These sprites have an interesting balance of detail to them - metals and faces with close-knit ranges of tone, cloth and steeds with broad clusters of flat colour. The comparatively-empty space compliments the condensed pixels, so the elements on the sprites aren't fighting for priority. To be honest I'd be curious to see these sprites taken to an even smaller level - something like FF6's sprites - and see how they could maintain their balance at that resolution.
I don't have much context for this project so this may have been answered elsewhere, but was the animation for these sprites planned or mid-progress before it was all shelved?
Thanks @StevenM, I'm glad you enjoy the sprites and some of the techniques used.
The Westerners were the only group to recieve serious animation, through the combined efforts of myself and 3 other very talented artists, Paul Veer, Sven Ruthner, and Joakin Sandberg.
I cannot host them here as they are collaborative works, and in fact ownership of the work is a muddy question, so I'm afraid the animated versions are unlikely to see daylight. The still versions are entirely my own design and have already been shown to the public, so there's no concern there.