On Friday, I wrote about the excellent box art for Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition on Sega Genesis. And two days later, the artist for that box, Mick McGinty, passed away. I mentioned that maybe I’d look at some future Sega Genesis box art in the future, and celebrating the work of Mr. McGinty seemed like as good a reason to do that as any. So below is a selection of work that he did for various Sega Genesis games.
First off, here are two games that I’m not particularly familiar with: Traysia and Shining Force. Both are fantasy RPGs released in 1992. Traysia is a game I’ve never heard of, and even its Wikipedia article is pretty sparse. I think I may have Shining Force on a compilation release of Genesis classics, but I don’t think I’ve ever played it. Still, these are some gorgeous pieces.
I wasn’t able to do so for Traysia, but I DID find a nice version of the Shining Force art without the logos and barcodes.
Next up is one of my favorite games that nobody talks about: Kid Chameleon, known as Chameleon Kid in Japan. You play as the titular kid, and find a variety of helmets that transform you into other characters. I learned that McGinty’s son was the model for this art, and I can only imagine that being immortalized on a video game cover like this is pretty cool.
I was also able to find the old print ad for this game, which features another image of the main character, as well as all the helmets you can acquire throughout the game:
Finally, last week I wrote about the first game in the Streets of Rage series, but Mick McGinty happened to do the box art for the second and third games. I was even able to find a version of the SOR2 box art without the extras:
Comparing the two, I never realized before that the spine of the game was the light pole on the street corner. That’s a pretty great way of separating out the three sides of the Genesis game box. I’m glad Sega of America did what they could to show off as much of the art as possible. It makes the game look a little out of place on a shelf with all the other black-grid and red-stripe Genesis games, but also it makes one of the greatest titles on the platform stand out. So, y’know.
I wasn’t able to find a “clean” version of the Streets of Rage 3 art, but I DID find the original thumbnail sketch, so you can compare the piece from concept to completion:
Mick McGinty also did various pieces of art for other games, so I’ll take a look at those in the future. But for now, I hope you enjoyed these six Sega-related pieces!