Did any games use background tiles for "sprites"?

[tepples]

On the Neo Geo, how many strips can be on one screen and one scanline?

[MottZilla]

Metal Slug on NeoGeo constructs something that looks like a normal background layer and I suspect other games may do the same.

I've seen numbers being up to 380 sprites on screen and up to 96 per scanline. One thing that should be noted is that the NeoGeo does have a static layer, usually used for overlays such as health bars, Credit Counters, and current Difficulty Level. These things appear to be 8x8 tiles.

[psycopathicteen]

I always wondered how much money it really took to produce a Neo Geo AES.