What retro video game sprites actually look like
What “retro-influenced” indie devs think they look like
That’s a pretty disingenuous comparison - it really depends on what era they’re trying to evoke.
That “retro sprite” you’ve got there is from Mega Man 7, a Super Nintendo game that came out in 1995.
If we pick one of the earlier games in the series - say, 1990′s Mega Man 3 - it’d look more like this:
If we dial it back another five years, to 1985, that takes us to the original Super Mario Bros., which looks like this:
Another five years? In terms of home consoles, 1980 puts us right square in the middle of the Atari era, where your average sprite might look something like this:
Clearly we’re skipping a lot of territory here, but there are absolutely points on this continuum where that boxy little fellow would find itself in good company.
dizzyhslightlyvoided
