Konami Box Art
27 May 2012

The marketing department for Konami established a very clear, consistent presentation for how their NES game boxes should look in the United States. For five years there was virtually no deviation. Every single Konami release featured the familiar silver/grey background and vertical interwoven vertical strips, alternating between slices of the central art and the border, to help make a transition that was pleasing to the eye. It may not have been beautiful, but the standardized approach did have its advantages. Thanks to some spectacular early releases like Gradius, Castlevania, and Goonies II, people had very good reasons to distringuish Konami boxes from those of their competitors—all the easier with Konami's distinctive packaging. Remember, this was before the days of text messaging and Internet reviews. Boxes and packaging carried significance that seems totally foreign today.

With 1989's Track and Field II release, the first abberation appeared, foreshadowing more drastic changes on the horizon. You'll find the familiar silver/grey background color. The box art in the center of this title is very geometric, yet you won't find the dinstinctive pillar-like transition between the central box art and the periphery.

During 1990, Konami's American releases returned to their normal form, but only a year later the paradigm made a more permanent change. Though Bill Elliott's NASCAR challenge and Laser Invasion at least hewed to the all-too-familiar silver/grey border, The Lone Ranger barely bothered with a border at all, merely including six small polygons worth of what had become known as the Konami color. That same year, 1991, Konami games such as Tiny Toons Adventures and Contra Force abandoned the original box schematic entirely.

By the time 1992 rolled around, the iconic Konami box style was almost completely forgotten. However, Kings Quest V at least offered a parting homage with its background color.

1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992

Bonus: European Boxes That Looked Very Konami American

Interestingly, many of the titles that appeared in the United States under the Ultra Games label (a.k.a. Konami's weak disguise to enable the release of more than Nintendo's mandated five game per year limit for video game developers) were actually released in Europe with box art that followed the early Konami American conventions exactly. Find any of the titles below and you'll instantly know that you're dealing with a PAL release rather than an Amerian (NTSC) one. Rather than the boring black background and Ultra Games label, you'll find

1988
1990
1991
1991
1992

Top Picks and Wrap-Up

While Konami did make some of the best NES games, not all of them are really worth hunting down. Of all the boxes featured above, here are the best American and European releases:

 
 
 
 
 

Of course, there are numerous great Japan-only Konami titles as well, but that's a topic for another day. In the meantime, best of luck finding a good deal on these games with the boxes included, because it's rare that so many awesome games with such iconic box art go hand-in-hand.