The claim that larger/smaller sprites are harder

Icalasari

I don't care which they say is harder, both have points

Smaller sizes are harder to fit details into and make look like something

Larger sizes you have to be more accurate and it becomes more difficult to make it look correct

So depending on what you're comfortable with, you have a sweet zone

My sweet zone is 32x up to 100x. That's where I can produce my best work. And even then it depends on what I'm making. For example, making textures above 64x would likely involve me murdering somebody. Making non item sprites under 80x is a pain for me

ClockworkUniverse

I'm not too familiar with spriting, but above a certain size, doesn't it become more akin to drawing?

Icalasari

^ Yep. Like I said, both small and large have their own advantages and disadvantages

...Although at drawing size I'm pretty sure it ceases to be spriting and instead goes into the realm of general pixel art

DYRE

More like, at drawing size it generally stops being pixel art (depending on how you're doing it, of course) but continues to be spriting, since you're still technically making sprites...

Bee

I prefer smaller sprites because they take up less of the screen, i.e. larger relative field of view.  Your pretty character sprites don't mean crap if the game blows because I can't see anything else.

It's one of the things that made Mega Man Zero artificially hard -- you have maybe three self-widths to either edge of the screen, and could (and often had to) traverse about twice that far in a single jump.

Icalasari

^ I find that larger sprites should rarely be used outside of something that makes it tiny due to resolution

Bleh going outside of my comfort zone by updating my avatar with a 200 pixel tall version. So far all I can think is, "Dammit look right outline!"