I do think that a graphical upgrade was needed, contrary to popular belief, I'm sure. But what we got is questionable at best.

First of all, people consistently struggle to see the difference between old and new, they get it mixed up. For characters, old often looks better to people. It is easy to convince an outsider that old is new and vice versa. A graphical upgrade of this caliber should be an obvious improvement. I think it is hard to justify the increased system requirements for such little gain.

For the environment I felt more "wow" seeing this game with a reshade that with the upgrade. The old graphics struggle with desaturated colors and low contrast, the new improves on that, but compared to simply using nvidia shader settings, the hit to performance isn't worth it.

Characters are more high resolution across the board, but at the cost of their integrity, and honestly nothing about it looks impressive from an artistic point. I'm very disappointed, I don't think this is up to par for Square Enix or Final Fantasy quality at all. It appears rushed and poorly planned.

I also fear the worst is yet to come if these issues are not addressed before launch (and I doubt they will).