Poll: Box Art Brawl: Duel - Mendel Palace
Nintendo Life’s latest Box Art Brawl poll puts the spotlight on Mendel Palace, a classic NES title that recently joined the Nintendo Switch Online library. The feature invites readers to vote on their preferred box art versions of the game, comparing regional design differences across Japanese and Western releases.
Mendel Palace holds a special place in video game history as the debut title from Game Freak, the legendary studio best known for creating the Pokémon franchise. Despite its significance, the game remains relatively obscure to modern audiences. It’s a puzzle-adventure game that uniquely centers around flipping tiles to navigate through a monster-filled dream world, offering a departure from what fans would later come to expect from the studio.
The Box Art Brawl series showcases how cover art design evolved across different regions during the NES era, often reflecting distinct aesthetic philosophies between Japanese and Western markets. The previous installment featured Star Fox: Assault for GameCube, where the European and North American cover design secured victory with 64% of the vote, demonstrating reader preference for Western-style artwork in that instance. The inclusion of Mendel Palace in the Switch Online NES library’s curated collection represents ongoing efforts to preserve and celebrate lesser-known titles from Nintendo’s extensive back catalog, making them accessible to contemporary players and preserving gaming history.