Allow me to oblige, good sir!

I do find it a tad disappointing that, where every previous game by Retro pushed its respective hardware, this plays it relatively safe, essentially taking a Wii engine, scaling up the resolution, and adding some next gen fur and water effects.

The Wii U, and Retro, are capable of more.

But that does not dampen by hype for it one bit; I buy games for the gameplay, not the graphics, and I have not been this excited for a game since DKCR in 2010.

A tad disappointing, sure. But in the end, I think the trend of Retro producing games with beautiful art design at a constant 60 fps... is more important than intentionally trying to make the hardware sweat profusely.

Amazing trailer. Hype turned way up for me after that.

They used to do both; Metroid Prime 2 and 3 made the Gamecube and Wii hardware sweat profusely while still running at 60fps and having gorgeous art direction. ;)

For the trailer in very high quality:
http://www.nintendo.com/nintendo-direct/archive/02-13-2014/#/video-ndirect

(skip to 27:34)

i disagree. even if subtle, the improvements over the Wii game are notable on every aspect, which overall makes the impresssion of a bigger gap between the two than the actual real gap...

I so agree with that!!! the music alone was able to make this game looks like the most epic platformer ever! Listened to it at least 20 time in a row tonight. 

The fur looks great, but other than that there is nothing mindblowing about the graphics. To me it looks more of an upscaled Wii game with remade polygons.

The music on the other hand... is what made me pre order. And of course that the gameplay is fun.

Since Fire Emblem x SMT is vaporware, this is definitely my most hyped Wii U game for 2014.

It looks great. Whenever I get a Wii U, this will be one of the games I buy.