Redrawing an NES game! | Samurai Pizza Cats (Kyatto Ninden Teyandee)

In this video, I’m redrawing a screenshot of ‘Kyatto Ninden Teyandee’ for the Nintendo Famicom - which many may recognize as 'Samurai Pizza Cats'! Along the way I share some of my stylistic choices in altering the graphics, bringing in additional inspiration from the cartoon!
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0:00 Intro and Overview
1:06 Yattaro Sprite
3:13 Layout
3:39 Building a Building
5:47 Street-Level Details
7:11 Pathway Tiling
8:02 Backdrop
9:52 Finding a new look for the HUD
11:13 Enemies
12:42 FINAL ARTWORK
14:00 CRT Time
14:44 VID OVER
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Check out my art here:
/ brandonjamesgreer
/ bjgpixel
Shop:
rdbl.co/bjgpixel
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Software used: Adobe Photoshop (CS6)
Need help picking a pixel art program? Watch this: • What Program to use fo...
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Title sequence theme music by Failpositive:
www.failpositive.bandcamp.com/
/ failpositive

[@elbiggamehunter]

The game was already cool looking, but your redraw really brings it to life! I’d love to play the game with your art

[@mega6662]

Eah

[@angrypotato_fz]

The background looks much better without black shades! You're right that the image overall was getting too noisy with black shapes. When I look at the original screen, these black buildings contrasting the sky attract my attention the most. I'm surprised you didn't use any orange or red for the character and the gate in the background, as you had them available in the palette and weren't that limited as the game's creators - but that's your choice :)

[@TimConceivable]

yeah, i have no idea why they used black in the background on the original. keeping the background in only a few shades of blue (and white) helps keep give it more depth and atmospheric perspective. i think if he had added orange or red it would stand out too much like with the black.

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks dude! And yeah that's a fair point; I opted for the pinkish-red because I liked the 'softer' touch. The pure red (from this palette) was quite saturated/bold, so it felt too strong. It was so tempting to make adjustments on the colours, but I wanted to stick to game-accurate colours so that's one of the tough decisions to make - good eye! :D

[@bolson42]

Yeah it’s actually a very weird and prominent problem with most 3rd part nes games, i guess they went too far into outlining and shading, or maybe they didn’t have enough colors available but it’s still weird lol

[@gatex33d74]

@@TimConceivable because there werent enough colors for it to not be black

[@TimConceivable]

@@gatex33d74 no, there definitely were enough colors in the NES palette to not use black.

[@siddharthsudhakaran1936]

I always had a fond memory of this game as kid, didn't know the name so I searched all things like power ranger cats , space fox, power ranger dogs. I had given up on it, thought this game was just a dream I had as a kid. Finally found it!!! Thanks soo much!!!!! Its amazing that I still remember the music of this game after like almost 20 years :O !!!

[@saultoons]

What a charming show and game this looks like, I love how changing the proportions in the characters seemed to allow you to add so much more detail and I love how you did the background too, making it lighter gives it a much better sense of depth than the original and the confetti was a really nice touch, it's a small change but it's little nods like that which I think shows a huge amount of love being put into something! Great work Brandon!

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks so much dude - really enjoyed working within this world and bringing in the little nods to the show and the game! It's also kinda like designing an old game the way you _remember_ it to be in your mind :D

[@secondarycontainment4727]

I know you said that you wanted people to have a reason to revisit this subject/imagery. But it might be worth quickly mentioning WHY the original (porbably) looks the way it does / limitations of how sprites would/could be rendered on the NES/Famicom. From what I understand - sprites were composed of only ~2 colors (with out "hacks") due to specific limitations of the system(s). And, since you like a challenge / with respect to those limitations - how would YOU have designed the character with only 2+1 colors? BTW - amazing work. I love watching and listening to your thought process and explaination of current theories. Thank you for sharing and making this art form more accessable to all of us!

[@SwitchZetto]

3 colors per sprite (technically 4, but the 4th is generally used like a transparency channel)

[@Jackrost01]

You have 4 palettes for sprites. Each palettes have 4 colors(1 is transparent). Sprite have size 8x8. Sprite limit for horizotal is 8 max. After this limit - sprites start flickering. For tiles - you also have 4 palletes with 4 colors, but tiles have size 16x16. It's hard to make detailed look when you have only 3 colors for 8x8 pixels. Yattaro's chest can't be so detailed because it crossed with his face wich also need colors. Yeah, this is sad. I need also say that sprites can be connected to different palettes but don't hardly connect to objects, so technically speaking you can use two palettes(or more) for one object, but you need consider that other objects uses this palettes too. You also need to choose how you put these sprites to form object. Maybe you can seperate parts in point where colors have strong contrast(like chest and face). But you still need some sprites to form edges of object and that why you try squeeze the rest. Tiles also have problems. You have 4 colors, but size is 16x16. But for this game the problem is not about size of tiles - it's about how much different tiles you can put on screen. Tile tables can store 64 tiles. It's seems big enought, but if you draw scroling background then you will see that you need some tiles to draw something different. There two option - 1) you store the whole horizontal/vertical background in tile table 2) you can swap bunch of tiles in runtime but you need some sort of "buffer tunnel" because 1st background still use tiles while screen is scrolling. This is the reason why the whole screen is flickering with black color while you transitioning from one room to another. Megaman have smooth scrolling because 1st room and 2nd are using same tiles, and also this parts of room are drawn very simple with little amount of tiles.

[@MrMozzie]

There are 3 colors total for a sprite, 4 with the transparency method

[@Jackrost01]

@@nisenazold The real problem for this franchise is license, because Disney own it like more than 15+ years and does nothing with it. Only few month ago license was expired.

[@sorakafutanari]

It actually makes me wonder, what if someone remade the game for the SNES/Mega Drive? It'd be able to have the simplistic style of the NES version with these tweaks, and also allow for more complex things.

[@artunblock9433]

Wow, the final result is exactly what I imagine in my head when I think about this game)

[@CrystalWaveMachine]

Dude I loved this show when I was little! A man of fine taste I see. You absolutely nailed this piece and I loved hearing your thoughts and decisions along the way. Keep up the great work. ^^

[@Losing-it.]

The making of the city in the background made put a hand on my lips and go "woooaaah" out loud. If I ever saw the character running with such a view standing still the whole time I would cry.

[@JennaSoberman]

these redraws are so fantastic, and so inspiring! i especially love the city silhouettes in the background and that new hud font! i'm pretty exclusively a sprite artist but since discovering your channel, i've been so inspired to branch out my pixel skills and try backgrounds, animations, and challenges like limited color palettes or different canvas sizes. thank you for creating the content you create, all your videos are so well produced and make me want to pick up the ipad and make some pictures out of tiny squares!

[@pixelsbykris5494]

I LOVE this! This is onevof my FAVOURITE pieces of yours. The colours, the composition, the style itself, wouldn't cgangeca thing!

[@ShelbyAQD]

That's really cool! I'm tempted to do my own redraw of your redraw, just to see how much of it I could preserve if I forced it to adhere to NES limitations.

[@MrMozzie]

I was actually wondering to myself “What would this look like if it followed the three color rule?” I think it would be super cool to see!

[@wohao_gaster7434]

keep the tiling limits in mind too(one tile = 16 x 16 so it wouldn't be optimal to make sprites with dimensions like 20 x 28)

[@xtokumaru]

​@@MrMozzieAdhering to NES restrictions doesn't necessarily mean that sprites will strictly have 3 colors (even the original in this case had 4 colors)... If you are careful with sprite overlays and how the colors are distributed across the 4 sprite palettes, you can actually create pretty colorful characters.

[@diegomedeiros456]

Never heard about the series/game, look very cute, but your redraw is so more clean, colors, pose, but especially bc you learned a lot about making "lines" without always putting lines, this inspires me a lot, great video.

[@marcosadrian65]

Man! Awesome reinterpretation, I just hope more games with that pixel art style keep coming out.

[@Ragnark1]

The problem is you don't get that many colors available at run-time per-sprite on the NES unless you are layering the sprites. But, layering can cause issues with flickering due to memory limitations on the NES.

[@gatex33d74]

that + color general color limit + spirte limit + sprite size limit + several other things making something like this without ever explaining why the original one had such limitations is just fair and makes the old one seem worse and more lazy for no reason when it actually has more work put into it

[@carlosnava1471]

I think the purpose of these redraws is not to say "Hurr game look bad" but more of a pixel artist visualizing what it'd look like remade without NES limitations but preserving some of the "pixel art-y" aspect, and of course with it's own artistic flare, because there's not such thing as a completely faithful remake. Even then, it's always a pleasure to read about some of the limitations to appreciate the original, without taking this as anything more that what it is: just a fun exercise on interpretation.

[@antares3030]

Well thankfully that's not a problem now

[@Asterion608]

Indeed, the final result (awesome btw) ended looking like a Master System game maybe even a Pc-engine.

[@PinkBunnyCorporation]

Yeah, would have been more interesting. The original artist could have probably done just as well. Otherwise I would have like to see a larger character to add more details. Kind of dissappointing. Not sure why he didn't pick one or the other unless he genuinely has no idea how the NES worked. I have really enjoyed seeing people redo pixel art within a system's limitations in the past, as well as increasing fidelity too. So this video felt like it left so much on the table for creativity. Still, its always fun to see people do atuff like this for things they really enjoy. Id like to see this revisited with either NES limitations, or by letting full creativitt go and reimagine it with larger sprite sizes and full color and shading, maybe even animate it.

[@cerberus814]

I started playing the game now, and i found your redraw, love it so much... would be a really cool remasterization.

[@juhis-dev]

Loved it! I had never heard of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee before but now I definitely need to check that out. I really like how you broguth that scene to life compared to the original one.

[@weilo82]

Soooo cool that you did this! My favourite show from back in the day. 🍕😺😀 And the art work is, as always, straight up beautiful and incredibly well done. Love it! 💜💜💜

[@nithen8179]

wow this game brings so much nostalgia!!

[@starofjustice1]

You made me feel so old from remembering when I watched this show as a kid. Thanks.

[@steelkraken]

Un trabajo excelente. Realmente se nota el detalle y el esfuerzo en cada pixel. Eres sin duda un artista

[@cutoutpunk]

This is wonderful! I would love to see you sprite out the full cats cast, purely for tshirt/merch ha ha

[@CKTDanny]

3:35 seeing the colour palette *fade* away after you referenced it with the eyedropper tool tripped me out for a sec before I realized what's going on 🤯 Made for a really cool effect in that part of the vid haha I like your Samurai Pizza Cats screenshot adaptation! It's clearly faithful to the original, while making good use of the creative freedoms we get when we're not designing for the NES Oddly, I think my favourite part of your design is the stone tiling beneath the play area. The way it's framed, along with the vibrancy of the other elements gives me a sense of nostalgia, even though I'm learning about this franchise for the first time! ✨

[@BJGpixel]

Hahaha I can't resist a small crossfade like that, but yeah I can see where that makes it feel like I have psychic control over what Photoshop displays to me 😂 And thanks! That's great to hear how the piece hits even when seeing the franchise for the first time ✨

[@bs_blackscout]

Yours is much easier on the eyes! Great stuff! With a bit of effort this could make for a great SNES Remake sprite sheet.

[@roncash7640]

Absolutely amazing! I wish I could play your redraw. . .🤩😍🤗💯

[@jaredjohnston1259]

Wow. You nailed it. that looks amazing!

[@demos456]

I just found this channel and I'm binging the heck out of it. It's mindblowing how you take a model and build upon it so it becomes what you want. One thing I noticed: at 7:25 there rocks' formation looks like the head of a yoshi. Maybe it's just me, but I can't not see it anytime I look at it XD Keep up the great work.

[@PHNXFireBird]

one of my favourite NES games and you made it look even better

[@Akkaren79]

I would love to see an entire level! I know it's a lot of work, but it would be nice to see what these games would feel like playing. Maybe also introduce some techniques like Parallax backgrounds.

[@nittayoshifumi8252]

Wowza, the interior pops out nicely!

[@atakiri]

You can tell how much love is poured into the redraw! Super cool to see your interpretation of the original screenshot!!

[@edinev5766]

One of my favourite games when I was a kid. The soundtrack was popping and the gameplay was smooth af. Not using a wider color palette is an interesting choice. You did manage to add more detail anyway due to not being constrained in the amount of tiles you can use. Great work.

[@cipher893]

Used to play this a lot through ”NESticle” when I was a kid. Loved it! Nice job, looks great! I wish they would remake this game without limits.

[@EbenezerScroogeMcDuck]

Ah NESticle... how many of us redrew the octorocks as throwbbing p*nises throwing out s*erm... I kid you not, I used to crack up my fam with this gag. I should try to re-record it for the heck of it.

[@shona-sof]

Damn I love good sprite art! I'd love to see a modern remake of the game done with your design sensibilities. Teyandee!!

[@S3WP]

Hello there, my name's Brandon and I make pictures out of tiny squares

[@user-dm2kp3vo2u]

Truer words have never been said.

[@Emma_The_H0ppin_H00ligan]

Your name is ewpys

[@S3WP]

@@Emma_The_H0ppin_H00ligan ur funny

[@mididuck]

amazing video as always

[@grandmasterpanda8006]

man i love this blast from the past the redraw is awsome.

[@hippopotamusbosch]

✏ These redraws are so much better than the original. Eliminating all that noisy texture detail in places like the masonry and roof tiles really focuses attention on the character actions.

[@bafi29]

I'm sure the original artist were aware of the flaws, but they also were heavenly limited by the technology constraints, and had to live with it. Modern pixel art is only limited by the skill of the artist.

[@hippopotamusbosch]

@@bafi29 💯

[@elicenyne]

@@bafi29 heavenly limited :bigbraintime:

[@Cythil]

Yeah, the trick of making old sprites and tiles is you need to stick to limits. Often each tile have a limited colour pallet on such old hardware. In fact. The NES support 54 colours. But only 3 colours per sprites or tiles. Yep. That is 3 colours you have to work with. Now normally a spite is made up my multiple spires, creating a mega sprite you could say. That way you can get more colours in. But note there is also a spire limitation on the NES. Tons of tricks beyond that can be used, but it is quite tricky. So being a really good artist on the NES you pretty much need to both know the hardware and how to program for it, so you can exploit the tricks and push the system beyond its apparent limits. Why I always get so impressed by people who chose to stick to those limitations.

[@MrMozzie]

I mean, to be fair, the original game had much more limitations than this spectacular resprite

[@qinxart1579]

And now i hope this game will be got remake, like art from your draw, good job man 👍

[@rofidel178]

Man, this show brings back a lot of nostalgia, good work on the redraw, would be great to see these sprites in action in the game

[@jaimelaverc2475]

Unbelievable work, man. The actual game should be remade exactly like this.

[@flikkie72]

I think this is my favourite of all your pieces so far - keep it up!

[@crisgriffin3042]

Wow, it was actually my art-dream to resprite and reanimate this whole game(or possibly remake it in Gamemaker with leveled up graphics). It is one of my top-10 games on Famicom. Turns out it is kinda troubling for me to sprite less than 16-bit graphics, so it still on the list.

[@FabbrizioPlays]

Samurai Pizza Cats was always so interesting to me as a dub. The story goes that when the American studio received the resources from Kyatto Ninden Teyandee, many of the scripts were poorly translated, or not translated at all, and sometimes missing pieces of the episode altogether. So large chunks of Samurai Pizza Cats is just the American studio winging it to try and make something cohesive out of the broken pieces that actually made it to their studio. What we ended up with is basically the 90s predecessor to Ghost Stories. Or so the story goes, anyway.

[@b3ans4eva]

The guy who sung the theme song was drunk when he recorded it.

[@LandenRobertson2003]

Since I was a kid I'm playing this game for fun and this game is my one of my memory I miss this game so much and I love it

[@wolfsmith2865]

I recently inherent a huge collection of Kyatto Ninden Teyande items, cels, scripts, figures, toys and cartridges for the video game. Neat stuff.

[@PerfectCombetEVER]

That's my favorite game when I was a kid, seriously I still remember 2003 when i play this game all day. Thanks man to give me a good feeling about this game.

[@LowPolly]

This is really cool! I really enjoyed this game and Teyandee as whole, so seeing this redraw of the game was pretty darn awesome, I really like what you did with. The game is over 30 years old now, it'd be pretty rad if it got a port, or a remake that lifted a lot more from the show like the original music or something. In any case, this is fantastic! Great job!

[@karotconcarne3325]

You took the game of my childhood and made it prettier :D Much appreciated

[@Sketchcraft]

Looks fantastic Brandon!

[@insignificantstudent5585]

You definitely gave the game justice with the redraw, this looks amazing!

[@DarkusObscurius]

DAMN, now i want to play your remake! I can't live without it!!!! Really awesome redraw, dude! 👍 And now i get it how the Wonderboy in monster land and Alex Kidd remakes plays so different from the originals!

[@promania8956]

Youre an inspiration for me making pixel art i like youre videos and youre positive attitude keep at it and thanks for the inspiration :)

[@tendividedbysix4835]

Really fantastic art and great editing in the video also! I like the little highlights here and there

[@Stout936]

That really pops on the CRT. I love the subtle way that the phosphors bleed together to smooth everything out

[@jeremyachristensen]

This is awesome!! I see a lot of potential to make a series out of this

[@08Alexisl]

I hope that one day the game will come true. you are a genius!

[@themarswarrior]

the sprite design and architecture on your redraw is better but i kinda like the old bush maybe you could have even did some dithering on it too!,Great job!!!

[@ZeroWalker26]

Bloody glorious work you done.

[@p0llus]

man... I LOVE your work!

[@livvy94]

This game (and TV show) is absolute gold. You should do stuff for Mesen NES texture packs!

[@CoolDudeClem]

I've never even heard of this but it looks cute AF!

[@ARDIZsq]

Man, I've been missing from this channel for a while (over a year now), but boy am I glad that the YT algorithm brought me back. As soon as I saw that monkey and heard that intro, I knew this was gonna be a good time. I've gotta say, you did a really nice job here with the art. Keep up the great work man. Hope we can see some more pixel art remakes, or even some demakes. (Personally, I'm biased towards seeing a SNES styled Splatoon)

[@BrunoCortes1993]

That game was one of my favourite games from the nes!!

[@kodavidkoko]

excellent video, a true delight for the spirit

[@wavyamar]

This is amazing! Great job. Samurai Pizza Cats is something special.

[@potatopassingby]

this brings me happiness, i love it!!

[@Ty-douken]

I LOVED Samurai Pizza Cats as a kid (still do) & wished there was an SNES game as I never owned an NES. I feel like your art is in line with what I would've wanted out of an early era SNES game.

[@DimonKILL]

I like the "remaster" one because of accessibility of choosing the fonts for an HUD (HUD is an abbreviature to "Heads-Up Display") also fixing the game a bit, but I think trying to make it into a real game on a real hardware would be pretty hard, because of hardware limitations.

[@shadowandroid45]

The entire time watching this I couldn't help but think: Man, this show would really lend itself well to a SEGA Genesis game in art style alone. Never properly seen this show, but this has peaked my interest. Amazing artwork too, Really hit my nostalgia bones looking at it.

[@crashsoul02]

Damn, what a cool game it'd be with your art...

[@Julayla]

...someone get this guy to do sprite work and help us NES nerds make a Mesen sprite work for a possible SPC Mesen edition! The sprites look so good!

[@victorgortiz2622]

YOO!! great art dude! Man....we need remake samurai pizza cat game

[@garwert]

Hey, good job on the commentary. Might not be entirely deliberate, but this more personal (or comedic, I guess?) tone of your voice-over fits right in. Otherwise, great piece; always pleasantly surprised by your attention to detail.

[@CelioHogane]

Wait why samurai pizza cats? They are clearly ninjas

[@maldivirdragonwitch]

Maybe to stop the direct comparison to TMNT.

[@MrValsung]

Both yourself, and snakepixel do a phenomenal job reinterpreting classic 8-bit art within a loose limitation on how it would look without some of the more annoying aspects of NES restrictions. in an ideal business setting, the two of you would be considered far more often to be lead art directors on remasters of some of these classic games. I would love to take some of the art you made and, and transfer it into SMFL just to get these things moving around.

[@Holammer]

Good thing you acknowledged right from the starts that this project does not take NES sprite or color limitations into account. Made it much easier to enjoy the video and not nerd rage. :D

[@270jonp]

This came out so good. Love the work

[@VANDAD]

One of my favourite as a kid! Would definitely play SPC: 'Mania' if you were behind the art!

[@BlizzardOfSteel]

Subbed very soothing and calming

[@unshanks]

Great work!

[@caboseBvR]

man this make me wish you would do the hole game and put it up as a patch or something. This is awesome

[@Joe-hp6jz]

You could take it a step further and redraw it as a SNES game next time. Jumping from 8 to 16 Bit, bigger sprites, more colors, simply to explore what a game could look like which unfortunately never was made back then. I would love to see that! ;)

[@googleboughtmee]

NES can sure look amazing when they don't have to stick to any of the limitations of the NES :) It would make a good SNES version, though.

[@DadVader]

As always: your interpretation is a way, way better than original! 🤘☺️🤘🥰

[@deedoubs]

To be fair the original has a lot of limitations that have to be minded that Brandon explicitly mentioned not being concerned with.

[@BJGpixel]

Haha thanks dude! I think of it like how we remember games to look versus what they actually did - there's always room to insert your own imagination into how the pixel art is interpreted 😊

[@chickenhawkofficial]

@@BJGpixel hi ur one of my fav youtubers

[@essatowardsyou9401]

i love redrawing retro games, and specially it's my favourite.

[@gonzalogarciaarino4209]

stunning work like always!!!

[@harvaldi]

I would really like to play a game with your graphics.

[@rcarrascc]

I just looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooved this video man!

[@Bisen222]

amazing work and one of my favorite import games for the nes.

[@portwain]

My fav game on NES! Thank you!

[@flipmostyles2583]

you should do an actual edit for the nes rom, i would love to see how much better you can make it look within the limitations of the nes palettes.

[@WuchtaArt]

Amazing as always

[@shinyhappyrem8728]

Note that the NES/SNES graphics were stretched a bit horizontally on a real 4:3 TV screen, iirc by a factor of 8:7, so an image of 256x240 would occupy a space of ~292.57x240.

[@jencarlos8659]

I’ve never heard of the animated series before but you have a funny name I might watch it

[@leperking84]

This is awesome, thanks for sharing

[@torysciacca6907]

Such a treat to watch

[@XpRnz]

Outstanding work, really worthy of being a redesign!

[@csikocska]

When I was at the beginning of my teenage, I enjoyed to watch the Samurai Pizza Cats anime series after I played a few times the NES game. :) What a bummer the devs and creators didn't continue the story of the Pizza Cats, I would watch what Dr. Purple's plan was after the NES game.

[@Misterio_11]

I remember watching this cartoon in 1997. It’s a great cartoon

[@battybuddy]

Honestly, a reimagining of the game done like this would be pretty fun. I mean, The size of the sprites looks like it might play just different enough.