FE1 Sprite Palette Question

[47948201]

So I was looking at what is apparently on the NES color palette

(Wikipedia also has one, but I prefer this organization)

But I couldn't help but notice that, while Gaiden's seem to fit this, a lot of Fire Emblem's sprites have colors that don't fit anywhere there. Like, look at Navarre/Nabarl's hair for example:

That's noticeably darker than the color at 08. How did all this end up happening?

[Topaz Light]

I'm pretty sure Navarre's hair is actually the same color as 08; it's just right next to black and that difference is contrasted by the highlights, making it appear darker at a glance.

I could be wrong, though, but that's my analysis.

All the other colors on Navarre's mugshot seem to fit into the NES/Famicom's palette, as well.

[Celice]

It's not the same, actually. You can compare the values directly and note that they are not 1:1.

I don't think anyone ever actually figured out what color palette the NES uses. A lot of the difficulty is that whatever is displayed on a television is going to be affected by the color settings and the actual material composition of the television. True, every game may use the same color value of 08, for example, but how we perceive this color is going to differ depending on the display device connected to an NES.

Most palettes for NES emulators are hashed together depending on what someone expected the colors to look like. It's imprecise, but close enough; this is how different NES emulators can have comparably different colors, even though technically the system only has some specific palette that's predetermined.

For some more info, check out http://nesdev.com/ or some other homebrew sites involving the NES. I know some emulator/romhacking enthusiasts have investigated the color scheme of the NES more in depth, but the explanation above is the gist of why.

[TatsuyaSuou]

He's right. But, if you don't want to compare values:

(top "original" NES palette; bottom: Navarre's hair)

It's faint but you can distinguish it's a different color.

tl;dr NES palettes are weird as fuck.