They were opposites of each other, and that prompted the story behind them being these opposing ninja-clan-type characters. Yellow looked like fire, and that was like the Scorpion thing. We're giving them moves and everything, and blue looked like ice, so that gave the theme of Sub-Zero and freezing people. We colored the yellow ninja blue and created this blue ninja. A lot of attention went into the economics of it, and so we knew that if we could take a character and change their color and use basically the same memory to create two characters, we'd save a lot of money and we'd have two characters. Memory was very, very scarce, so if you add more memory to your game, your game costs that much more, and then it costs the company that much more. Beginning as an embodiment of 'fire and ice’, designer Ed Boon has spoken about how memory restrictions forced the developers to get creative with the resources available:
#Palette swap ninja series#
The lore behind this infamous fighting series is incredibly in-depth, but just as with Mario’s lanky brother, they were all birthed from simple technical limitations. Belt-scrollers like Final Fight and Streets of Rage are filled with repeated and recoloured figures – how many hundreds of 'Galsias' and 'Donovans' have felt the steely justice of your Grand Uppers? Sub-Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat are another pair (or trio including hidden character Reptile) that became legends apart. In fact, palette swaps are rife in the fighter and beat ‘em up genres. OK, let’s settle this once and for all… Scorpion or Sub-Zero? #MK11- Nintendo of America April 19, 2019 As the sequels came, Ken quickly diverged into an utterly separate fighter and evolved a unique personality and style of his own, but again, he started out as a quick 'copy-paste'. Created for a second player to control in the original Street Fighter, Ken Masters began life as Ryu’s friend and rival with an identical moveset and only minor cosmetic differences. Arguably the next most famous example is Ryu’s western counterpart in the Street Fighter series. Luigi is not alone in the field of clones that outgrew their origins to become beloved characters, though. His bumbling demeanour would evolve later but Super Mario World would be the last time Luigi appeared as a mere palette swap of his brother. His increased height and higher jump were largely the result of inheriting the characteristics of 'Mama' when Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic was remade as Super Mario Bros. It wasn’t until 1988 on the box art of Japan-only Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally that he took on the taller, trimmer physique that we’re familiar with today, and gradually that design found its way into the games. When it came to two players, such as in the aforementioned Mario Bros., the most efficient way to add a second character was to duplicate the titular Mario and change his colour values. It’s a subtle change, but both enemies act distinctly according to their appearance. Green Koopa Troopas, for example, march along unthinkingly, falling into pits like lemmings, although their red shell-wearing brethren will turn at the edge of a platform and continue patrolling in the opposite direction. Palette swaps were an economic way, in memory terms, to depict characters or enemies with different strengths or abilities without the need to create and store new sprite data.
Luigi’s bumbling demeanour and height difference were only added later when technology allowed the depiction of the brothers as anything but twins. Pac-Man’s spectral nemeses Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde may appear distinguishable only by colour, but each had a distinct ‘personality’ tied to its AI. Many of video games’ most famous personalities were birthed by palette swap and although they may have looked identical, subtle tweaks sometimes imbued them with bespoke characteristics even in the early days. Nowadays multi-terabyte hard drives, cloud saving and massive Day One patches are the norm, but in the early ‘80s it was a luxury to be able to have more than a handful of distinct characters on the screen. Palette swapping – the practice of reusing a sprite with a different colour palette in order to save memory space – is a relic of an age of limitations. Blinky, Pinky, Clyde and Inky: unique snowflakes.
Now on his third solo ghost-sucking outing, Luigi is arguably the most famous palette swap in history. Long before the death stares and entire years dedicated to the green plumber, Luigi was nothing more than a clone a cheap copy a pixel-perfect doppelganger created so that two players would know which ‘Mario’ they were controlling. But spare a thought for his poor put-upon brother! Luigi has grown taller over the years and he’s gained a flutter in his jump, but considering where he started out, the other brother has done incredibly well to escape the shadow of his iconic sibling and find himself a star in his own right.
0 kommentar(er)
