Why Mythos of Phantasmagoria Uses Color Variants to Create New Enemies

If you look in the screenshot in the featured image, the boss shown is actually a palette swap of the player character. Why do some enemies use the exact same sprite but with a new coat of paint?

When you are creating a 2D game, sprites are the main method of displaying the graphics on-screen. Their creation, however, is a labor-intensive process. One way that developers save time and money when creating new characters, objects, or enemies is by reusing sprites but changing up the colors.

Some games such as Super Mario Bros. did this but did not create new enemies. This was due to the limitations of the Famicom or Nintendo Entertainment System’s GPU, which can only display up to 13 colors on screen at any given time. Only a total of four colors could be used for each palette and one of them had to be transparent, and you can only use four palettes at any given time.

This practice is common for role-playing and fighting games, the latter of which could be used to differentiate the first and second players on-screen (not if you’re color blind). Touhou Kourinden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria, a role-playing game also does this. Even though it was made for modern systems and not 8 or 16-bit systems, it is still common to see three different variants of the same enemy.

But still, palette swapping hasn’t stopped a few bosses from being created. Additionally, palette swapping can also be used to differentiate elemental affinities of new enemies.