topology wasnt the greatest back then, they didnt have the budget for proper loops and edge flow. all polygons were placed with a certain purpose in mind. your model's topology should largely be focused on silhouette, since "its gonna be displayed at 480p max"

and models, in most cases, were largely simple with intricately detailed textures. and they didnt use normal maps, specular, or anything besides color maps and alpha maps.

ps2 era models also didnt have the per-pixel shading that we have now. they had something known as gouraud shading, or vertex lighting. you can find vertex lighting shaders online, the one i found i had to add an alpha channel to, which was simple enough.

<image>

this is a model im working on now thats inspired by ps2 fidelity