Your top 3 (or 4) screenshots for celebrating a game

[phart010 | 1,707]

We’ve all seen the back of the game box. 3 or 4 screenshots of gameplay and lots of words. It must be a pretty difficult task to describe an entire game, hours worth of gameplay, and sum it all up with just 3 or 4 photos.

If it was up to you to select 3 or 4 screenshots to describe a particular game, which moments would you capture? They can be whatever you want, most iconic moments, most accurate description of the gameplay, anything you like. 
 

Edited July 24, 2022 by phart010

[phart010 | 1,707]

Here’s my top 4 for Super Mario 3. I scrolled through a playthrough video of the entire game and actually captured 7 pics that I found to be very good representations of the game.

I found it extremely difficult to narrow  it down to these as my top 4:

 

[MagusSmurf | 577]

xenogears:

Spoiler

[nesmaster14 | 436]

Cool topic!

Image Fight (PC Engine):

Spoiler

The infamous "punishment stage"...

Geist (Gamecube):

Spoiler

This game was a wild ride, everything from possessing objects to walking dogs:

Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japan):

Spoiler

I thought I was being clever when I found a Warp Zone on stage 3...

 

[Sumez | 2,963]

I don't really have anything on hand, but damn it's actually quite often really hard to find representative screenshots on the internet. I made a point out of digging ones out for the games I've completed for the 2022 backlog challenge, but sometimes that's really futile.

You usually get one of two situations:

1. "Retro games" or such which people will often fire up in an emulator to capture screenshots. The result is that you get a ton of shots of stage 1, and usually ones without much happening. For example, in a platform game I'd like a picture of the main character jumping, not just standing around in the starting position.
At least in a game like SMB1, the first stage is particularly iconic, but for most games that build on the mechanics and increase in difficulty as you progress, the first few stages will very rarely represent what the game really feels like.
1b. A subgenre of the above is emulator screenshots of 3D games, which are often running in an upscaled resolution, and actually look nothing like the game actually does on the platform it was made for. This is a minor gripe maybe, because it can still demonstrate the gameplay just fine, but I still feel like it's a misrepresentation of the game.

2. Modern games (all the way back to around the PS2 generation or so) where most screenshots are the ones compiled by the publisher as a part of the game's original promotion. These come with all kinds of misinformation as they are trying to make games look cooler than they are, and typically feature one, more or all of these - UI elements removes completely, added logos, unrealistic camera angles that never happen in the actual game, and renders generated outside of the game, with unique lighting effects or a higher resolution. For some games it's nearly impossible to find realistic screenshots, especially on platforms without a built in screenshot feature.

Typically I just want a couple of screenshots that represent what playing the game feels like. Some action shots of the gameplay where things are happening that often happen in the game. And if the game has a story focus, maybe a single nice shot representing that as well, but I'd never leave out the gameplay, that's always weird to me. Especially in trailers.

  

2 hours ago, nesmaster14 said:

I thought I was being clever when I found a Warp Zone on stage 3...

At least they left a suicide hole for you there

Edited July 24, 2022 by Sumez

[mbd39 | 2,024]

I knew that I loved NES Ninja Gaiden as soon as I saw the screenshots on the back of the box in the video store when I was a kid.

[RH | 4,907]

Batman for the NES got it right, even with 2 screenshots but these three sell it well, even if they are from the beginning of the game.