This is what happens when people who don't actually program anything go on Wikipedia. They quote hardware numbers and basically make up their own science.
A perfect example of why the bittage of the CPU dont mean shit:
Look at street fighter II on the Commodore 64. Its a 6502 juuuust like the PCE. Where it falls short is the VIC-II and its unimpressive video chip. SOMETIMES the VIC-II makes some pretty cool lookin stuff. Most of the time, its very crummy and washed out looking....it all depends how hip the artist is. (Mayhem in Monsterland = <3. Nice and colorful.)
colors aside, it can't really keep up with a game like street fighter. Same CPU (sort of), wayyyy different result.
BEHOLD:
A very big sprite to animate the little 8-bit core PCE
I think alot of people are convinced anything that is pixelated/2d/in a game is a "sprite".
You might be able to use some wizardry and make it a background tile that moves up and down. If not, 2 or so sprites (i dont know how big that boat is off hand) can EASILY be drawn and moved constantly during the game loop.