Does anyone else wish the remaster went in a diff direction?

[OilFreak]

Don't get me wrong, I love the control improvements, but the entire visual style feels off to me. Everything is more bright and saturated. The original game had a very angular and polygonal look that part of me wishes was more faithfully translated. It felt like the entire world was a maze that was constructed for you, and that whoever constructed it was watching you. It's the exact same visual design philosophy that was used in Super Metroid.
It's not the visuals not being angular that I don't mind. It's that they didn't go in a more realistic art direction. Before the remaster caused it to be canned, there was a fanmade remaster in the works. As this is my first post here I can't share links, but look up "Aether Primus" on youtube. The project goes in the more realistic direction that I would've liked to see the official remaster take. And yet, while looking at footage of Aether Primus to reference for this post, I noticed that parts of it too look over brightened.
I just don't get the same hypnotically immersive feeling from either remasters that I got when I played the original. I'm not stuck in the past, I'm 18 and played the game for the first time in 2022. Does anyone else feel this way?

[FelixWright]

Remaster probably could have gone in a more 'realistic' direction on stronger hardware. There are some known compromises with the remaster, like the lack of beam glows, because switch hardware is unable to compute things like that while also staying at a stable 60fps.

Honestly I love the vibe both the original and the remaster have and I think it's better they went with something more stylized since that ages better than attempts at realism

[liamnajor]

Don't get me wrong, I love the control improvements, but the entire visual style feels off to me. Everything is more bright and saturated. The original game had a very angular and polygonal look that part of me wishes was more faithfully translated. It felt like the entire world was a maze that was constructed for you, and that whoever constructed it was watching you. It's the exact same visual design philosophy that was used in Super Metroid.
It's not the visuals not being angular that I don't mind. It's that they didn't go in a more realistic art direction. Before the remaster caused it to be canned, there was a fanmade remaster in the works. As this is my first post here I can't share links, but look up "Aether Primus" on youtube. The project goes in the more realistic direction that I would've liked to see the official remaster take. And yet, while looking at footage of Aether Primus to reference for this post, I noticed that parts of it too look over brightened.
I just don't get the same hypnotically immersive feeling from either remasters that I got when I played the original. I'm not stuck in the past, I'm 18 and played the game for the first time in 2022. Does anyone else feel this way?

This sounds like a personal problem. I found the art quite faithful, and Retro did what they do best: Played to the hardware's strengths. That is the entire reason for any differences you noticed. Thermal visor is ass though.