Well -- in general, it's meant to be viewed in motion. In terms of the perspective, it's the same perspecetive used by a ton of SNES games, including Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger. For examples of what I mean:
SoM:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=secret+of+manaCT:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=chrono+triggerBoth use a straight-on, very fakey perspective, as did most SNES games. The characters and a lot of other elements are 100% side view, as are buildings, while a lot of other stuff is top-down or at a sort of straight-on variant of a 3/4 view. SoM had some very loose blob shadows, and some even looser boxy shadows for buildings, but most of the time CT did not even do that. And in my opinion, CT was the
much nicer-looking game.
To some extent, you're seeing things a lot out of context, here, which is regretful. In a lot of senses, I want the outside areas of the sort shown in that latest thread to look muddled and confusing -- rather like happened in Far Cry.
Far Cry screens:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=far+cry+jungleThe effect is to mask the visibility of enemies, and create a sense of tension and unease. I spent half of my youth outside in the woods (the other half inside playing video games), and I can tell you that in summer or spring this is exactly how forests at least in my area are. They are dense, you can't tell one plant from another, and you find yourself climbing as much over and through bracken as you do around it. It's very disconcerting, especially when you run into a sunning snake or a pissed off raccoon.
This sort of feeling is something I'm really trying to capture with the outdoor plants, where it's really a riot of movement and tendrils, and you can't see your legs, let alone your feet.
By contrast, the inside areas will be a mess as well, but more the typical rubble-and-trash-underfoot type of mess that doesn't restrict your visibility of yourself or enemies. Whereas the more high-tech areas will be very smooth and clean and sci-fi. And more wintry areas will be more about larger expanses of snow, etc.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of generic "grass is green and flat, let's walk on it" RPGs and adventure games. Zelda 2 gave the illusion of high grass in its side-view areas, but it was only a backdrop. I want to see that more as it would actually have been could they have done more. Same with Far Cry, I love how the jungles there restrict visibility and create new challenges and opportunities when it comes to combat with my enemies.
We'll see how it all shakes out, but I will say that since it's all procedurally generated is is pretty easy to make sweeping changes to the game. Anyway, I'm going for an odd mix of cartoony and realistic, and I haven't fully figured out all the bounds with it. But in terms of the plants, that's definitely something I've always been wanting to do something more like a modern 3D game with, in terms of creating a sense of realism there.