Occassionally I like to browse through ROempire's gallery of monster sprites for inspiration or reference. I did such a thing yesterday and came across some hideous sprite work. Of course it's not terrible but compared to the rest of Ragnarok's sprites it is.
Allow me to introduce you to the Archdamon. I think that's its name anyways. While the work in general isn't too shoddy, the animation really is. I'm pretty sure that somebody else made the base sprite and then the job was handed over to somebody else to finish it up. Everything is extraordinarily amateur and depreciates the quality of the sprite greatly. Simple pixel shifting, crappy rotation, scribbled in effects and hideous red overlays are the culprits here.
It's sprites like this one that originally inspired me to work hard as a pixel artist. There is so much character, technique, and skill involved that I've set quality like this as my benchmark goal some odd years ago. In some ways I've surpassed that goal and in others I have not but, a goal it will most likely remain.
So, the point of this here message; do you appreciate Ragnarok's sprites? Does it discourage you knowing that Gravity is letting crap like the Archdamon through? Ragnarok online has been around forever and a sequel is in the makes, I think. It will be 3D if it's made, so I don't really care but, I believe sprites like the Archdamon hint at the end of Gravity caring about this beautifully pixeled, otherwise crappy, game. Thoughts?