Thanks for the feedback.
Lee> I'm probably keeping the trees, because they're the most commonly occurring graphical object in the game, and thus a part of the identity of the game. I've already toned down the flatness a bit, or tried, but I may need to give that root some perspective. There's also pine trees in the game and they look the same. To be honest I'm not that bothered by the trees, I kind of like their whimsical graphical quality.
Helm> Thanks. Yeah, I figured someone would notice the 'selout' at some places. Often I'm just trying to dither the outlines because a full black line would be too much, and none would cause a silhouette leak.
I color-picked most colors from a NES palette. (There's a bunch of them with different temperatures.) Palettes are good for giving the stuff a consistent look, but yeah, some enemy designs should separate and not be forced into using the same palette. I think I will take your advice and just use the colors which looks the best. There needs to be consistency, but it should be for important stuff like in-universe materials, and not hardware restrictions which breaks the fourth wall (e.g. "hey, they had to use the same palette for those things.").
I've been struggling to not use the colors for shadows. In many cases it is completely unnecessary and actually lowers readability. When using just black and a color or two you have to make sure that the design is striking, and you can't go in and try to salvage a bad design with gradients and stuff.
IIRC, Dragon Warrior 3 for the Gameboy Color has excellent animations and some of the best gfx I've seen on that platform. Looking at it now, I see that it only uses black for the characters, pretty much. The NES version was the other way around!
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dragon-warrior-iii/screenshotsAnyways, the reason for my 2 frame animations is that... I have a lot of enemies and angles. Well done animations can really bring a character to life though. I have a Kirby game (mirror something) for GBA which has excellent animations.
I think I need a lot of new darks for the dungeons, since they have... lack of light as a theme in VnB. I need more resolution there. It would be cool to do something like a lantern effect (like in Zelda 3, or the light radius in Diablo).
8bitty> ty. Some of the details is nonsense, but I'm trying hard to make sure that I actually use the space I have for something sensible. Every pixel should contribute. The same goes for drawing/painting, the viewer will always try to make something out of the details you've drawn, and every unreadable confusing nonsense detail will make the design weaker. It's a constant struggle for me to remember to find these problem areas. Sometimes I like my nonsense details even though they are detrimental to the piece! Killing them all off can be difficult, but it is for the greater good.