I'm trying to untangle my response to how the Ocarina of Time remake looks

I initially thought the new art for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake had too much detail. That was my first impression, but not my first feeling. My initial reaction was emotional. A familiar character turned in the trailer, and I recoiled, something I hadn't considered before. Then, I wondered why it looked weird and wrong.

I compared it to the original game's triangular and pyramidal landscapes, and how each character's face was a collection of polygons. I then reflected on how the original game's aesthetic was tied to its technology limitations, and how this remake had removed those constraints, leading to a more detailed appearance. This made me wonder if my reaction was because of this change.

The remake's aesthetics became separated from the technology, creating too much detail, rain, and grass. I wasn't an original thinker, and this reasoning might have been inspired by Gareth Damian Martin's analysis of Shadow of the Colossus remake. However, upon rewatching the trailer, the weirdness lessened. My wife, a big fan of the original Ocarina of Time, had a similar reaction to mine.

She likened watching it to watching Friends on a large modern 4K TV screen, stating she didn't want to see the characters' faces in such detail. After discussing it with others, some found the art appealing, but it was still strange. I began to consider that my opinions on the art were changing, and I'm not the only one. Our feelings about a game's appearance are quite fluid, depending on various factors.

The more time we spend with a game, the more our perspective shifts. I've started to think of playing games as a prompted hallucination, blending the act of playing with the memory of playing. This memory lasts much longer than the actual experience, and its changeability is a significant aspect. I recalled watching the trailer again and noticed it felt more vivid and less odd this time.

It felt familiar, blending elements from Breath of the Wild and other Zelda games while revisiting the sequences I knew well from Ocarina of Time. Now, it felt like a description of a daydream I once had, but the daydream was mine, and the description was someone else's.