I loved that game my whole life and bought a copy of the HD remake a few years back. When that contest came up(SD MUGEN Wars or whatever it was), it was a stage contest so I felt compelled to enter. This was my prime mind you.
I'd been wanting to do something from that game for a long time, I just didn't really know how to go about it.
When I started working with that first screen, I tried several different ripping methods but they all were dishonest to what the source was. I ended up finding a way to open up the game's files and found the backgrounds image files in full resolution by pure luck.
All the animations were hard work and just doing my best to capture the atmosphere of the game...the subtle ripples in the water, the wind blowing in the background, the birds in the distance...the water dropping onto the floor from Lester's footprints...I wanted it to all be perfect because of my admiration for the game. I hope that people got that from the stage.
The transition effect was something that was a fluke, I was thinking "is there a way I can implement the horizontal transition effect"...obviously this isn't possible because screen position can't be changed like that based on the characters position...after then I was like "well you COULD do that with a vertical transition effect, is there any way I can trick that into a horizontal effect?...wait, why don't I just use the vertical transition effect?" and it turned about being pretty cool.
Anyway, it was an honor to get 2nd place in that contest. The first place entry totally deserved it, it's an AMAZING stage.