Sprite Misinterpretations

RCA and Composite Video didn't do older games any favors when it came to visual quality: When I first played SmashTV, I always thought the fat, exploding enemies were some type of Royal Guard.
Did you guys ever have this problem? What sprites or items did you misread?

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I thought it was a guy with a big nose but it's actually his armor.

Requesting that one zelda enemy,you know the one

I always thought it was some guy crouched over walking backwards, with the "bomb" appearing as some sort of helmet.

I've somehow trained myself to not really be able see this anymore when looking at it directly now days. I have to be looking at it kinda cockeyed or indirectly to see it now. But literally for years, including my entire childhood. All I ever saw when looking at this portrait was the weird winking birdman on the right.

I always saw the chin of this sprite as a giant smile.

I thought it was Big Boss.

But how.

Take your thumb and cover up the right side of the image or his right eye and ear and it becomes a little easier make out. Apparently lots of other people saw the same thing because images like theses are all over the internet.

When Pokemon Red and Blue first came out I always saw Parasect's eyes as his teeth and the shading on his shell as slant eyes, like he was some weird Chinese caricature or something.

Then it showed up in the cartoon and I was like, "Oh."

You're weren't alone. He did look like a mutant penguin creature with a sly grin and an empty eye socket.

I always thought the Vendetta ability in wow looked like a bird wearing a mask, I never realized until years later what it actually was.


That got me to smile.

I always thought Zero was a girl, he has the long blonde hair and the two green orbs on the chest too.

Here's to you, user.

I almost see it, but only because of the red lines

Shit I see it.

Breddy gud user.

source?

Beats me, I just have the crop.

A clear visual of characters is so important in games, I am amazed when companies get it right totally fucking ruin it.
Valve's TF2, and early DotA2 (after release) are perfect examples.
Even in their design documents there are pages on how important readability are in game.

You like guro?

No, I thought it was tickling or something.

Like-likes in Z1 were obviously dressers that folded up like accordions.

Anyone got the lollipop Contra sprite?

As a kid I thought his white beanie hat thing was his hair.

Everyone did, user. I swear the beanie is a retcon

I always thought the Petard from Age of Empires 2 was some guy with a beige hood on, and the dark bit was like his face covered in shadow from said hood. Up until last year, actually. But nope, just some bald guy with a big beard.

Guess I was the real petard here.

smug pepe

For some reason, this reminded me of how I always thought the VA credits in MGS1/2 were the "non codename" names of Snake and company.

Like Raiden is his codename, Jack was his public operative name within the group, but he was really Quinton Flynn when he was with Rose

Yup. Nintendo Power official player's guide 2003.

I particularly related to this because I've had white hair since I was a teenager.

are you an anime character or something?

Hit me.

He's the kid from that Crash Test Dummies song

No he is Steve Martin.

I used to see Sergei as a weird smiling fuck that was turning to the side and had his face in shadow. It made scenes where he was being serious have this weird context where he was being sort of smug the whole time.
The way I saw it, his nose would be behind his hair, he's looking to the lower right of the screen, and he has red scars on his neck. His face is shadowed because of the angle of the light.

And here's some context. Look, they even use some kind of variant of his portrait art in this one where he's surprised, but with my perspective he just looks a little happy.

And because I'm a dumbass, here's the actual sprite I'm talking about.

bump

Are they not that?

Heracross has a very, very strange design. It seems like there isn't even an official consensus whether its head is segmented apart from its torso or not.

Seeing VA credits ingame is so completely unintuitive that's a reasonable assumption to make, and I'm pretty sure it was the first thought of a vast majority of people. It's just that you eventually realize it's merely kojima being kojima.

I made more edits because I feel like my paint drawing wasn't really getting it across.

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Oh boy, when I was a kid I thought the Teutonic knight was a black dude with a laurel wreath (because the low res icon). Every time I saw an army of these always said "the kniggas are in town" or something like that.

?

I always thought the woad raiders used their shields when attacking and never noticed the axe.

I still have a hard time not seeing this face.

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I thought goombas had beaks and the two that spawn touching each other in 1-2 were siamese twins.


my sides


I can't stop seeing it now. The other part of his face even looks out of place, the way it's darker and has that crease.


see second pic

How has this not been posted yet?

I think it looks more like Godzilla.

Last time it was brought up there was a sizeable outpouring of autism.

No word of a lie, I was about to ask what the fuck the actual face was supposed to be when I saw it.

I can see it

Can we take a break to talk about how fucking creepy looking that sprite is anyway?

Only if you make a new horror thread, it's Sunday anyway.

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Do you see gondola?

how time flies when you have nothing to look forward to

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Same here. If the mask had a nosepiece then it would be a lot less ambiguous.

kek, I'm saving that.


That reminds me: I thought the evil wizard Agahnim was supposed to be the dead king in the opening. I thought the skull was a chest decoration like a bad guy would have. Didn't help that the text box doesn't talk about the king at all and only talks about Agahnim.

You weren't the only ones with the goombas apparently because the Great Giana Sisters had owls as their enemy replacement.

user you had one fucked up TV.

I always thought this was some kind of blue bacon until I saw the official artwork and realized they're metal pipes

Who else thought these were a guy scratching his nose and an axe respectively?

i saw a big guantlet whit a claw instead of a shield

post the warcraft 3 icon where an sword is piercing a chest plate, everybody saw something wrong whit that icon.

The Sword is obvious, I don't know where you're seeing an Axe
However, just now, I realize that the bottom part is supposed to be a mustache. I always thought it was just a face with a blinking eye ready to teleport

For several years, my brain could not parse what this is supposed to be. Eventually it clicked and I was like, oh, those are her shoes. I don't know what the red would have been, but I kinda saw her head as being mermaid legs, or something. It's Terra from FF3, KO'd.

Dead goombas become little baby gondolas. What a revelation.

I saw the axe at first, but now that I know what it is, I don't know how I saw the axe. I guess the hand is the sharp part of the blade. Kinda like the great axe from Diablo, except with pitch black/fleshtone steel for some reason. That left picture, though. I don't know what that's supposed to be if not image related.

This one? I thought it was a lobster claw for the longest time.

i tought it was somekind of blade like these guillotines that are used to cut paper sheets to crtain size or format (letter, A4)

I still don't understand what that icon is. My mind always interpreted it as cracked stone with magma under the crust. I don't know what that was supposed to have to do with critical strikes.

It's supposed to be the back view of a sword piercing armored flesh, but it's practically impossible to see unless you play at a higher resolution than the game runs natively.

holy shit

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