Don't you dare knock Adventure!

I remember being so impressed with King's Quest 7's graphics that looked like a cartoon. Big improvement over KQ6, which itself was a big improvement over KQ5, which was so much of an improvement gameplay-wise over KQ4 that I gave up trying to play 4 after later getting it on some abandonware site (it was a "type what you want to do but the engine will have no idea what you intend unless you use the very specific wording they programmed into each scene").

But yeah, before that, cover art often had little to do with the game itself. I have a vivid memory of receiving a birthday gift and experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions as I was excited to get a new video game, then dissapointed when I realized it might be a movie instead, follwed by happiness again when I noticed the Nintendo logo, confirming it was a game. The cover art just looked like the generic cartoon art that was popular in the late 80s/early 90s.

Oh and on that note, most cartoons sucked back then compared to today. I can understand why many people thought cartoons were just for kids because most of them back then were so awful only kids could enjoy them and even the better ones were usually only able to trigger wholesome kind of vibes (like most Disney ones prior to Aladdin). There were some exceptions, like Looney Tunes. But most of it was like minimum effort to sell some shitty toys.