Oh, poor, poor Light Crusader, Treasure's misunderstood attempt at cloning Climax's slightly superior Genesis cult classic Landstalker. At the time of its release, Light Crusader was generally bashed, trashed, blasted, and whatever other words you can think of for not liking something by both gaming magazines and the general populace. And unlike most of the company's other games, which would go on to become classics after the internet online-buying and emulation boom, Light Crusader would continue to stay unloved by the masses.
Granted, the fact that Sega chose to bring Light Crusader to America instead of Treasure's mad-awesome Gunstar Heroes pseudo-sequel Alien Soldier probably didn't help. And the game's bad box art definitely didn't help. Poor Light Crusader, doomed to join Mcdonald's Treasure Land Adventure and Stretch Panic in the category of "Treasure games that no one likes, even though they're still better than a lot of other companies' best efforts".
Despite Light Crusader's lack of originality and good press, I found it to be generally fun, with a large amount of wholesome Treasure wackiness, the best part probably being the sidequest where the hero gets shot 1500 years into the future to fight against the Nazis (!). So yeah, it's really a great game. Anyway, I'm rambling. Let's take a look at the box art.
Um, yeah. Unfortunately for us, the box art of Light Crusader does not feature a knight in Der Fuhrer's court. It does, however, feature lots of scary-looking zombies with oh-so menacing balls and chains assaulting our hero. Note the one zombie by the corner, helpfully pointing out our hero for his fellow off-screen comrades. What a swell guy. Also note the artist's inability to position a few of the characters correctly, giving the whole thing a weird, off-balance look, which may or may not have been intentional. But more on that in a second.
Before I continue, I would like to take a second to point out something that kind of bugs me about Light Crusader's box art. Maybe it's just me, but it almost seems that the main character (who was named David something in the game, though I'm not quite sure; my memory is a bit fuzzy) bears an eerie, almost uncanny resemblance to pop rock sensation Meatloaf. The grimacing expression, the long, wavy red hair, the chubby face: it's just gotta be him. Even if he does look like he's been engaging in normally un-Meatloaf-associated activities like working out and not eating as much.
Now then, the character positioning (or lack thereof). First, I should point out that the center zombie's body position and facial expression would almost seem to suggest that he tripped backwards over something while trying to avoid that nasty sword. Second, it's clear that whoever drew this meant for our hero to look like he's glaring down that poor, tripping zombie he's about to ruthlessly murder, but it kind of ended up a bit... off. In actuality, it looks more like Sir Meatloaf is staring into blank space. Or maybe he's looking at that pillar by the edge of the box. I don't know.
All in all, it's not eye-burningly awful, but it is most certainly not good by any stretch of the imagination. If I were to rate it on some kind of ugly-box-art-scale, I'd probably give it two out of five Mega Man boxes, or maybe five out of five El Viento boxes.
Before I go, here's a picture of the European box (which I'm pretty sure is the same as the Japanese box art).
Certainly not high art by any means, but it is better than the American box art, at least. It does beg the question of "what the hell kind of reason did they need to change it for?" that has been asked time and time again without any kind of a real, not-stupid explanation. I'd imagine (in my lame speculation, anyway), that Sega probably changed it to put a bigger emphasis on action and fighting and such. Because after all, we all know that little kids just love action. And after all, what says "action" better than several green men whipping a cross-dressing singer with metal objects? Nothing, that's what.
Next: Rival Turf!
