SPHERE'S PROFILE

Hi peoples! Sphere here, some of you may know me as the dev of Final Fantasy IV Alter Destiny.

I've got something of a dilemma here, and I'm wondering if any of you guys and gals can help me out. I've recently posted up the gamepage to my newest project, the Xenogears 2D remake (here on RMN. As you can see I'm definitely making headway, but there are a few issues that I need to just put out there and see if any of you can either help or make some suggestions.

The first issue is that while I've got the majority (if not all) of the face portraits, character sprites, gear models, and enemy sprites/models rips downloaded, I'm finding that there is a huge discrepancy in artistic styles between the MV generated character sprites I'm creating for all of the player characters and NPCs, and the gear models/enemy sprites and models.

Obviously, the core issue is that the rips I've got are all from the original Playstation graphics of the game, so there is a definite issue of quality, especially when I upscale the original sprites and models to MV format using my Image Resizer (I upscale using the xBR4 filter and then downsize them as needed to fit the MV format). The really 3D-looking enemy models in particular don't look so good upscaled to meet my needs, so my question is, should I just re-imagine all of the enemies using completely different sci-fi/mech 2D sprites that I can purchase and/or find, or just upscale the existing ones direct from the game and try to make them look semi-not-horrible?

I'm not asking anyone to actually redesign each enemy model/sprite, because a) I don't have any money and this is a passion project, and b) the sheer amount of work that would take would be too much to ask for any spriter or artist out there to do it for free. We're talking 155 enemies here. Of course, if you're an artist, you have as much love for Xenogears as I do, and you're insane enough to try and redesign all of these enemies for free, then I would owe you a piece of my soul. lol

I'm really trying to make this remake as 'professional' as I can, and I can acknowledge my limitations, such as while I can do some graphic design I'm no spriter or artist. So, that's my main dilemma, but there's another issue as well.

As I stated before, I'm remaking every player character and NPC from the original game using the generator in MV, and I've done some decent approximations already. The problem I'm doubtless going to run into will be when I try to approximate Chu-Chu, Rico, and NPCs that are animalistic like Franz. My question for this is, should I just re-imagine them completely different so that I can do it in the generator, and if so, are there any generator parts that might help me in this area?

For those curious about what I'm talking about, or if you'd like to have all the rips I've got anyway, here's the face portraits, gear models, and enemy sprites/models.

Face Portraits

Enemies

Player's Gears

Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated. Also, if you would like to help me out in whatever capacity, then you're more than welcome. =)

author=Luiishu535
I wanted to give all of my votes to the incredible hidden gem: Final Fantasy: Blackmoon Prophecy, but for some reason, I was unable to access its nomination page. :/

It's because that game came out years ago, and the nominations are only for games released in 2016.

author=TungerManU
Blank Dream is from 2015 though :/

Having played a few of this year's games recently, I must say there are some really good games that not many people have played.
The Lone Chameleon, 34 downloads, is a pretty cool puzzle game with some interesting gameplay mechanics and good level design. My personal pick for the Technical Prowess and Puzzle Design categories so far.
Three Ghostly Roses by zDS, 94 downloads, very polished and all around great game. I currently have it nominated for Best Setting and Game of the Year, among other things. (I only just started playing Soma Spirits so who knows.)

e: If anyone knows any fan games from this year other than Back to Felix and/or any good games that use rips, please suggest them. Those are the only two categories I don't have filled out yet :)

There's that TMNT fangame and my FFIV fangame if you're looking for suggestions. =)

Blessed be Kentona. =D You're awesome, and I can't wait to play your commercial game!

Congrats to all the winners! Especially to the devs of Legend of Balance and Luxaren Allure! They were both my two favorite RPGs of the year. =)