Lol I’m doing the same thing with Block Man, good to know that Fuse Man is already done

nice Mr. L

NES sprites are limited to three colors each. The reason Megaman himself has five (and a redundant black) is because his face is a separate sprite from his body, sitting on top of transparent pixels. Any NES Robot Master with more than three colors is also using layering, giving its smallest part the extra sprite, to save on scanline usage, because there can only be eight sprites drawn on any given scanline at a time. Every single Robot Master from Megaman 6 is a good example of this layering; sometimes it's obvious, sometimes not.

It would be fairly difficult for this sprite to save scanline space, given that no matter which color you choose for the layering, your layered sprite will have to be nearly the entire height of the art. And, ignoring that, you've completely disregarded the NES' palette. The yellows on the NES are more orange, slightly darker, and in the case of the lightest shade, much less vibrant - there is no good yellow on the NES.

Don't get me wrong, this is a stellar work of art; but it's not very viable as an NES sprite. If you compared it to any of the Game Gear sprites, this would win every time. Compare it to Wily Wars, and at worst it ties in quality, lacking only some shading in the blues on Fuse's body. Additionally, your categorization doesn't even specify that it's for the NES - just that it's for a properly configured 8-bit system, which, while one that would support this sprite and still function reasonably well doesn't exist, it's not necessarily wrong.

Finally, to respond to the idea that "shading techniques aren't a system limitation" - you are wrong. I'll say it again; NES sprites are limited to three colors plus one transparent color, and eight sprites per scanline. If you have Megaman, his face, three buster shots, Metalman, his eyes, and three Metal Blades, all in a horizontal row, that's ten sprites. The rightmost sprites on that horizontal row won't get drawn. Additionally, there is a very strict palette you need to adhere to. (which you can find here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_console_palettes#NES) If you want to call your sprite NES-ready, it has to take all of those rules into consideration. SNES sprites can have 15 colors plus transparency each, and it can generate whatever color you want for each of those 15, plus NES style layering, plus the four background layers of color, plus the four object layers. Genesis sprites have similar limitations. Thus, people are much more free with what they'd be allowed to draw on those systems. Anything later than SNES or Genesis (so PS1 and on) has basically no limit on how many colors can be displayed at once.

As I posted on the forum, this sprite has 7 fewer colors than a Wily Wars sprite does, and has the exact number of colors as many NES robot masters. Shading techniques aren't a system limitation and I find it inappropriate to categorize spritework according to it.

Yeaaaah, this is honestly more Wily Wars than "8-bit."

That being said it does make for a decent Wily Wars one, or possibly Game Gear Mega Man.

I'm going to have to agree. This is WAY too detailed to be 8-bit. Maybe perhaps it's 8 bit in terms of pixels, theme, or style, but its definitely not 8-bit shading wise.

It looks a little too detailed to be 8-bit. Maybe lose the shading on the yellow portions.