Link's hair doesn't look like straw anymore.

The visual upgrade will be more noticeable in the enviroments than the character models, expect a vast improvement in draw distance and far fewer jagged edges. Smash has always had good character animations going back to melee on gamecube.

Smash U should destroy the Wii game, so it's kinda disappointing visually.

It's kinda weird that Mario Kart looks better than Retro's game, EAD Tokyo's game, and the new Smash.

Brawl already looked pretty good even compared to All Stars.

Links tunic looks photo-realistic.

Brawl didn't look that good during gameplay though. Those stills (I'm assuming) are probably HD.

They're definitely going for a less realistic look, which explains why the character models don't seem to have been hugely upgraded. You can really see the improvements in the close-ups of Link. The environments look way better than Brawl's.
Brawl always was a good-looking Wii game to begin with.

How much different could he look, he's basically a sphere.

I can see more polygons in the Wii U version though

The Wii U version looks a lot more colorful. Brawl looks washed out.

lol, wth? The textures in most of those comparisons are in the Wii's favor. Why? The Wii U is clearer and less jaggies, pretty much smoother all around but the textures are...last gen..!...!!!! Just look at the Mario comparisons. His overalls have more detail on Wii than Wii U as if the Wii U version was just coloured in with no layering textures. Definition of lazy or maybe Nintendo had too much on their hands with both the 3DS/Wii U combo or maybe they didn't want to far outdo the 3DS version too much. But anyways, will be a great game regardless. Definitely this and MK8 are the main reasons why I will be purchasing the Wii U.

You better blame Namco. They are the one doing the actual coding. Sakurai is directing.