PedroMatos i mean you kind of described the vibe of the entire NSMB series right there. so i guess they're accurate covers in that sense 😮‍💨