Is it just me, or does that fishes eye follow you around the room? 
The restrictions against using ultra-high polygon models comes mainly form hardware limitations as opposed to SoM limitations. So I don't think there's a workaround. Even in new games, models are usually only around 1000 vertices each. Games like Resident Evil 5 that have a very high-poly player model have to scrimp on play-area and have small environments etc to keep overall poly-count down.
Like Verdite is saying, I think the best effects are going to come from having good textures rather than high-poly mesh. I like to start with high-resolution textures because they're easier to edit/paint without making things look blotchy. When I'm satisfied with the look, I downsize 256x256. The critter body I'm working on right now started as a cylinder with 10 divisions and is very low-poly, (~300 vertices so far), but it looks ok when you slap a decent texture on it.
I don't know if anyone has learned how to use UVPowerUnwrapLive yet (metasequoia plugin), but it makes it quite easy to setup decent UV texturing.
The restrictions against using ultra-high polygon models comes mainly form hardware limitations as opposed to SoM limitations. So I don't think there's a workaround. Even in new games, models are usually only around 1000 vertices each. Games like Resident Evil 5 that have a very high-poly player model have to scrimp on play-area and have small environments etc to keep overall poly-count down.
Like Verdite is saying, I think the best effects are going to come from having good textures rather than high-poly mesh. I like to start with high-resolution textures because they're easier to edit/paint without making things look blotchy. When I'm satisfied with the look, I downsize 256x256. The critter body I'm working on right now started as a cylinder with 10 divisions and is very low-poly, (~300 vertices so far), but it looks ok when you slap a decent texture on it.
I don't know if anyone has learned how to use UVPowerUnwrapLive yet (metasequoia plugin), but it makes it quite easy to setup decent UV texturing.