Which games cover art completely turned you away from the game?

[Warmsignal]

Has a cover art ever been so bad in your opinion, that it made you completely dismiss the game entirely without even looking into what the game was like, only to find the game isn't near as bad as the cover?

For me, and example would Rival Turf on SNES. It makes me think "corny 90s teen rap music video trying to be edgy". It looks so much like what was marketed as "rad" in the early 90s towards the young teen demographic. I always passed over the game, like "WTF is this junk?". Little did I know, it's a decent Final Fight clone called Rushing Beat in Japan. Cover art still wasn't great there, but at least it conveyed the idea of beat-em-up or fighting game of that era. Rival Turf just looks like some shovel-ware junk at first glance.

[mrkonasoni]

The only one cover I can think I truly dislike is the one from that game named "Tongue of the Fatman".

When I think about old covers I can't complain because while some of them weren't a good example about what the game was about, I can still respect the high quality of multiple covers by professional artists.

I would mention covers for shovelware games but if I am sincere, some games are extremely obviously shovelware I couldn't even buy it if the cover was actually good lol

[oldgamerz]

Any cover art that looks childish corny to me I pass on getting it, but I usally don't see a lot of games with corny cover art, but a lot of them early 1990's Games with bad different cover art seem to be rare and expensive game worth a lot of money I've got a nickelodeon game for the PS2 not a lot of people have this game the cover art makes me think it's a child or young teens game, I got it when what my little, now grown sister gave to me  her collection to me, But it was so many games that I offered to pay her for the games and consoles she was trying to get rid of.

https://vgcollect.com/item/1992

[jipsy]

Pretty much any PS1 era game where they just put the character on the box art, the 3d modeling was so bad and the boxart was really low effort.

[sworddude]

garbage bin cover while in reality these where just gunbird on ps1 and castle shikigami 1 on ps2. Why the hell they ever put generic box art on those titles is beyond me.

Some pretty solid shootemups in horrible packaging, a stain in any collection thanks to it's physical appearance of hideous box art in the human realm.

[Warmsignal]

garbage bin cover while in reality these where just gunbird on ps1 and castle shikigami 1 on ps2. Why the hell they ever put generic box art on those titles is beyond me.

Some pretty solid shootemups in horrible packaging, a stain in any collection thanks to it's physical appearance of hideous box art in the human realm.

I was actually kinda disappointed that you didn't play as a Charlie's Angels knock-off trio running the streets and shooting up the cyborg invasion. It's a case where the false impression made me think I wanted to play what was on the cover, but it wasn't that.

[Flashback2012]

garbage bin cover while in reality these where just gunbird on ps1 and castle shikigami 1 on ps2. Why the hell they ever put generic box art on those titles is beyond me.

Some pretty solid shootemups in horrible packaging, a stain in any collection thanks to it's physical appearance of hideous box art in the human realm.

See those had the opposite effect on me. I saw them and I was like "Oooh shitty artwork, what game did they port?!" Of course I've been well seasoned to this ever since the NES days so I've become accustomed to looking for shitty box art (Phalanx on SNES is a great example). Naturally, there have been a few times where shitty boxart also had shitty game but that's bound to happen. 

That said, there are PLENTY of games with horribly bad boxart. Here are a few examples...

Super Bust-A-Move (https://vgcollect.com/item/1266)
Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition (I want whatever drugs Acclaim was on at the time)(https://vgcollect.com/item/7936)
Super Daryl Deluxe (https://vgcollect.com/item/193541)
Mega Man 1 (This falls in the so-bad-it's-good category)(https://vgcollect.com/item/5530)
Dick Vitale's Awesome Baby! College Hoops (Only because of my utter disdain for Dick Vitale  )(https://vgcollect.com/item/10119)
Hot Shots Golf 2 (so glad they veered away from the goofy looking husky guy back to Everybody's Golf)(https://vgcollect.com/item/24172)

[oldgamerz]

I had this game a while before I played it because I didn't think it would be a fun game for me, boy was I wrong. as soon as I started to play this game I found out. it became one of my lifetime favorite games, I even narrated  my own campaign story, I made custom levels with the included Campaign editor and everything, even got to learn a little bit about programming triggers and what milliseconds were about

[Warmsignal]

Man... that Super Bust A Move cover. It's so terrible! Even knowing that I like the series, I've neglected to pick that one up and I think it's because of the cover art.

With Phalanx, I know everybody comments on how ridiculous it is.... and that's true. But, I have to say it never threw me off from what the game actually was, nor made me avoid it. With the ship in the background, I just had a feeling it was a shooter the first time I saw it, and I knew the old man was just the oddball art direction of the cover. It kind of follows the trope of clueless hillbilly farmer vs high tech space craft alien abduction. I don't think a lot of people really connected those dots, but it still doesn't accurately represent the game either.

[sworddude]

garbage bin cover while in reality these where just gunbird on ps1 and castle shikigami 1 on ps2. Why the hell they ever put generic box art on those titles is beyond me.

Some pretty solid shootemups in horrible packaging, a stain in any collection thanks to it's physical appearance of hideous box art in the human realm.

See those had the opposite effect on me. I saw them and I was like "Oooh shitty artwork, what game did they port?!" Of course I've been well seasoned to this ever since the NES days so I've become accustomed to looking for shitty box art (Phalanx on SNES is a great example). Naturally, there have been a few times where shitty boxart also had shitty game but that's bound to happen. 

That said, there are PLENTY of games with horribly bad boxart. Here are a few examples...

Super Bust-A-Move (https://vgcollect.com/item/1266)
Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition (I want whatever drugs Acclaim was on at the time)(https://vgcollect.com/item/7936)
Super Daryl Deluxe (https://vgcollect.com/item/193541)
Mega Man 1 (This falls in the so-bad-it's-good category)(https://vgcollect.com/item/5530)
Dick Vitale's Awesome Baby! College Hoops (Only because of my utter disdain for Dick Vitale  )(https://vgcollect.com/item/10119)
Hot Shots Golf 2 (so glad they veered away from the goofy looking husky guy back to Everybody's Golf)(https://vgcollect.com/item/24172)

Super bust a move is indeed really ugly won't deny that but I haven't been that interested in bust a move for the ps2 so it's cover art hasnt had a shot to turn me away just yet.
Mobile light actually made me ignore those titles for quite a while.

Phalanx and rival turf USA snes art is so bad it's good with personality I don't mind those because they look really funny.

Tons of box art examples out there that do indeed give a wrong impression

I was expecting samurai games. hack n slash action based but Both turned out to be high quality shootemups

I was really glad and dissapointed at the same time

[Flashback2012]

Super bust a move is indeed really ugly won't deny that but I haven't been that interested in bust a move for the ps2 so it's cover art hasnt had a shot to turn me away just yet.
Mobile light actually made me ignore those titles for quite a while.

Phalanx and rival turf USA snes art is so bad it's good with personality I don't mind those because they look really funny.

Tons of box art examples out there that do indeed give a wrong impression

I was expecting samurai games. hack n slash action based but Both turned out to be high quality shootemups

I was really glad and dissapointed at the same time

You mentioned Rival Turf and that reminded me of some other Jaleco releases that irked me, namely Tuff E Nuff & Operation: Logic Bomb. Both titles have plagiarized art lifted from Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.s comics. That also reminds me of the Dracula behind Simon on the boxart for Simon's Quest which was lifted from the AD&D Ravenloft module artwork.

[telly]

Pretty much every single Master System game   

[Flashback2012]

Pretty much every single Master System game   

Phantasy Star, Lord of the Sword, Golvellius, Psycho Fox, R-Type, and Spellcaster all have amazing boxart.

The rest though, with notable examples like My Hero, Transbot, Action Fighter, The "Great" Sports line, Teddy Boy and especially Pro Wrestling are absolutely horribad. 

[sworddude]

I think the majority of the good master system games have good to excellent art work if I'm looking in my collection of almost 80 games

So unless your going for full sets it ain't all that bad.

even the more known titles have decent box art (fantasy zone ! & II alex kidd with the exception of it's first entry altered beast shinobi)

[Warmsignal]

You mentioned Rival Turf and that reminded me of some other Jaleco releases that irked me, namely Tuff E Nuff & Operation: Logic Bomb. Both titles have plagiarized art lifted from Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.s comics. That also reminds me of the Dracula behind Simon on the boxart for Simon's Quest which was lifted from the AD&D Ravenloft module artwork.

Yeah, Tuff E Nuff or "Hey Punk! Are You Tuff E Nuff?" is another where I think both the artwork and the title are so terrible, that I won't even give that game a chance. I assume it's a fighting game, but man that is lame AF.

Operation Logic Bomb, the artwork is not so bad, but the name is kind lame, like something an Internet edge-lord would say - "I'm gonna drop a logic bomb on all the sheeple". Regardless, I picked that one up recently because the game looks pretty good. Jaleco had horrible marketing sensibility for a lot of their games.