Hi guys !
First of all let’s say something : I wish to thank Microsoft and the devs inside of Xbox Games Studios for all the amazing work they’ve done ! It’s really great to have a chance to play AoE 2 in a definition and graphic level of this ammount and I’m really happy that it exists ^^
What I’ll do here is nitpicking, but I think it’s important that everyone tells what they think to help improve the game.
My main problem with the new graphics is that they tend to be less impressive than AoE 1 DE.
Gold and Stone seem really weird, too close to the orignal material, where the first DE was really impressive in this regard ! Why didn’t they keep the same idea ?
The water is also not impressive at all, really close to the HD Edition… Where the water in the first one is outstanding in comparison. Same for fishes or other animals ! 
In fact, all the textures of terrains and grounds are really close to the source material… maybe a bit too much. I mean, for a game that weighs 42GB (AoE DE weighs 18GB), we can expect something oustanding, not something so close to the HD Edition…
Here’s other nitpicks as an old fan : It’s nice that they kept the blood, but why not keeping the skeletons ? It was something I really liked as a teenage, because that added some realism to the death of the units. Wish they could come back.
Also the Axe Throwers of the Franks seem much less impressive than in the original game. Their arms are much thinner even though they lift impressive double axes x)
Maybe they should go back to more massive throwers if changes can be done !
Anyway, I don’t know if it’s because not everything has been finished concerning graphics in general, but I think there should be much more impressive graphics than what we have here (even though it’s still awesome don’t get me wrong !) for a game that weighs the size of a Total War.
AoE DE, did a better job in this regard…
