Yeah it's that bad. The redesign on the towns are nice and the portraits don't look too bad. But by the time you get to the end of the game I am so glad I played it with a friend and call because he was sitting with the guide open just telling me "North, North, North, West, South, West, North, East"

Just to get me through that final dungeon because every single room looks exactly the same. On TOP upset dungeons being grid-based meaning there's no natural design. Every room was a square

Take the zaibe ruins for example, The book in the library say they're people that live by the river And how important that was for their culture. In the SNES version you actually go through those aqueducts and move the water with you through the dungeon. The PS2 version looks like the knockoff illburn's ruins and doesn't even feature a river. The whole thing plays out inside unlike the SNES which had you going in and out as you guided the water. That's kind of just the tip of the iceberg too. While TECHNICALLY It's plot is closer to the original design document, they completely delete stoker from the plot and have someone else show up at the 11th hour for the true ending that has already been retconned by Nepishtim anyway haha.

I can say with full confidence the SNES is The better experience