TomGuycott's Submission: The Revenge!

[Carpaccio]

Aha, very much incredibly awesome. Props to you, fellow. Keep up the good work.

[TomGuycott]

I've just done something I didn't think I could do: I got all the poses assembled for Hexas, an incredibly complex boss from Secret of Mana. However, the sheet assembly will have to wait! Sorry! XD Check my first post for updates on those that are nearly complete. The one that has given me the most trouble has been Ashura, until I ripped the tiles and found every direction possible for his flame animations (Five 2-frame animations total), and Raglan, the final boss, who is simple on the surface, but since his body colors go through a cycle, I needed to compensate for that.. it doesn't help that his body and arm have one set of cycles, while the lava outlining only his arm has a cycle that is one frame longer! T_T

[TomGuycott]

Okay, I took a small detour from what I had been working on originally, and ripped all but one Pocky and Rocky boss, and ripped my favorite mini-boss too. These rips mean a lot to me for a few reasons... The first being that the first game graphics I ever ripped myself and used afterwards was the vampire doctor boss, and the second being that the first level I had seen my friends playing when I first saw the game was the last level, and I got to see them fight the Ghost Knight and Black Mantle, and it left an impression on me, and although the "Mystery of Black Mantle" is never solved (assuming the mystery they were trying to solve is WHO he is), and he's generally underdeveloped, I still find him to be really cool.





This last one is another one of my favorite bosses from the game, but the thing is that when I was ripping him, it showed the means by which they got the transparency effects for his intro, outro, and his death sequence. Included is the way it looks in game, and the way it looked when I was ripping it. I'll leave it up to the site to decide which is more appropriate to upload:

[Ton]

Great stuff. All saved!

[Ultimecia]

Those are nice sprites, good job

[TomGuycott]

You know what I JUST noticed after all these years? The goblins related to Rocky in Pocky and Rocky, called the Nopino goblins, are monsters and ghosts of Japanese folklore and inspiration, like kappas, bamboo warriors and those jumpy umbrella things. The "Gorgonzola Goblins" on the other hand, those who are apparently servants of Black Mantle, as well as Black Mantle himself, have a very European look to them. The monsters dress like European pirates and knights, and the bosses are very much European inspired as well, like the Ghost Knight and Eagle Knight's armor, the Skeletal Bishop, and the Vampire.

On another note, I've ripped quite a few characters with bat wings, several of them vampires. I guess I'm magnetically drawn to them. xD

[Ton]

That's pretty interesting.

[Ultimecia]

It's indeed one interesting thing to note, currently I'm surprised they translated Pocky and Rocky at all. I mean, the main characters are a miko (Japanese priestess) and a Tanuki (some sort of youkai (Japanese natural spirit/demon) with supernatural powers) and back then the US audience didn't even knew what a "kappa" was (even Final Fantasy VI's kappa was translated as "imp", but it can also be defined as "goblin" too). There were some other localization, like the religious tag thingies (I believe they are called "ofuda tags" but don't quote me on that) are magic cards and the oharai wand is some sort of magic stick if I recall.

And bats are cool. Bats, vampires, etc. They do have some sort of.. I don't know XD But keep them coming ;p

[Random Talking Bush]

Pocky and Rocky sprites!

[TomGuycott]

Alright, a few things:
Thanks for the positive feedback, Pocky and Rocky is one of my favorite SNES games, even though I never played the first japanese one, and even though it seems it's far less Japanesey than I originally thought. o_O Japan fears invasion from European armored birds and vampires.

Two, I'm sorry my +1 rep for Ultimecia made it sound like she was a dude. Your name should have tipped me off, but your avatar is of a character who I think is a dude.. isn't he? xD

Three, even though I just dumped sprites SURPRISE MORE SPRITES!







I finally worked up the courage to assemble Raglan in a way that I think is easy enough to understand... He is a stupidly complex character because he has his unchanging elements that share palette colors with changing elements. So if one was to just change the palette, it would change the WHOLE sprite rather than just the lava parts. Also his arm throws a wrench into it because its outline is included as part of the cycle for dark colors! But it still has only 4 light colors!? ARGH! XD

Ashura took me a while to figure out, until I found out how to rip tiles, and then all became clear. xD I needed to know all the possible directions his fireballs could go, which was complex at first since they home in on Sky. All done though, and I even found a hidden tile under his head! Hurray!

On a final note: ALL SKY BLAZER BOSSES ARE DONE! Maybe in the future I might rip the rest of the Enemies that aren't already on the site, and maybe some of Sky's unripped special attacks. But for now, I'll be doing some other stuff besides Sky Blazer. Maybe I'll finish Pocky and Rocky's bosses. Although I threw in a Xardion boss, I don't know if I'll get to the rest of its bosses yet... They are really easy to rip, but compared to the final boss, the rest are... kinda lame.

Oh, and I think it's no coincidence that two of these new sheets have characters who have BAT WINGS!

[Ultimecia]

Japan is always afraid of invasion. Or was at most 70-80s mangas/animes/films. It wasn't hard to see that even at Osamu Tezuka's works. But it makes awesome games anyway XD

Yeah, the character in my avatar is male, through he's a shapeshifter and even turns himself as a female humanoid to lure some guards (with a hilarious "man-making-female-voice" thing). I usually get that a lot, even with female avatars so no big deal her I got some photos at Photographic Evaluation if you're curious ;p

Sky Blazer sprites are so beautiful.... And this Final Guardian from Xandion is like a H.R. Ginger reject to me (and it's a cool thing)

I'm really looking out for the next round of bosses rips, you're doing one outstanding job here.

[TomGuycott]

Yeah, Sky Blazer has such great graphics. I also love the Eastern motif, with Indian-inspired evil gods, elephant-like enemies and even a boss, and even some Chinese inspiration with the Great Dragon boss.

As for the Xardion boss, I kinda wish the other bosses were as cool... One is pretty close, some just feel... bleh... You'll see what I mean when I decide to rip em. Really, if you split all the forms of the final boss and put them all around the game, it might have been better as far as bosses go... but then we wouldn't have an awesome five-form boss. xD

Oh, one more that I forgot.


After a little more observation, I'm pretty inclined to say that the pieces need to be pieced together and moved by whoever is using the sprite, since the pieces don't seem to really move as one sprite, they are just told which goals to aim for to achieve their end poses.

I'll leave the link up to the battle though, I'd still appreciate any second opinions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgYwOiYpDv4

[Ton]

No need to pad the sheet if that's all it has.

[Maneko]

A killer watermelon? o_0

[Carpaccio]

You seem to be ripping everything I've wanted ripped. Are you reading my mind or something? Pocky and Rocky, Skyblazer...heh heh. Keep it up, I'm loving it all!