Thread: 1.0 vs ARR Areas - A Visual Comparison

That realism came a cost though, with the high graphic fidelity meaning they had to cut corners elsewhere to attain it, which was to the detriment of the game as a whole (and really, that came down to the poor choice of game engine - Crystal Tools was very good at making realistic real-time cutscenes - a fully realized open world was a completely different barrel of moogles.).

For instance, open areas were actually copypasted of the same landform with an occasional unique model like a tree or building, that became a landmark because they stood out - this was especially apparent in 1.0's Black Shroud.
Different sections of a zone were actually seperated by long passageways that hid loading screens - you could tell it was loading in the next area because it noticably paused for a split second (and there were still actual loading screens too - between regions)
Only a few character models were able to be shown on screen at once even in cutscenes - leading to ridiculous situations like the so-called 'parade' in Ul'dah's opening only having a handful of people watching it despite supposedly being a 'crowd',

Really, everything was just empty and samey and dull.

Screenshots and even videos unfortunately really don't show the full story, you had to have been there at the time, experiencing 1.0 in all it's laggy, ill-conceived and poorly optimized erstwhile splendour. ARR truly is the better game in every way.