How large a palette does a 2D pixel action rpg need?

[Savick]

I'm working on one with two programmers and it's a fun time so far. I was wondering though, how big should my palette be? Right now I'm going with Dawnbringer's 32 color palette from the pixel joint forums for a start. The sprites below are too many colors, but the upper left one is done using the new palette. I think some of you will say I should make my own, and I am looking into that. Any other thoughts on this?

[coffee]

This should probably be moved to General discussion.

To answer your question, there are no limits in that way anymore if you're plan isn't to port the game to an older platform. Like NES/SNES you would have to use the restrictions, but if you intend to have this on a modern computer/console You shouldn't have to think about colour restriction.

there are other reasons to not use too many colours. You can get better readability on smaller sprites etc.

Hope that answers your question

/coffee

[Cyangmou]

kinda depends on the style.
you can go with as many colors you want to go

in general the most common tendencies are:

stylized shading <---------------> realistic shading
low amount of colors                high amount of colors
saturated and colorful              desaturated and more monotone

spritesize, resolution and framecount might limit you.
the more colours you have the messier the result might get, if you don't know exactly how to operate with them.

The easiest way to make a decision if you are inexperienced with spriteart is to look at the styles you like and try to understand how they work.