Final Warrior - Remake - WIP

Kind of in a bind since I decided to do a remake of Final Warrior, and reason is that when I redid the art I realized that I also had to do the enemy/boss/hero animations in a new style, but I'm not an animator nor do I have the time to do so - just enough time in my day to do the environmental work.  So I was wondering (and wanting opinions, obviously) about which art direction I should go with; 8bit or the artsy.  Here's a few screenshots of both:

Also, a bit off-topic: if I'm going to do either one, it'd be great if I had some help on this.  I can't really pay much due to my budget, but when I get this new position at another company (hopefully within the next 2-3 weeks), I can pay more (around $300/month).

Ah, I forgot to mention that I would need help with the stencyl programming, since I'm still learning my way around 3.0

So, I decided to stick with the artsy version, and will figure out a way to redo the player(s), enemies, and bosses in such a way.

Pics!

I think the older version was the very first Stencyl game I ever played. Looks good so far!

I personally prefer the artsy version much more too, but it sure will require more work to make the sprites.  You can always make the whole game with placeholder (easy to make) sprites first and get a spriter when the actual game programming/levels are done.

EDIT:  While the game already looks advanced, is it almost complete or there is still a lot to do?

Thanks, to the both of ya

Yea, there's still a lot to do, for sure.  I'm taking my time with the design of each area, of each stage, because I want there to be a story or a message that tells the player what happened there or what purpose that it served.

Created these pillars for the Main Castle stage, though not all will be used in every area of that stage.  So far, I'm sticking with the outer left pillar, and the two on the right.  The second to the left looks gaudy to me, so I probably won't use it at all.  BTW, the central parts of those two right pillars have some transparency

Aaaaand here's a screanshot of Area 2 of the Main Castle stage (in progress).

Here's a screenshot of Stage 2 Area 5 of the Sewers (still in progress).

Part 1 of 2 Ruin Objects completed!

Teaser shot of Stage 3 Ruins (Area 1) in development.

I'm not dead, I swears it

Here are the FG Banners for the Ruins, and possibly for other areas too.  Still looking for another artist to help out with creating monsters, bosses, and player.

Oh, and here are the glass stain windows.

Here's a screenshot of Stage 3 Ruins Area 6

Decided to throw in a bit of a maze area in this game

Here are a few concepts that my artist has done for the heroine