I replay Skies of Arcadia every year, just to make sure my Dreamcast still works.
This is what it looks like:
A lot of the shadows are painted into the textures.
This Ninjas hands dont even have fingers........but I still have an absolute blast going through this game.
It generally doesnt take long to get used to a games artstyle even the older ones.
If im playing a more modern game, shadows is usually the first thing I tweak to get the game to look right because lighting affects how a game looks so much, by proxy the shadows need to look good.
Texture quality is usually next cuz nothing more grating than a low res texture in an otherwise amazing environment.
Anti-Aliasing isnt too expensive these days, especially with DLSS if I can push higher I will......in more fast paced games i might lower AA if its costing me frames.