I love Higurashi’s Steam sprites! They’re actually full of emotion (something that the Alchemist sprites lack, and they definitely lack a lot of poses).
However, after looking over the Pachinko art book, I just really wish Umineko was as popular as Higurashi to warrant a Sprite batch commission. Battler and George look especially hideous and inhuman, and the sprites except for 34-tan and Erika all lack the expressions and life Ryukishi has in his sprites (not to mention, there are maybe a total of seven total expressions per character when that is far from the case with the original sprites). I also dislike the Umineko Alchemist sprites, as they’re extremely static and again, the expressions don’t fit well except with Erika and 34-tan. For example, when the end of EP4 came, I was legitimately scared by that expression (you know the one), but in the PS3 version, I rolled my eyes because it looked so off. While Ryukishi does have that puni plushie style of art, I always loved that his sprites have so much emotion! It’s such a shame that for me, only the Steam Higurashi sprites come close to evoking the feeling that Ryukishi gave in the original.