Quote Originally Posted by thepeaguy83 View Post
Irrelevant to the series. It's just conceptual artwork that wasn't used in the final product.

I believe that they hired the same artist who did the artwork for PSII's JP game case (I cannot recall his name, but I think he's a freelancer). Toru Yoshida is the man behind all of the character and some enemy designs that were used in II & IV. He's a close colleague to Rieko Kodama, one of the founding members behind the original PS series.
Ah, I see!

Thank you very much for clarifying things for me. The info is greatly appreciated!

I definitely prefer the Japanese cover for Phantasy Star II, so it seems like this particular artist had a special flair for depicting the world envisioned by Rieko Kodama & the rest of the original team.

In the end, it does provoke the imagination about what story-events might have been cut from the finished-game, where Rika had acquired such an impressive Claw though!