I love Mario Kart and I love Super Smash Bros. Their some of my favorite gaming franchises. That being said, they've never exactly been the best looking games. That's not to say that they weren't aesthetically pleasing, but the two series were never known for their impressive graphics and art design.

But now we have Mario Kart 8, which looks kind of amazing. The team has really stepped up the presentation, but unfortunately that kind of makes SSB for Wii U look dissapointing by comparison. The game is still nice, but it is no Mario Kart 8 equal by any means. I'm kind of hoping that this new direct will kind of show off the game's graphics and surprise us just like with what happened with Super Mario 3D World. But I doubt it. Still, here's to hoping.

(It's still my most anticipated game of the year though)

Its not disapointing. SSB looks good, but MK8 looks stunning fabulous.

Its like comparing GTA5 sales to Pokemon XY. Pokemon XY looks bad comparing that to GTA5 but in reality XY did great but GTA5 Broke Records!!!

its cause of split development.

One is 1080p, the other 720p. Smash would have looked much better at 720p due to freed resources. Currently it looks 'fine', not necessarily bad or OMG awesome either.

MarioKart looks to be using a lot of 8th-gen graphical techniques in the surfaces and the lighting. Lots of polygons in the models too. I would agree that SSB looks less so. It looks like solid PS360 title in what we've seen thus far. Perhaps before release they will add some polish. It is a bit of a switch; in the past 3D Mario and SSB have been graphical beasts (among the best visuals on Wii) while MarioKart was very weak, visually(again especially on Wii). Now MarioKart has become a visual showcase. The EAD Kyoto Kart team really got their act together in making this game.

I wouldn't be as disappointed with the way SSB looks if the art style on Brawl hadn't been so awesome. Once again, in true Nintendo fashion, they've devolved the look, ditching the rich textures and glossing everything over to look smooth and simple.

Mario's overalls. That's all I'm saying.

Different Developers? Different Type of Game? Different Play styles? Different Game Design? Different Artistic Direction? Different Etc?

Smash doesn't really lend itself to a lot of visual flare like bloom and water physics and whatnot...Its more straightforward in its approach and the graphics take a backseat to the second to second action (any distraction could lead to death)

I still think Smash looks absolutely wonderful in motion though...I don't see much to complain about

Well, we all know 3rd parties can't make beautiful Wii U games. Namco's co-developing the new Smash Bros., so there ya go. MK8 is 1st party.

Comparing a game with a handheld version being made alongside it (with a thorough amount of differences, compared to the duplicity of Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale ), thus splitting the development team (which isn't entirely in-house for these entries, but by a third-party)in half to a game which is on ONE device, thus having the team focus on a SINGLE entry (which IS in-house)?

Stay balanced, VG.