I’ll go as far as to say Sabre’s lighting and coloring were terrible. The covenant interiors look nothing like their original counterparts. All the creepiness is gone. Frankly they ruined the entire look and vibe of halo CE. You also can shoot objects you can’t see because their overlay trick - which is admittedly very clever - needed more polish and sanding down of the edges. Nothing worse than shooting from behind a boulder only to find it’s 6in higher than it looks and your bullets are just stopping mid air.

I only play on original graphics (the upscaling is great).

Agreed. That was the first time I had really had an attachment to an original and then played the remaster. Of course, these are my opinions, but it felt as if any level with an originally dark atmosphere completely lost it. All of the architecture was overcomplicated for no real aesthetic gain.

Being able to flip between the remaster and original with a button is a great feature, but really damned it further for me.

For the most part, a good remaster should feel as if it's a continuation of the original style, MCC's version of CE just felt like they did that a quarter of the way, then a giant mutation occurred and warped it the rest of the way into something... different

Specifically, MCC's version of Halo 1 is modelled after the Gearbox PC port of Halo CE, which is where the lighting and texture jank originates from.