If it comes down to preference, everyone is going to have different tastes, which is fine. I am just genuinely surprised that some people don’t have issues with graphics. However, in a case like aoe 4 which got lots of criticism, or even halo 6 launch trailer got lots of criticism, there are times where something crosses the line from nuanced subjective differences in taste, to collectively becoming an objective issue. The plastic issue is more the buildings. I feel if they fixed the plastic look of the buildings, and made the terrain art style closer vanilla, I would be satisfied. The human units look good. Some of the myth units have that plastic look to it.
I am not the first only one to comment on the plastic look of buildings and the terrain.
The whole point of doing the definitive editions was to make faithful remasters of the originals. I feel many of these studios want to “draw in new players” when the same players for years tell the devs what not to do, and they still do it anyways. This is why so many franchises are failing because these studios are not putting in the work that many legacy titles used to get.
I’m fine with saying the graphics are an improvement. I’m fine with saying many people may like the art style. But for anyone to say the art style matches the legacy, it really does not. I would challenge anyone who thinks so to go do a deep dive and compare legacy aoe 2 with with de, and the same for aoe 3. You will see the updated visuals are vastly more faithful to their legacy titles than retold.
There are differences, for sure. For example Atlantean military units. In legacy AoM, there were scale armor, spikes on shields, and other small details that were aimed to make the soldiers look less Roman and give them a “Atlantis” theme. It wasn’t perfect, and with several units, the Roman influence was still easily noticeable, but that Roman influence was because the devs had been working on a Roman civ that was scrapped during development, and they were basically work that had already been done being reused and repurposed.
Retold Atlantean soldiers are unapologetic about their Roman influence, choosing to make the designs more accurate to the Roman gladiators and soldiers they were originally made to be, forgoing the scale armor and fish theme for them that was used to try and counteract the Roman influence.
This basically implied that the Atlanteans are somehow connected to the Romans, and are somehow supposed to be proto-Roman, which the story in the original game never even actually hints at.
There are several changes to artstyle I can live with. There might be even a handful of changes I prefer over the original. But the emphasis on, instead of further softening of, the Roman influence on Atlantean human units… If they don’t correct this until release, I may end up starting a mod project to do it myself.
Lol, yes, we will get used to it, but it doesn’t mean it’s good or looks like legacy aom.
But we are moving in the right direction it looks like on their official Facebook page they showed a small clip where the color saturation is much much brighter a vibrant. I remain hopeful
I do prefer Atlanteans more similar to Romans as they are now in Retold.
Plato never implied that atlanteans were wearing aquatic-based clothes, it’s usually pop culture or movies that depict atlanteans in this way.
Plato, in his dialogues, just pointed out that atlanteans were insular people and that they had a very rich and sophisticated culture for their time.
Turmae and Contarii are literally roman cavalry units, why should they have aquatic-based clothes?
Now these units are somewhat more historically accurate in their appearance.
You’re right about what you said, but Atlanteans aren’t supposed to be Romans.
The fact that Ensemble reused Roman assets originally meant for a scrapped Roman faction is the only reason Atlantean units seem Roman. No in-universe lore has been established to connect them to the Romans in any way. As I pointed out, they tried to hide it with the aquatic theme. You are right in saying that this is not what Plato described. He never gave a description of Atlantean armor or architecture or clothing, so it could theoretically look like anything. The aquatic theme simply comes from the Poseidon worship Plato described.
But them being Roman, and emphasizing that look, rather than trying to hide it, isn’t them looking like anything. It’s them looking like someone else.
The Atlanteans feel like an amalgamation of ideas, concepts and assets even in the original game. This doesn’t improve that, it highlights it further.
True, but some of the atlanteans units literally have roman names and we know with a certain precision
how these units would have looked like in the past (turmae and contarii being perhaps the most glaring examples).
I do like that they took a more historical approach to these units in general.
Honestly I also like the roman appearance of the armor, shield etc. much more than the hybridous/aquatic one that we had in the original game, but that’s a matter of taste.
Perhaps some of the units couldn’t be easily renamed for code reasons, or they didn’t have time to come up with different names, or simply thought not enough people would notice for it to matter. Whatever it may be, even with the Roman influence the Atlanteans have, due to reused assets, Atlanteans aren’t supposed to be Romans.
I agree with you that the Roman appearence looks very good in isolation, and if that were part of a Roman civ, I’d actually endorse it. I’d argue that the main infantry unit would have to be a legionary instead or a gladiator, and I’d argue they should leave out gladiators, or make them special units. But that’s not an argument about the visuals of the units themselves.
However, the context isn’t Roman, and it’s not meant to be Roman. It’s Atlantean. You wouldn’t give Samurai to the Chinese, right?
The aoe3 picture was taken from a screenshot during the announcement of the Mexican Civilization. It is a carefully crafted city sim map made in scenario mode so not reflective of gameplay.
I posted that right before I went to bed, and didn’t feel like starting a whole game to get an in game screenshot. Since y’all are that nit picky about the screenshots I will do so later tonight.
I would challenge anyone to boot up retold when it comes out side by side with aoe 3 de zoomed in and it is clear that buildong textures, terrain, and grass are vastly superior over retold.
But I digress you guys like the crappy retold graphics so not much really to talk about it
Well mate, instead of getting salty, you don’t have to buy it.
What’s done is done. Whether you like them or not the graphics aren’t going to be changed a particularly large amount now before release. A few visual tweaks here and there possibly, but the game is made in that regard.
So why not just let those who do enjoy the graphics crack on and enjoy them, and if you don’t like em, don’t get the game?
It’s true, a side by side of AOE3DE and AOMR will look different. But a side by side of AOE3 and AOM were also vastly different. They’re different games, with different styles. Same with 1&2. Its not fair to compare AOMR with 3DE because they’re not meant to look similar
I’m just honestly surprised that someone could think that AoMR looks a lot worse then AoE3DE.
I can see that tastes are different but I personally don’t see that many differences between AoE3DE and AoMR.
So I’m curious why someone like you thinks that AoMR looks that bad.
You can’t really argue about subjective things like how much someone likes the visual appearance of something. Even readability is somewhat subjective.
Like the AoMR screenshot you posted looks perfectly readable for me. I can clearly tell where what units are and where the resources are (like Berries or Trees).
I can totally see why people could not like some of the smaller details like the hero glow or how trees look like when they are chopped down. But I can personally not really see why someone could think the game looks really bad and has very bad readability.
i undestand everything about your opinion except for this example. it simply doesn’t fit cause as already mentioned atlantis is an unknown place with an unknown (but it seems sophisticated) culture. chinese did and do exist and we know historically differences between them and japenese ppl.
i think (and hope) i make for guys like you, who have otherwise solid arguments and are really sad about the elimination of the roman empire in AoM, the life and mindset a bit easier when i tell you that maybe atlantean ppl inspired roman ppl and therefore the romans are the ones who used the armor-style of atleanteans.
and yes i think also the new style is great. all units looks great and better than in the orginial. even i personally wouldn’t have mind to see them in a style like numenorians from lord of the rings who also were a (fantasy) maritime-nation.
i honestly like the thought that Atlanteans are a mix of the first romans and the first numenorians/gondorians.
now back to topic:
for me it was a bit hard too when i tried out the game in the beta BUT i really think its cause we all have to get used to it looking way better and way more detailed now. we are about 20 years used to the more “simplistic” graphics of AoM.
hot take: think AoMR looks really beautiful if not the most beautiful rts since starcraft2.
Maybe they’ll introduce some lore where the Atlanteans later become the romans? Who knows. But in the Original, the Romans were never mentioned, or even hinted at, except by the Atlantean units, which is due to reused assets, and not due to any in-universe connection.
My point is, just because Atlanteans are unknown and likely fictional doesn’t mean they can’t have their own look. The look they do have, in case of the military units, is Roman. Ideally, it should be something original. In case that’s not possible, which I don’t necessarily believe, I still don’t think it’s a good idea to just use a design as iconic as Romans pretty much 1:1 (with the few alterations still being there being leftovers from the Original).
Would it be better to use something like the Minoans (which, fun fact, are a likely real life inspiration for Plato to come up with Atlantis in the first place) as the basis for Atlantean units, maybe with a tech-upgrade? Probably not. But since I don’t know what Minoans looked like, nor do many others I assume, (most will probably think of them as generic Greeks) it wouldn’t be as noticeable.
Also, what Ensemble did was “change it a bit, so it’s not obviously copied”, which could have been maintained. Yes, it was lazy, and less than ideal. There’s a reason why Atlanteans were controversial from the very beginning. But it is what it is.
In Retold, they had the opportunity to fix many of the thematic issues with the Atlanteans, and chose not to.
The thing about the Samurai and the Chinese was perhaps not worded well, but it was trying to communicate the same problem. Putting an iconic, easily recognizable character (Roman legionary, Samurai) into a different context (Atlantean, Chinese).
The buildings of the Atlanteans were “inspired” by Incan architecture, but Ensemble changed the roofs, so even if you do look up Inca buildings, you don’t find identic looking portions. You notice matching roof shapes, and other stuff, but still different. And the texture changes do the rest. And those were kept in Retold.
So yes, it resembles Incan architecture, a lot, but unlike with the units, it’s not unmistakably and unambigously Incan buildings.
Sorry mate but I didn’t play AoE3 DE yet. From the screenshots shared I think it’s pretty but SC2 got stuck in my mind as the ultimate comparison. Hope this helps.
(But if you and others insist I will give AoE3 a try when I have the time between duties and AoMR )
The mythological origin of Rome is Troy. Funnily enough it’s also the origin of Britain.
I personally think that the Atlanteans are currently the best civ to represent the Trojans and not the Greeks.
Even the Egyptians would probably be better.
Another reason why it doesn’t make sense to have Atlanteans with Roman armor.
Probably the original story idea was surviving Trojans escaping the siege of Troy and building Rome, taking the Aeneas myth and simplefying it. And they repurposed the story beats to tie in with the Arkantos story better and to more easily introduce the Titans. (the big new feature, along with the new civ)
In Fall of the Trident, you have Arkantos, from Atlantis, fight Trojans on the Greeks side.
Atlanteans and Trojans being the same would directly contradict the main story.
If there’s any place the Atlanteans can fit in Fall of the Trident, being Atlanteans, is Atlantis.
But I’m done trying to argue they should put Atlantean assets there, simply for the sake of lore consistency and continuity. I’m in a minority with that opinion, probably even alone, and should make my peace with that…
I wasn’t thinking about the story but more about how the civ is like gameplay wise.
Atlanteans have a lot of defensive bonuses and their units look Roman so they are better at representing the Trojans then the Greeks are in a general sense.
Obviously.
I still hope they use the Atlantians in the campaign in some capacity like in the last 2 missions.
It would be strange for a civilisation like the Atlanteans basically entirely develop within 10 years in Scandinavia.
Absolutely not.
I completely agree with you. I just think for tutorial reasons you should play as the Greeks in the first 2 missions but other then that there should be a lot more Atlantean stuff being used.
Like why not make the background buildings in the first mission all Atlantean, as long as the Statues are still Poseidon.
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