Character Portraits

The portraits in this game are hit or miss. Some aren't very good while others are impressive. Maybe they used a few different artists of varying capability. Some may just be a case of tracing over or skillfully/not so skillfully copying the original to make it 8 bit compatible.

There are some palette issues going on in many of these portraits. That's just how they look in-game. I'm not sure whether it's due to palette errors or what. It's like some sort of weird color leakage. At first I thought maybe there were missing colors being filled in by whatever. But upon closer inspection it looks like this color leakage occurs mostly in places where there is no black border color to separate colored sections. This doesn't screw up the white borders and black backgrounds in every portrait though. I wonder how it works?

There is no portrait of Hahn because he is not a playable character. He does appear in the cutscene with the Principal that is shown after beating the first Igglanova. And I assume he's the generic NPC near the stairs to the basement that you need to talk to. But that's it. He never appears after that at all. And Seth simply does not exist here.

Anyway, here are the entirety of the unfiltered character portraits along with my own pointless commentary.

If you'd like to compare these portraits to the ones in the original Sega Genesis game check out this page at camineet.net

Playable Characters

Chaz doesn't look that great. He looks like he's mad at the world or something. I guess they tried to capture his somewhat defiant expression from his status menu portrait. But they just couldn't quite get it right. Plus he comes out a bit squashed looking. They did a nice job on the hair and jacket though. There's a coloring issue on his left cheek. We'll be seeing this often.

Of all the characters in the game I think Alys got it the worse portrait-wise. A failed attept to approximate her cute status menu portrait. But her face just ends up looking really distorted. There's not much else I can really say about that. Distorted is the best word I can think of to describe it. Her hair is a bit lumpy. But it's not bad really. The strange coloring going on below her neck is really weird. I think the dark part of her hair on the lower side has leaked.

Our first good character portrait. Rune looks pretty nice. Although his hair runneth over his clothing. Rather than show his ponytail hanging over his shoulder they just sort of tossed his hair in one big undefined lump. It's very odd.If they had included the hairband it would look a lot better. I think the blue on the other side is supposed to be his cape. But why only make part of it white? Maybe the blue is his hair color leaking again. He's got some green on his face that shouldn't be there as well. His mouth bugs me a bit. I guess his mouth is open and you can see his teeth. But I just keep seeing white lipstick. It's so weird. Despite being somewhat off putting he's got a well done face and it's a huge improvement over Chaz and Alys.

Gryz isn't looking too bad save for that weird brown coloring around his mouth. And for whatever reason, despite white being used for the shine in his eyes, the green from his cloak and the yellow (yellow?!) from the inside of his ear floods the normally white border of the portrait.

Rika's face is the same color and the background. It's very jarring. It makes her look like she's in some strange yellowish lighting. And her eyes are red when they should be blue. Something weird is going on with the shape and position of her left ear as well. She looks like she was drawn by whoever did Chaz and Alys. While they were half asleep. Not a bad expression though. She looks kind of cute. It's all just kind of screwed up too and that ruins it.

I actually really like Demi's portrait. Part of her hair color leaks into the background. But I think it looks better than what happened to poor Rika. Demi looks more like Demi's older sister here though. But I don't mind because I like her face. Even with the oddly included lipstick. She's similar to the style of Chaz, Alys and Rika. But a lot better.

Wren looks pretty good. No real mistakes. A bit of color leakage on the left but it doesn't look bad. Pretend it's a window on the Landale. Although maybe it's intentional since his hair would look like part of the black background without it. I don't really have anything else to say about him.

Hands down the best portrait in terms of color choice and detail. Really really nice. I don't think you can count his white cloak as being color leakage into the white border. Black only separates the character from the border on the bottom most of the time. Maybe that's part of the problem. Incidentally, I think Raja's portrait is also used for the Bishop of Gumbious Temple. Although that could just be Raja. Since I can't read Chinese I can't be sure.

Kyra looks kind of stiff and has a weird expression. And lipstick. It looks really strange on her compared to the more subtle way it works on Demi. I think it's because she is paler and her expression is oddly done. Also the artist can't do hair well. Overall Kyra ends up looking older, more serious and less energetic. In other words, not like her usual self at all.

Non-Playable Characters

The Principal looks great. I think this is a pared down copy of the cutscene in his office. I don't know whether they traced over it or copied it by sight. Either way, it's nice. No color leakage either. The only thing that bugs me is the fact that he's off center. The whole sprite doesn't really fit in the box. Oh well.

It's everyone's favorite hapless archaeologist, Professor Holt! He looks great. Typical Professor Holt. Nice detail on his jacket too.

I think this one's a totally original design. He looks like the blue love child of a wookie and an ewok. It's a bit off from his original design. Although I think the native Motavians would be right at home in the Star Wars universe anyway.

This is the old Esper from the inner sanctum of the Esper Mansion. In this game he will also appear in Gumbious Temple in place of the head priest. He's a bit different from the original, having a sparser beard and sporting a completely bald head instead of a partially bald one. His clothes are different too. But I think he looks pretty good. His face is nicely shaded and detailed.

I messed up on this one. Sorry about that. I forgot to take a screencap of the portrait in-game. So I had to grab this one from the cutscene video. Hence the size and quality being different. Anyway, Xe-A-Thoul has one portrait in this game as opposed to two. There are still three of this enemy boss though. It's various shades of blue instead of purple, black and silver with a gold visor. The design of the hood is a bit different too. Looks like they did their own design to an extent here. It's not bad. But I can't unsee a syringe in the middle of its face.

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