The Mana World Forums

I'm probably not the first person to notice that there are no sprites for the diagonal movement of the characters, is their any reason that they can't have diagonal sprites?

Yes.

Adding diagonal animations would not only double the number of animation phases needed for the playerset but also for every single piece of equipment. Adding new frames to the player sprites increases the work necessary for creating new equipment and thus would mean less equipment variety which would lower gameplay quality.

Quadruple, to be precise

Nope, double. We got everything in four directions and adding diagonals would add four additional directions (when you leave mirroring out of the equation - when you do not it is slightly less because two directions can be reused instead of just one for some items).