I was just making fun when I said who was supposed to be looking at who.  Text is incapable of capturing my naturally enchanting jovial charm.

For the color: Your example illustrated a point, so in that respect it was useful.  I'm just saying I prefer warmer shadows.  Even if the image was set in the snow, I probably would have commited a color theory faux pas, by making all the shadows warm.

I have to say, I like the de-banding. I'm not typically OCD about things, except when it comes to making sure the outline stays connected.  But I'm going to have to set that aside in order to fix the banding issue.

Not too keen on the selection of colors though.  I'd rather have warm shadows.  They're just cozier, and give a more organic look to eyes&teeth.  I feel like a lot of pixel art abuses the whole warm/cold dynamic to where all of their art looks like the sun is rising on it, during a nippy early spring day.  I prefer more vibrant colors.  It was no accident I chose white to go into red.

Blue should have been looking at Yellow.  Yellow back at Blue.  Purple and Red looking at Green.  Green at Red.

I see what you mean by the light occluding.  Fixed that.
For the faces, I'm still not sure.  Because I did give each one a unique head shape, eye shape, mouth, and nose.  But perhaps they don't appear as varied as I see them.  So I will continue to experiment with methods to better vary facial raits.

Aaah!  I forgot I upscaled it for tumblr.  Fixed.

Dang, I was so proud of the faces too.  I did stick to a few rules of measurement, so there was a template of sorts.  But 4/5 were drawn from scratch.  The purple one being the exception, starting from an edit of the blue one's face.  But still otherwise drawn from scratch.  I'm at a loss as to what can be done differently, because I'm blind by satisfaction with the amount of variation their faces have currently.  So maybe you can give me a more specific tip.

As for the boots, that's a tough one.  Because I agree that the highlights are harsh.  Except the nearest colors aren't the better choices.  I could use a gray, but then the boots lose their color.  Or I could use a red or a green, but then her boots don't match her coat.  Also, I'm not sure what you mean about occulsion.  Too technical a term.

Thanks, guys.

I tried the fan translated version some time ago.  It was alright, but couldn't hold my interest.

@Raider Judo
The color was emulating the color style from the game, which is very flat.  Very little shading.  The color was grabbed directly off the character's sprite.  Then I added a few more shades in order to help show depth and also avoid having to use a black outline.  I didn't feel it necessary to add any extra detail to her hair or clothes.  Her design is very simple.

@Stickman: That's probably true.  But I was afraid of overextending her legs, because her feet are planting and pushing at a very specific interval.  So if I extend the distance of her foot by product of extending her leg, then her feet would cease to sync with the speed she's meant to be travelling.

@Connor: Oh no, don't do that!  I tried to make the motion as realistic as possible.  So I used a lot of real life references.  You should observe from real life if you want similar results

Thanks.  Highlights still confound me.