/vr/ - Retro Games

The animation of the eagle (the "Eagle King") that transports Kuros to the Wind Elemental was one of Ste Pickford's first graphics which he drew for the NES. It was done in Deluxe Paint for the Amiga with sketching done by mouse - without assistance from graphics tablets or other scanners. He took eagle drawings from a book on animals in motion by Eadweard Muybridge. Pickford wanted to show off the possible graphical capabilities of the NES; he said, "I wanted to do something 'flashy' early in the game, trying to show off my amazing graphic art skills on the rather primitive NES. We were working on Amiga and ST games at the same time, so were always trying to push the NES with bigger and better graphics, right from the start of our work on the machine." The eagle consisted of only three colors and between 11 and 17 sprites per frame of animation. There was a smaller version of the same eagle, which was used as a regular enemy in that level.