Bitmap Books – PC Engine - The Box Art Collection Review 🕮 @bitmap_books

Having previously covered Bitmap Books’ Game Boy - The Box Art Collection, my expectations were pretty high for this collection of PC Engine art, as their releases tend to be of extremely high quality in terms of the physical products themselves, as well as the work that goes into the design, research, information, and editing. 

I have to spend a second just high-fiving the packaging that Bitmap Books use. As someone who gets vinyl in the post – a notoriously delicate product - there have been occasions when I’ve actually been nervous when opening parcels due to the condition in which they’ve turned up.

I’m not a snob, but the thought of a warped or bent record sends shivers up my spine! With Bitmap Books, though – this is never an issue, as the packaging is generous, tightly bound and could probably stop a close-range shotgun blast. Good.

Visually very similar to the previous Box Art Collections from Bitmap Books, this feels like a series of releases. The paler white cover here compared to the Game Boy edition being a reference to the PC Engine console itself and the colouring in the fonts also hints at the secondary colours of the system, a nice touch! Again, the hardback covers are luxurious, as is the thick, glossy paper used inside.

Opening the book takes us to a preface from Bitmap Books, explaining the history behind the creation of the book, thoughts – and also callouts to the individuals that were key to its creation. Following this is the contents page, with a stylish PC Engine illustration as a background:

Foreword by Paul Weller (not that one)

The History of the PC Engine

Collector Interview

PC Engine Box Art: A-Z

Index

Credits and Thanks

This takes the entire book up to 372 gorgeous pages.

As someone who is relatively unfamiliar with the PC Engine - or TurboGrafx-16, as it was known in the West – beyond being gifted a PC Engine Mini for my birthday last year, which accompanies me to hotels around the UK, I was particularly focused on the early pages in the book, to get a deeper understanding of the history of the console.

The passion of the writers comes through in their writing, and it’s been tightly edited to give as much information as possible. I had no idea the PC Engine was never released in the UK! It makes sense, as I never came across one when I was younger, and had no friends in the importing scene at the time – and this was very much an importer’s dream.

These interviews at the start of the book give a lot of room to the subject and allow the reader to really dive into the information and anecdotes, these sections are also accompanied by stylish photographs of the games and hardware. It still strikes me as crazy that the PC Engine itself was just the size of an Xbox controller! A lot of impressive hardware in there that I would have loved to discover at the time.

Of course, following these text-heavy sections comes the meat of the book, that tasty box art. Set out like the other releases in the Box Art collection, each page has a bold, single-colour backdrop, a large image of the game box art, and a handful of screenshots showing in-game action.

Then, to the side of these images is more specific information on each release, such as the year it was released, the developers behind the game and also the genre and format. Below this is a paragraph on the game itself, and a brief breakdown of the cover image with some trivia and reasons given behind the design. A lot of the cover art is truly astonishing, really capturing the eye in the moody, gothic details; vibrant, cartoonish artwork, and anime designs.

SUMMARY

PC Engine – The Box Art Collection continues Bitmap Books’ reign as purveyors of tomes of awesome quality.

Whereas I have been familiar with the subject matter in their previous books, the PC Engine is a new beast to me, and I can think of no better way to learn – and appreciate – the system than with this book, fantastic stuff – as always from Bitmap Books.

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