With Fallen Enchantress cooling the sting that was 'War of Magic', I'd like to look back on one of the things I enjoyed most from the original Elemental: the 'retro' intros made for the beta builds (you can still see these videos here and here). They only took half a day to produce, but got a great fan reaction (there were even major news outlets that posted about them).
We had discussed doing something similar for FE, but deemed them far too silly at a time when our efforts needed to be as sincere as possible. That was half a day to get some real work done, and there was so much to do.
Luckily, Brad was very true to his word about "no more crunch time", and with us working 40 hour weeks again, I had the free time to do some pixel art on the side.
And while we never made additional videos in that retro style, I still wanted to show off what they could have looked like. Enjoy!
Take 1: Went for a NES Zelda1 style, with every sprite only using 3-4 colors. You have a Hoarder Spider in there, some golems, some demons, a naja, and even a little 'Frogboy'.
Take 2: Went old-school Ultima on this one. Look at those 2 bit world sprites! Yikes 
Take 3: A fun 16-bit style, where Relias, Procipinee, & Magnar III team up for a gildar collecting...or something.