Lands of Lore has such cool boxart! The witch Scotia faces you with her hand outstretched about to cast some wicked spell. It’s quite a sight. I always found the boxart of the sequel, Guardians of Destiny, to be a major let down after that. Although the idea of the guy who seems afraid of his own glowing hand is cool, the execution is too much uncanny valley. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t like it.

Therefore, when the opportunity presented itself to get my hands on the US version of the game, which for some reason ditches the numerals, I took it. It certainly looks very different. It’s much more abstract, but ultimately fails to be better than the European version. Its strong point is that it has a dragon on the front that doesn’t look like it has a weird goatee like on the other release. And the manual within is full color instead of the black and white EU version.

So, it might be an improvement for my collection, but I’m still a bit undecided and haven’t got rid of the other one yet. Both versions are still better than the box of the third game however. That one gives me the creeps. And not because it’s scary.