hey guys I need some help

[Rosencrantz]

Okay, so

see these sprites??

tSR, I need some help right now.

See, I'm finally getting to the point where my motivation is slowly returning, and I'm thinking of trying to make some game happen in Java or something, idk

anyway, point is, I made these sprites a while back, and I revisited them today and made some Castlevania-esque sprite revisioning and etc.
I realize that I've been gone from this too long and I have pretty much lost my ability to choose viable colors

My problem is that, for the game I want, the really solid-color, essentially unshaded, hunched over sprites are pretty much what I want for this project, mostly because I want to challenge myself and see if I can't make a dynamic sprite shader to happen while this game is in action (hence the bottom-right sprite set).

Only issue is, if I seriously take off on this project, it might be going with or without the dynamic shader. So, essentially, I'd be using the top row of sprites if the shader falls through.

However, the last thing that I would ever want is for people to look at these sprites and say "lolol retro". I'm trying to avoid that with this project. And, the more I look at these sprites, I don't have a motivation to continue them since I'm afraid that it's going to be seen as generic retro shit.

I just wanted to check in with you guys before I push along with this. ASSUMING I DO NOT EVER GET THE DYNAMIC SHADER TO WORK (I'm afraid of it taxing internal memory too much), would the top row of sprites be acceptable, would the Castletroid sprites be used instead, or should I try and begin from scratch again?

There's a lot happening here and I apologize if I'm not explaining things in enough detail. I just want some advice before I push along with this, because I'm fond of the original sprites while also not liking the original sprites. I'm torn about it