Zelda looks realistic to them?

No, the author posits that Zelda explicitly goes for artistry and ignores any pretense of realism (that then falls flat on it's face when using an over-contrasting tone-map like in the HZD screenshot).

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jan_Inkepa 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The problem I personally have with the Zelda example given is that it looks really bland to me - the landscape looks really washed out - the author says "Somebody would paint this. It’s artistic.", but I don't think anyone would paint with such bleached-out colours.

	▲	jcelerier a day ago \| parent [-]
		yeah, no one would ever do that https://artlogic-res.cloudinary.com/w_2000,h_1600,c_limit,f_...

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phoronixrly 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh, I see. I disagree that the original HZD had a pretense of realism though. The remastered version does and well illustrates the uncanny-ness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlWK_ELBW08 . The outrageous god rays, bloom and lens flare in the remaster compensate for that because you can't actually see anything due to them blinding you...