I think you've missed the point in my post.
It's no longer the same, because it isn't. It's 20 years later, and pointing to old models as the peak of what Ys Net can achieve is... pointless. There's no other way of putting it now, that composite shot has been posted enough times that it should be obvious tolerance for changes and improvements is only going to be accepted so far when certain people are so, so married to the notion of "Dreamcast model or bust".
Your argument could have been even better. You could have brought up the sega Saturn models and how they weren’t the same in the Dreamcast games because advances had been made in technology and so the models needed to be recreated for a more advanced console and therefore this whole ‘looks like’ argument is redundant.
Here’s my point, I’ve become so accustomed to seeing particular character models look a particular way that they’ve become
recognisable.
This, I believe, is applicable for all; no one wants to see character models that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the Dreamcast models. The latest S3 character model of Ryo has a closer resemblance than the first S3 character model they showed a few years ago and that is the subconscious reason why, I believe, people are happier with images of the latest models.
If you read comments of YouTube videos pertaining S3, there’s clearly a grounswell of opinion from fans that a more recognisable Ryo is desired.
However, after mulling it over I have come to revise my standpoint somewhat. I was remiss to not take into consideration the financial constraints which have hamstrung the devs involved in the making of S3.
It is naive to hope for triple A, the-last-of-us-2 level graphics and realism. Complaints about S3 looking cartooney have got to stop. With a limited budget, and an open-world game being hoped for, the budget has to be used accordingly.
There’s so much more to the game than the character models looking like how they’re supposed to.