If your personal Mega Man collection is in need of a trophy piece, look no further than this: a legitimate film transparency of the unused North American Wily Wars box art. Currently up for grabs on Ebay, you're looking at proof of Capcom's early intentions to release Wily Wars on a physical cartridge in the states. And it could be yours.The seller, who runs the Video Game Ephemera, had this to say about the piece:
"For whatever reason, Mega Man: The Wily Wars was never released in North America. It was available for download through the cable TV-based Sega Channel system, but it was not sold here in cartridge form. But that’s not to say that Capcom USA never intended to produce physical copies of the game. When it was originally announced, the company sent a 4x5” transparency of the game’s official North American box art to our offices at VideoGames magazine.
It’s an interesting illustration in the grand tradition of off-model Mega Man box art. In fact, when a lower-resolution copy of this image appeared online several years ago, there was some debate among Mega Man fans as to whether this was the real Wily Wars U.S. box or just a clever fan-art forgery!"
How much will this fine piece of Mega Man history run you? The seller is asking for $110 (free shipping!), but is willing to negotiate via "Make Offer." Bear in mind, you're not getting the boxart itself but the actual film strip that would have been used to mass produce copies of the art had the game released on U.S store shelves. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.
If this is something up your alley, feel free to check out the complete auction here. Thanks for the tip, Jake!
Dat flexing
ReplyDeleteAlso, I know why Guts Man, Air Man and Snake Man are there, but why those particular RMs?
I would've used Cut Man, Bubble Man and Shadow Man.
Why's it rated Mature? lol
ReplyDeleteo.O What's with Mega's face?
ReplyDeletePfft. I see this sort of thing on eBay way too often... It's usually this specific piece of artwork, too. I can't personally verify the authenticity of this auction any more than I can verify the others have been legit. But hey, if someone wants to spend upwards of a hundred bucks on this, I say go for it. :B
ReplyDeleteThis might have been the ugliest MM ever to "grace" a box had it been used. Glad it wasn't.
ReplyDeleteDat face...
ReplyDeleteMegaman looks like a constipated Disney mouse.
Mega Man looks like he's about to take a massive dump.
ReplyDeleteVery tempting. If it's still available Friday, on payday, I might throw an offer at him. Would be cool to scan this in so people could make their own semi-official boxes.
ReplyDeleteAhh, the ol' MA-13. Always confused me as to why they were going to give this game that rating.
ReplyDeleteI would've used Shadow Man too. That is, if he hadn't been dumbed down severly in this version. So I think he didn't deserve it here. Should've used "Blast Processing", Capcom!
Ha ha, oh well. It was a case of Sega not being able to do what Nintendoes... that joke doesn't work well here, never mind.
Why the crap did they give it an MA-13 rating? That is the same rating they (understandably) gave Spiderman and Venom. Other than the crappy Protoman sprite, there was really nothing offensive in MMWW.
ReplyDeleteShining Force 2 only had a GA rating and there were tons of creepy demons and a scene with a naked chick in it. The early game rating system was all screwed up.
Oh, and as a random side-note? The actual game is fantastic, I recently found out! ... provided you can overclock your M68000 GPU to at least double speed. Do that, no more lag. Anywhere. I recently played through the whole game again via emulator with the GPU overclocked. I loved every minute of it! Had the game not been coded in C+ (like Star Control), maybe it would have run better on the basic, unaltered MegaDrive/Genesis...
ReplyDeleteIt could be fan-made. Not to trust!
ReplyDelete@Anon: It's not. Read the article in the post.
ReplyDeleteImage appeared in GamePro 1994:
ReplyDeletehttp://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9043/gameproissue060july1994.jpg
not fake.
@Skaarg
ReplyDeleteThe picture you see is probably the best kind of quality you'll get out of it. That is, if you scan it at a much higher resolution it may remedy the grainy look, but I think the current picture is great for modders to work their wonders with. I think I will contact one I know and see if this one would be better than the lower, slightly darker res one seen on Deviant Art. Should definitely be an improvement for printing.
The game was state side, it had to be ordered though through the sega store. I have a copy of the USA version.....
ReplyDeleteWe know, Vile. Read the post more closely.
ReplyDeleteHe should have started it as a real auction and let the world decide what the film is worth. Making up a price out of thin air isn't wise when you want to get some cash.
ReplyDeleteHeh. Add this box art to the list of "angry videogame characters."
ReplyDelete