A crappy fast try, with blatant rips off from a MUGEN character and some Altered Beast graphics


Hey, not bad at all! :) :) :)
cesco: just trying to illustrate the pattern-based approach. This could work with characters using a maximum of 48 pattern-tiles per frame: this way, we can have 48x2 tiles per character, as we need a double tileset for redefining the next frame of the character. As we have 2 charactes on screen we will need 192 tiles for both characters and their hidden buffer. This way we have 64 tiles per bank (192 tiles in total) to build the scenario and the scoreboard at the upper bank.
But hey, we still have plenty of sprites here to use! As los wolfos said, the character overlapping can be pretty ugly, but that will happen mostly when a character hits the other, so a sprite can overlap the ugly hit with some special effect such as a star or something, showing you are actually damaging the other character. Also, when a character fall down from a jump or falls to the ground, a dust cloud can be done with sprites. And, of course, special attacks such as fireballs or whatever... lots of sprites available to work with.
The good: gfx of the characters can be colorfull and pretty big, no 5-sprites-in-a-row problem, plenty of sprites to use for the special effects.
The bad: dark backgrounds that are overlapped by characters, main characters move blocky.
You can use dark (blackish) backgrounds to make SPOOKY fighting/wandering game which happens at night time.....
I still remember 1983 Commodore 64 game which I once played when I was a kid. Game was called "Attack of the Phantom Karate Devils"
(nice name indeed!
), it was hellishly hard back then, but the atmosphere was very frightening, you battled against phantom ninjas which were only partly visible.... it had a nightmare feeling in it...... today game´s backgrounds look very crude (CBM´s ROM characters used....) but I just said this to give you an idea to make frightening fighting game instead of some-fighting-game-which-have-seen-several-times-already.
Yeah, this system is nicer with dark backgrounds. And yes, I am already into a horror game project using this technique, MäSäXi
And yes, I am already into a horror game project using this technique, MäSäXi 
Some older project or a new one?
Tiles are going to be a problem when either the player or the enemy is able to jump reasonably high, high enough to fly over those other background tiles at the horizon. A non-black background is often a problem in an MSX1 game anyway.
I don´t mind, if tilesprite´s "box-shape" comes visible when jumping against non-black backgrounds. 
Tilesprite´s 8 pixel movement is not too bad thing, if you make hero and enemy BIG enough. 
And remember, you can always "cheat" games player to think movement is smoother than 8 pixels, just make more frames to make your video guys move using 4 pixel steps instead of 8 pixel. Hope you understand what I mean? (language barrier makes this a bit hard...) Thought more frames mean less memory to use....
I get the idea.. it may work, if you go easy on colors and if the shifted frame looks reasonably different compared to the 'normal' frame.
consider these 16 pixel colors on a row:
44444455 77777711
Shifting these with 4 pixels:
xxxx4444 44557777 7711xxxx
And you'll see the color-clash.
Some older project or a new one?
Pretty old one. It is Namco's Splatterhouse. It was planned just moving patterns too. Some enemies were planned to be sprites, as bats: also, the main character's weapons, overlaping the pattern based graphic (nice to use a sprite there, as some wapons are diagonal-shaped). Old project that never went further than the design stage.
And remember, you can always "cheat" games player to think movement is smoother than 8 pixels, just make more frames to make your video guys move using 4 pixel steps instead of 8 pixel. Hope you understand what I mean? (language barrier makes this a bit hard...) Thought more frames mean less memory to use....
Great when you have the same colors in each row but when you are into colors you must adjust your design a lot to fit 4 pixel movement. In this particular case of a vs. fighting game I'd go for the full pattern movement, as characters are big enough.
Some older project or a new one?
Pretty old one. It is Namco's Splatterhouse. It was planned just moving patterns too. Some enemies were planned to be sprites, as bats: also, the main character's weapons, overlaping the pattern based graphic (nice to use a sprite there, as some wapons are diagonal-shaped). Old project that never went further than the design stage.
Can you share some old design stage screenshots here? 
And remember, you can always "cheat" games player to think movement is smoother than 8 pixels, just make more frames to make your video guys move using 4 pixel steps instead of 8 pixel. Hope you understand what I mean? (language barrier makes this a bit hard...) Thought more frames mean less memory to use....
Great when you have the same colors in each row but when you are into colors you must adjust your design a lot to fit 4 pixel movement.
Yes, that´s the drawback.
Pretty old one. It is Namco's Splatterhouse.
You... are... my HERO!!!!!
