Tails Has An Continue Animation As An Life Counter
Yes in the original MegaDrive Sonic 1, all players have small 16x16 Life Counter icons. I have not used those in my game. Some graphics is similar to Sonic 1's, but has been tweeked to fit into 32x32 pixel images. As the handhelds have a small screen resolution, using larger graphics would restrict the amount you can see of the level.