No, I played the original Riven on Windows 2000. This looks much worse. For example the embedded videos aren’t aligned properly and they clearly have different color correction so they pop out from the rest of the static images. And, I could be wrong but it just seems much more pixelated or lower color fidelity. I realize having a better quality monitor and higher resolution might explain some of that, but regardless of the technical explanation the user experience becomes worse than playing on contemporary equipment. They should have used a better upscaling algorithm. There were other issues too that I can’t recall at this moment. Just the fact that you get the geek-oriented ScummVM interface in your face when you buy a game is kind of jarring.
Most things you describe are the side effects of displaying a 640x480 game on a modern LCD. I agree, however, that the default settings make the game look worse because of aspect ratio correction and the default nearest neighbor scaler. Both can be improved by either using an SVGA CRT or a pixel shader.
