Palette
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A palette refers to the set of colors used in a sprite image. Many sprite styles, such as the spriting style used in Super Mario Bros. 3, include palettes of colors due to graphical limitations. However, styles like the spriting style used in Paper Mario do not have graphical limitations and therefor do not have a palette. Despite the fact that the Nintendo DS does not have the graphical limitations, many games have a palette to better the appearance of the game. While there are no graphical boundaries for fangames, some MFGGers tend to include palettes for their sprites to better the appearance of the sprites.
Palettes, by limiting colors, help "unify" sprites and make it easier to establish a consistent style. As sprites are generally small, they lack the physical space required to even display smooth shades, so palettes are designed to give a relatively smooth appearance from as few colors as possible. While a palette could technically be any size less than what is considered "true color" by graphics hardware, they are generally kept to small sizes so as to be more manageable. A widespread and common palette size is 16 colors (with 1 of those being transparent, if needed), but smaller and larger ones are commonly found, depending on the requirements of the sprite or environment.
Palettes are even used for large pixel art; while smoother gradients could be displayed by using more colors, the existence of a palette helps separate pixel art from other types of digital art that does not use a color restriction.
Palettes are generally custom-made to suit a particular sprite or pixel art, but it is not uncommon to see palettes from other sources, such as video games, being used; this is common when custom sprites are being made in a particular game's style. Other hardware-based palettes are occasionally seen, such as CGA or C64.
