Why does the SNES cover of Phalanx have an old man with a banjo on it?

[Falconhood]

Why does the Super Nintendo cover of Phalanx have an old man with a banjo on it?
What does that have to do with the game?
I love R-Type style games.
When i saw this game, i passed over it right away because the cover.
Covers sell....or don't.
Anyone have insight on this?

[AppleQueso]

they wanted it to stand out among other similar games

[tiktektak]

Because the old man was one of the first and best pilots and now enjoys his retirement playing Banjo and watching the stars as the young ones fly by.

[KaiserWAVE]

Wikipedia:

The box art designers later admitted that they had deliberately chosen this theme in order to attract the customer with something original considering there were many space shooters in the market that looked alike. The Game Boy Advance release redesigned the cover in favor of a prominent spaceship image.

I can see their point. If I see a game that has  an old man playing banjo on the cover I want to know what the hell this game is about


But I think we should stick with tik's version and call it a day

[KaiserWAVE]

WARNING! A HUGE BATTLESHIP DOUBLE POST IS APPROACHING FAST

Just wanted to mention...

There's a pretty good horizontal shooter on the PS1 called Philosoma and Phalanx in its entirety is accessible via a cheat. GameFAQs says this only works on early copies of the game but it works on mine and I bought mine used like 3 years ago. Maybe I just got lucky. Anyway here's how you can access the game

To play the hidden Phalanx game hold Start + Select on controller 2 while the game is booting

[DDStuff]

If anyone sees the latest intros of the Angry Video Game Nerd, you'll see that "WTF?" expression while his theme song plays. That was the first time I saw a game with an old man with a banjo on a label. XD

[Falconhood]

haha, i actually posted this question on the Angry Video Game Nerd's FB first. I'll prolly get no reply, but if Nintendo wanted to stand out, it worked against them imo. I completely overlooked the game as lame back when.

[juan0tron]

Old man with a banjo? If I saw that box art I would totally buy it regardless of the games quality 

[thesubcon3]

Honestly it all had to do with the amount of drugs they were taking at the time...

[Falconhood]

Honestly it all had to do with the amount of drugs they were taking at the time...

I think Ol' Banjo Billy is their Moonshine supplier.