Holy moly. It looks great. Check this out.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8-2TF3Okyw

I wanted a remake more than anything, after seeing this I much prefer the original

Art style isn't much different but the polygon count and texture quality are gamecube level here. also there area few lighting effects and of course better IQ. 

It looks pretty good. It shows how responsive the controls are and that's the hallmark of Mario 64. I like it but there's no way Nintendo will let it fly.

Yeah...no.  There's a planetary difference, this remake just lacks imagination with its texture work and meshes so the game doesn't look as good as it could.  But there is an enormous difference from a technical standpoint.

I think its great. Glad he didn't try changing the textures/look of the original. Just makes it nice and clean and sharp for HD.

The issue with it is that it lacks to soul of mario 64 so I prefer the original

We don't play for technical quality. I'm sure you could make out lots of graphical techniques being used. But Ka-pi96 is right - from the perspective of a person playing a game, rather than someone judging the game's graphical techniques, it looks pretty much the same. It's not just lack of imagination - it's overall experience. It may have more polygons. It may have "better lighting". But it looks no more realistic, no more artistic, and no more functional than the original.

And since we don't usually judge games by directly comparing versions side by side, we use our memories, which naturally means that we aren't counting polygons, but rather judging the overall appearance. And like I said, beyond some tweaks to the level (like having that curious jump at the top of the hill - maybe that was in the DS version?) it really just looked like the same game, with nothing notable to differentiate it, even visually, from the original.

I will give one bit of props, though - they did a good job of capturing Mario's movements, considering that it would have had to be coded from scratch.

If I was going to play Mario 64 remake, I'd wait till an official Nintendo remake is made.... :/

I don't knwo what you guys mean by lacking imagination. The art-style is almost exactly the same. It seems to me that they intentionally didn't change the texturework to make it more imaginative. That is why it looks bland. They wanted to stay true to the original.