As a Nintendo fan I agree with you %120! I could not have agreed more and I don't think anyone has said it better than you in this particular thread! You deserve an award for this post! :) People will disagree but in all honesty, it is them in denial.

LOL
MK8 looks cartoony and the graphics is great, I'ms sorry but Star Fox zero's graphics is just straight up trash.

My contribution to the "all Nintendo games look the same" debate:

This just proves his ignorance about some 90% of the games out there.

I've always had issues with this argument.

Realistic graphics are to stylized graphics as pre-victorian art is to modern art (or dance pre-Isadora Duncan to post). Capturing what is can be as artful and as effective any interpretive art. Take photography as an example: a single shot could raise a thousand emotions. Endless debate. Internal conflict. It's not just simply devoid of artistic value or lacking in vision as some have said here - it's simply an avenue the creator felt best for the given context in their game. Realism wouldn't perhaps be the best idea for a game wbout a fox space pilot. But for an alien shooter with intentions of dramatic tone and atmosphere - oh, hell yeah, give me realism. It's a much more effective artistic direction.

Games focusing on realism is a big part of why I'm still with Nintendo. I want to play games to escape from the daily grind, not to see the exact same warfare that I see on the evening news.

That's not to say that the other consoles don't have some extremely creative games with unique art-styles. It's just that I still think that Nintendo does it best. Take Yoshi's Woolly World for example, I don't think you can find a game who's entire presentation is more singly-focused on making you feel good than this game!

ahhhhh. This is one of the reasons i stick with nintendo through some of their confusing and, frankly, dumb decisions. This is one area we are on the same page with. Not only do alot of games out there lack a unique graphic style, but when you try for photo-realism you end up making a game that looks really dated in 5-10 years. A good example of this is killzone. It was once touted for it's amazing graphics, but when i tried to go back and play it more recently i couldn't get past the ugly ugly visuals. If you go back and play games like windwaker, borderlands or conker's bad fur day you still get a feel for the character of the game without really being distracted by how old the graphics are.
Now i'm not going to sit here and say "only nintendo makes unique visuals", but they are the most consistent in that area. With that said i am really looking forward to the last guardian and zero horizon on the ps4 and am pretty jealous of Recore and sunset overdrive on the xb1. It's just a shame that it seems like these games are in the minority when it comes to original and creative graphics.

That was one of the better opinions i've read on this forum pearljammer.  I'll rebut with a compromise.  I actually dug some of the designs for the mass effect aliens and weapons, but i hated the facial animations.  A facial/human model i prefer 10 fold is the resident evil style.  I feel like it still gives a feeling of realism while simultaniously smoothing over the animatic imperfections of games like mass effect.  

Thanks.

Boy are you spot on about ME animations. That head turn at the end of every conversation was awful.

I think that when we see realistic graphics, we anticipate real-like animation and dialogue. When done poorly, they're particularly noticable and jarring. When done ably, they're world-building. Movement is so extraordinarily complex that I'm unsure animation will ever become great, but I think the compromise made is often far more beneficial to achieve overall tone. I can't imagine ME accomplishing its tone and atmosphere with, say an art style similar to Ratchet and Clank, regardless of animation.

You got to leave it to this guy to fail at spinning technical achievements by creating realism into something negative.

If other companies, developers mostly make the same realistic games, then Nintendo mostly make cartoon style games.

But people here won't point the above because that is what they like.