This is not too dissimilar to an idea I have been slowly building on for over two years now. I have wanted to introduce famous 16-bit era heroes and villains into SF1, whereby each new hero would be introduced towards the start of a chapter and the remainder of a chapter would see the Force face off against the new character's familiar enemies. I think I briefly talked about this when I first shared the Golden Axe-inspired Death Adder battle sprites in 2016.
I cannot begin to express how nostalgic your list made me feel - so many classic characters! I'll run through the list so you know where I'm at thought-wise -- and design-wise
-- on some of them:
Shinobi: Absolutely! Joe Musashi is relatively low on the to-do list, but two games I return to quite a lot are Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III, and I always feel a burst of motivation to get the character ported to SF1 every time I play. I might move this one up the list, but Promoted Hanzou is taking precedence for the moment.
Toe Jam and Earl: I love those guys! Even though I had never played the original game until my twenties, Panic on Funkotron was a game I would replay over and over again and was probably my most favourite co-op game for as long as the Mega Drive/Genesis was supported. So many memories! I actually do not currently have these guys on my list, unfortunately, but only because I don't feel like I could flesh out their chapters enough with enemies (which were just naughty children, I believe?).
Alex Kidd: Ha! Another of the greats. I had a Master System with this game built in and I would play it over and over again, probably more so than the Mega Drive/Genesis version. I don't have him on my list, but it would be cool to see him attack an enemy with his giant fist, and maybe even perform that rock-paper-scissors shuffle during his idle frames. Hehe.
Gilius: Yes, yes, yes! He is pretty much the only Golden Axe character I have yet to talk about with Dan. I actually don't know why I've left him to last - I even had the regular GA/GA2 enemies designed last year!
Altered Beast: On the to-do list! Not super high priority, but I really want to have the Centurion appear during the Unpromoted state, and the classic werewolf appear as the Promoted state. And a golden palette swapped version appear when holding a Spirit Ball or something.
Opa Opa: Adorable! Not sure if this fella will ever make it onto my list, but I'm not against organising cute new character designs.
Space Harrier: Loved this in the arcades! Recently purchased this again on the 32X and while I think it's maybe a little too futuristic for SF1, I don't want to say 'never ever' because it does hold a fond place in my heart.
Sonic:
Already got you covered!
