For those reading who may not remember or have played the original FF7, here are links to pre-rendered backgrounds in FF7:

https://www.jmeiners.com/pre-rendered-backgrounds/img/ff7.jp...

and the image in the article about Meta's library:

https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/blogs/2023-july-blog-...

Not apples-to-apples because FF7 was NTSC resolution and heavily compressed.

If FF7 were rendered at the same resolution, I think it would be comparable. Here's an FF7 AI upscale mod for reference:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/a-full-high-res-ai-upscale-...

Pre-rendered? Sure. In-game? No. I think the art direction is half of the problem here. You can place lighting much better and the textures are lacking.

there is no "art direction" by Meta or the people working on this project; this is a reference scene for PBR pipelines.

https://developer.nvidia.com/orca/amazon-lumberyard-bistro

You are right, the lighting makes the original scene look worse.