Suikoden was released on PS1 in 1995, so he would have been just 26 at that time. Amazing. When the topic comes up of changing Japanese box art for western audiences, the first game I think of is Suikoden.
The sprite-based games of old certainly gave wide latitude for how you choose to interpret the character designs. It doesn't surprise me that at that time they would've chosen to supplement the sprites with western-style art designs for a western audience.
It's in the same vein (but not quite as hilarious IMO) as what they did to Breath of Fire II's art.
It's a miracle that the NA cover art for Ico came out so beautifully (EDIT: somehow I confused the beautiful Japan/European box art with the NA box art. The NA box art is horrible)
I love this US box art so much it's so dreadful and left such a weird impression on me initially. My friends and I had a hell of a time trying to figure out who the characters were meant to be.
I think by the end of it, our conclusions were:
Left Side: Barbarossa, Ted, Windy
Right Side: McDohl (maybe Luc?), Leknaat, Three headed skeleton demon because ???
Flying on the dragon I always assumed to be Futch, but who knows. If it's Luc in the corner, I guess it could be McDohl in the center, (he is the main character after all.)
I love how the US box art feels like some obscure Nobunaga's Ambition / Romance of Three Kingdoms strategy game. I can understand why marketing probably thought it was! It's just hilarious.
At least, compared to Mega Man, the Suikoden art is like... competently executed? It's no masterpiece, and has essentially zero correlation to the game, but it's at least professional!
For those not aware of Mega Man's box art, though... gaze upon this wonder
I think he correctly diagnosed that getting money out of politics is foundational to being able to make any sort of other lasting progress. I don't know why Democrat voters don't see that as the obvious direction that needs to be pursued to the exclusion of all else.
> I think he correctly diagnosed that getting money out of politics is foundational to being able to make any sort of other lasting progress.
No, its intermediary. Electoral reform (which doesn't require federal Constitutional reform and can be done by voter initiative in many states) foundational, because the breadth and depth of support by politicians for Cobstitutional reform necessary to deal with money in Congress is intractable otherwise.
> I don't know why Democrat voters don't see that as the obvious direction that needs to be pursued to the exclusion of all else.
Because enough Democratic voters understand why it is politically intractable currently (even if they don't always understand or live in states where they can do much about the steps for changing that), and because “to the exclusion of all else" is dumb, as there are lots of less intractable important problems and lots of irremediable harms that will be inflicted if other issues are neglected in a quixotic effort at finance reform.
Believing something is intractable is the first step in it becoming intractable.
Meanwhile, campaign finance reform is a prerequisite to actually solving any of those "less intractable" problems that never ever get solved because those issues are more financially valuable to the Democratic party leaders when left unresolved.
Example: the right to choose an abortion could have been codified into law for decades, but the risk of losing the right to an abortion was more valuable to Democratic leadership. Source: Andrew Yang
> Believing something is intractable is the first step in it becoming intractable.
Not understanding that and why a thing is temporarily intractable is the first step in making it permanently intractable.
> Example: the right to choose an abortion could have been codified into law for decades, but the risk of losing the right to an abortion was more valuable to Democratic leadership. Source: Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang is an idiot and/or liar on politics. Codifying the right ti abortion is a feelgood measure some Democrats wave around, but its never been a serious priority because it only slightly improves things while the Constitutional right itself stands (by providing wehatever additional recourse or sanction is in the statute), but fails as soon as the Constitutional right fails, because the only plausible argument for a federal power to protect the right to abortion is the enforcement clause of the 14th Amendment, which fails as soon as abortion is not within the scope of 14th Amendment rights already Constitutionally protected against state encroachment. Its not even a little bit of protection against a Supreme Court that would strike down abortion as a Constitutional right.
This has been my exact experience with HD and Walmart. I hesitate to do online shopping with either as it seems so horribly wasteful. My last Walmart online order was various groceries that I assumed would be boxed together. Every item arrived from a different location. I don't ever again want someone driving to my house to deliver a big cardboard box stuffed with padding that contains a single bag of potato chips.
