When I was a kid, the box art for Chrono Trigger always bothered me – less because it got everything about the game wrong (which was of course the norm at the time), but because it almost got everything right.
For reference:
Everything here is clearly identifiable: that’s obviously Heckran they’re fighting, the technique they’re using is obviously Arc Impulse (with the correct combination of characters), and the location is obviously the base of Death Peak in 2300 AD, complete with the Keeper’s Dome visible in the distance. Heck, they even got the trees right!
However, there are a few issues:
Heckran is not encountered in 2300 AD
At the point in the game where Heckran is encountered, that specific combination of party members is not available
Arc Impulse is a lightning/water technique, not a fire technique
Marle can’t even use fire magic
It’s that juxtaposition of extraordinary attention to detail being used to depict an impossible situation that got me. Was it based on an earlier version of the game where this situation was possible? Was the artist given detailed guidance about how all of those individual elements should be depicted, but no guidance at all on how they fit together? Did they deliberately decide to substitute a random early-game miniboss for the baddie that would actually be fought in this situation in order to avoid plot spoilers? Did they just think it looked cool?
These are the questions that kept twelve-year-old me up at night.
twelve-year-old you can now sleep in peace
https://www.resetera.com/threads/not-so-misleading-video-game-covers-less-phalanx-and-more-chrono-trigger.310408/
(posting this for @platynews, whose password is lost to the ages)
