SuperLink

Chi has a basis in real life and is used in real martial arts and healing. There are of course doubts that it's "real" but there has been a pretty strong following of it and research put into it for hundreds of years. It's because chi supposedly actually exists that it's such a common aspect in fiction in the first place. It's an easy starting point for any creator that wants to expand to bizarre levels on the limits of human potential. Fiction like Dragon Ball and Avatar obviously exaggerate chi just like JoJo exaggerates willpower into a physical manifestation. Willpower exists, but Stands obviously don't exist even though they are a product of "that stuff". Just because energy flow and chi has a basis in reality doesn't mean Sami is saying he can't wait for glowing balls and laserbeams to come to Matt Murdoch's hands. Since chi has a history in reality, how energy flow is studied as a legitimate aspect in both martial arts and healing, and full body robot suits don't have a history in reality.. It's pretty obvious which one, at least in this situation, is more "grounded". Anyway, I saw a couple eps of Daredevil the other day and while it's a bit violent for my tastes I was beyond impressed by the long fight scene in the corridor that was all one cut. No cuts throughout the entire thing. Bloody amazing for American action, you really don't see that kind of thing often at all outside of Asian action.

You're not wrong that lighting makes a big difference and I never said you were. I also never said there wasn't a difference between the Dark Souls images you posted but even that game was designed for a specific platform with the lighting in mind from point one before being pressured with parity afterwards. Even in the worse looking version the environments at least still look interesting and well-designed. Even the example you use here; While the final version looks hugely different and there's no denying that, there is still more exciting background detail and organic level design in this image than there is in this; The Sonic example looks very unfinished sure but it also still looks organic, not repetitive or dull. I feel like you're totally missing my point here if all you took from my posts is "lighting doesn't make a difference". Also weaker hardware is totally capable of having stuff going on in the background, less-repetitive looking areas, more organic looking design, all that is more than possible on weaker hardware and I don't know where you've been gaming for the last 20 years if you think the only difference between this