RPG Village Advice

I'm working on a Japanese themed Final Fantasy style RPG. Here is my attempt at making the outside of the hero's home. I am eventually going to build out the rest of the village but before I went too much further I'd like some more eyes on it. I'm about 92% happy with it. Most of that is the roof of the building which I keep going back and forth on.

One of the problems I am going to run into on the next screen is that I want the village to a waterwheel. That means I have to give up the roof palette (black, dark green, dark gray, light gray) in exchange for a blue palette for the water.

Any advice, comments, etc. would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!

It looks really good but the dark ground stands out too much and I don't understand what the dark ground is supposed to be.

The shading on the top of the upper-right structure and the gate looks weird. Flat planes should have flat shading (unless lit by a nearby point light). I noticed you applied the same weird shading to this other pic:

I'm not sure the palette used mainly for the paths is netting you enough to be worth keeping if you want an extra palette. This is a fairly quick edit:


Will this path style look worse than what you had even if it weren't a quick edit? Sure. But you get another palette, and I think that's a good trade.

If this will be on hardware, you should keep the effects of composite video in mind.

That building was suppose to be an elevated storage building with a ramp leading up to it. I had issues trying to make it look right. The shadow was suppose to be of the ramp.



I like it. Gives the dark green a clearer purpose.



It will be, yes. Is there a way to emulate those effects? What should be avoiding if I do?

Just to clarify. The bottom part of the house isn't suppose to look like a gate. It's suppose to be the support beams that elevate the house slightly (typical of those homes)