This is kind of big news for me, considering I'm not a huge fan of box art changing between the Japanese and North American versions of a game. All that awesome, simplistic Final Fantasy box art from Yoshitaka Amano? Not on the cover here - we typically get CG rendered shots of the heroes and heroines. That is the same type of deal I was worried about here.

However, Siliconera is reporting that Catherine will retain the Japanese cover art when released over here, just like they showed off in the original localization announcement. However, both GameFly and Amazon have recently switched to a "cleaned up" version of the cover art (which you can see after the break). This brought up the question of whether or not the cover art would change. Mr. Jabbari, PR and Sales Manager for Atlus USA had this to say about the inconsistencies.

“In addition to the existing North American covers for Catherine on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, there will also be modified designs that appear in select markets. The vast majority of copies available at launch will feature the cover we originally unveiled, essentially the Japanese cover of the game. A small percentage of copies, however, will feature a cover that is more considerate of certain retailers’ broader customer demographic. Fans need not worry; Catherine’s cover art is NOT being altered for North America. There is just an extra option being made available for more sensitive shoppers.”

There you have it, folks. For the most part, we will be seeing the original Japanese box art, however at certain retailers (Walmart and Toys-R-Us, for example) we will likely come across the toned-down artwork. This also seems to confirm that Atlus USA will also be keeping the two covers - one for the PlayStation 3 and one for the Xbox 360.