Monster AI Upgrade patch

I'm sure its possible... tho I don't know about fading in and out... but some sort of visual sprite change that doesn't feel totally blunt or abrupt...

I don't think you can fade a pixel on the SNES. Transparency is a color of the palette (color 0 for monsters) and a pixel only has RGB values (5 bits each, remaining bit is unused). There is no way to give it a transparency value like the ARGB format.

However as you said, you could use a "death" animation, a bit like the one Seigfried use on Phantom Train. Easy way is to use this, what is cooler is coding a custom one that is closer to fading!