ありがひとし🌇🦖@ariga_megamix
Each hardware platform had its own characteristics in how colors appeared on CRT televisions, so I always had to be careful when choosing colors.
The Super Famicom offered a wide color palette, but from my personal experience, it was actually quite difficult to create a clean yellow gradient.
For example, Tem’s hair in Illusion of Gaia was built using a sequence like white → yellow → reddish orange → darker red. By letting these colors “pull” on each other, I aimed to keep the saturation high and give it a more vibrant look.
At the same time, for the protagonist in ActRaiser 2, I placed gold-like elements in key areas. Compared to Tem’s bright blond hair, these appear more subdued. I believe I reused darker tones from the skin palette to build those gradients (though my memory might not be perfect—it was over 30 years ago).
As another point of comparison, if we look at the gold dragon boss in ActRaiser 2, its gold should appear more vivid than the player character’s gold elements. This difference was achieved by adjusting saturation and brightness to change the perceived material quality.
All of these color decisions were made while trying to find what looked best on CRT displays.
Brightness and saturation affect how pixel colors interact—sometimes making them appear to shrink or expand. Because of that, I would use darker colors for parts I wanted to appear smaller, and brighter colors for parts I wanted to appear larger.
That said, because each hardware system had its own characteristics, and CRT monitors varied depending on environment and aging, it was impossible to define a single “correct” approach to color and pixel placement.
Even though it was digital work, it often felt like I was creating something very organic and almost “alive.”