Another year, another countdown, another birthday.  And I’m boxing it all up, tying a nice little bow around it, and turning the ripe old age of 32 with a celebration of 32 BRILLIANT examples of FANTASTIC video game box art.  Join me, won’t you?

Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land (1994) – Wario as a character is quite literally the closest thing I have that resembles Nintendo fandom, and while it didn’t catch on in earnest until years later, Wario Land definitely set me on that trajectory.  The box art too was a first, in that it was the first time I really got the wonder of Nintendo’s style, and of Japanese artistic direction more generally.  Even then as a committed fan of Disney I could see a certain inspiration taken from the house that Mickey built, but that there was something just a little bit off, but something that made it feel entirely different and unique.  Of course once I grew up and understood just how culturally and in some ways creatively different japan was from the United States and the United Kingdom it all made sense.  But for a majority of my childhood Wario Land was a curio, a view into the mind of a creative yet crazy individual, manifesting itself as one of the best video games ever made.

Miss previous entries in the countdown?

Space Ace (1983) – Transylvania (1984) – Impossible Mission (1985) – Defender of the Crown (1986) – Faery Tale Adventure (1987) – F/A – 18 Interceptor (1988) – Blood Money (1989) – King of the Zoo (1990) – Lemmings (1991) – Pinball Fantasies (1992) – The Ren & Stimpy Show: Veediots! (1993)