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Let's not jump to conclusions just yet! Besides the issues mentioned, there are things that can still be fixed.
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So sit tight, and take a closer look at my magical discovery~
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Let's look at the Stage Select screen first. It has been resized to fit the
fully accepted screen size for a NES game (224 height + 16).
Now, there are things that look right to a blind eye...
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But if you look a bit closer, you can see so many other problems that simply doesn't add up with Famicom Rockman standards, but there are also a few things that are right as well. Let me explain.
- Every tile has to be a multiple of 8 pixels. Each tile can be pieced together so they can become a full-sized image, but the limitation is that everything must fit in "within" a resolution or screen size that is divided or multiplied by 8. You can't use an odd number, or there will be a lot of issues right away. Oh, and another thing. The boss mugshots aren't even separated from each other at the right pixel size. Let's compare the distance between Furnace Man and Copter Man for example. They are 26 pixels away from each other. That's 2 pixels too much. Same thing between Copter Man and Burn Man, where they are 23 pixel away from each other. That problem is because Copter Man's mugshot was moved one pixel to the right, while the other mugshots above Copter Man are aligned properly. That's something you have to think about when thinking NES limitations. Always think in 8 pixels here. No more, no less.
- Boss mugshots are supposed to be 32x32 on the old NES games, but can actually be any bigger size you want, as long as it's adding 8 pixels on each side. For example, on a few of the SNES games, the size jumped to 40x40 and 48x48. Palkia's mugshots (without the borders) jumped to 34 width and 33 height. That doesn't really work when it comes to NES limitations. It "could" work if EACH border became one whole image instead of reusing the borders on all mugshots. The problem with this is that mugshots that are larger than a size multiplied by 8 will create extra tiles, and those extra tiles will show the mugshot on one side, and the rest of the pixels will be used for transparency effect. For example, to be able to fit the 34x33 sized mugshot into NES limitation, they have to turn the whole mugshot into a 40x40 image. You will now notice that since the actual image is 34x33, the extra 6 pixels on width and 7 pixels on height will become a transparent background color. That will create extra data that will make the game ROM bigger than it should be.
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- Another thing is the borders for the mugshots. They are also inconsistent. One complete mugshot with borders on Palkia's image is 52x51. That doesn't work at all, and if you want to make that work, you have to follow the extra tiles rule again, which will add even more data into the game ROM. A good-looking border for a Rockman mugshot should be at least 8 pixels on EACH side (or twice that size, depends on which art style you are going for when spriting these mugshots). When I say 8 pixels for a border tile, I also include the black line art too. So a little math will show that, 32x32 for a mugshot, adding 8 pixels border tiles on each side (on top, bottom, left and right side of the mugshot) will make a total of 48x48. That's a very good size for a mugshot and it will give you room to fit the mugshot on all 8 corners of the screen, while you can use the extra space for some messages, and maybe even a button that takes Rockman to the Shop.
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- The text isn't even properly aligned. Each symbol is supposed to fit into a 8x8 tile (or bigger than that if you want bigger symbols, but they have to still follow the "multiplied by 8" rule). And the symbols are to be placed right after the 8th pixel for each symbol. You can't just place them together anyway you like, or they will just look wrong. There are two bosses that had their names aligned properly, and they were Motor Man and Furnace Man. The rest of the bosses names has the letters centered. That's a big no-no in the game-programming world. You can't just align the symbols anyway you like. EACH symbols has to stay "within" a 8x8 tile like it was mentioned a while ago, and right after the 8th pixel, "then" you are allowed to place a new symbol next to the last symbol.
Phoenix Wrong:
Phoenix Wright:
Remember. Every sprite you make should fit inside a screen size that can be divided or multiplied by 8. You can make the actual sprite any height or length you want so that it fits "inside" a specific screen size, like say 64x32, 24x24, whatever size you feel it has to be, but the screen size should be divided or multiplied by 8. Don't forget!
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- Finally, you can't use many colors on one mugshot and hope it will look good. A tile at size 8x8 can only have 3 colors and 1 transparent color. But there are ways you can "cheat" the NES palette limitations so that you can add more colors into one sprite. Let's take Rockman himself as an example. Notice how his body has 2 colors for his body, one color for the line art of his body, and a transparent color outside the body. Next is his face, which has both the white and black colors that make out his eyes, and the skin color, and a transparent color. But wait, that's more than 4 colors. How does that work? Well see, the body of Rockman has a hollow spot right inside the helmet, at the spot where the face will show up. Thanks to different tiles with different colors, you can add many colors to one sprite and still make it work on a NES. The face is one layer, and the body is another layer. The body will overlay itself over the face, and the body palette is the part that picks different colors when you switch weapons. The face colors will stay the same. You can put a switch into one tile that will shift to different colors depending on the situation of the game, like example weapon switching or entering new worlds in a game. You are allowed to do this for boss mugshots too. Just make sure you have tile layers that are overlaying against a tile layer with different colors, and you will be able to fit in more colors. That mugshot rule has been done on Rockman 2. For a proper Famicom Rockman game, a sprite should still only be allowed to have a total of 8 colors on it (so that means only 4 colors on one tile, and 4 colors on another tile). There aren't many games that use this "cheat" for overlaying tiles onto each other, but Rockman was among the first games that did this with amazing results.
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Oh wow, that took so much time, so I have to move right to the "mock-up" sheets.
All I can say is that they have too many colors and JPG artifacts on them. Give them less colors to make them look better. Not to mention that the tiles are 15x15 and are not divided or multiplied by 8 at all. You have to resize each tile to 8x8 or 16x16 tiles, or they will just leave a transparent color next to each tile and it will look weird when someone is playing the game.
That's everything I had to say. I will add more if I come up with something. ^^
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How did you like my magic act,
(A)polly~? > w <