I have a little time into Tears of the Kingdom at this point. I like the gameplay a lot. However, in many respects, it looks two or three generations old.  The way foliage moves reminds me of the PS2, OG Xbox days.  Link's hair looks like crap. The graphics in general feel like a quality indie game from 10-15 years ago.  

I know this is all to be expected with Switch.  And that is the problem.  It was one thing with Breath of the Wild, 6 years ago.  It was just cool to have new Nintendo hardware at that point, even if it already felt outdated when compared to competitors.  But, we're now at the end of the Switch's life cycle, and well into a new console generation for Sony and Microsoft.  And, I find it disappointing that I am playing one of Nintendo's flagship titles on hardware that feels so out of date.  

I've used my Switch a lot the last several months, playing Mario Kart and Kirby with my son.  Those games are fine on Switch. They don't need great graphics to feel like great games.  But, Tears of the Kingdom could clearly benefit a lot from more powerful hardware. I'm finding it hard to feel like it's a truly great AAA game when it is just so graphically behind modern AAA titles

I hope that a Switch successor comes soon, and that it isn't quite as far behind technologically as the Switch was in the eighth generation. 

It is what it is at this point I guess. There probably will be a new system in 2024, so not really that much longer to wait for that. 

Unfortunately the Zelda for that system is probably a long, long wait from now, lol.

Honestly haven't thought much about the graphics, clearly not as good looking as current consoles, but I never notice it when I'm playing. The game is just pure fun and doing things creatively we aren't seeing other consoles.

I mean... nintendo has never really done too well when they tried to appeal to the market by sheer hardware power.

its almost always been when its the most affordable option/ has a killer feature/app while still being affordable that they won.

they barely outsold the genesis in the 16 bit war, completly bungled up the n64 and gamecube sales wise, and when they tried to one up the competition by opening the generation like 2 years early with the wii U they crashed and burned.

even more so with handhelds. gameboy had none of the flashy expensive stuff and it blew everything else out the water by being cheap and long lasting battery wise, and the 3ds struggled initially untill they dropped the price by 40% (something that the more advanced vita, already loss leading at 250, could not follow).
the only sucess i can think of where nintendo blew competition out of the water and working was the GBA, which with its superior hardware and decent price literally blew away any semblence of niche competion in the hardware space that still existed at that point.

I think the game has a great artstyle. Only visual issues i have are frame drops and resolution. But honestly the game looks very visually appealing to me because of its artstyle.

The art style carries it as far as it can but it definitely looks dated.

Not only it is a 900p 30fps game but some of the more barebones areas (like the mountains around Kakariko village for instance) make me think I'm playing Oblivion again back in 2006.

Edit - or, at least, BOTW on the Wii U (a game done with a CPU that ultimately comes from the GameCube and late 90s PowerPC archs). Makes me wonder if that will be detrimental to the game since parents will look and think it's just BOTW again and they've already paid for that.

Yeah, that's all true.  I believe they are further behind tech-wise right now than they ever have been though.  This is the first time that I've ever really felt like it was a problem. But, if they're going to stay two generations behind everybody else, I imagine it won't be the last. 

It won't be for much longer. Switch 2 will be out soon. I actually think it's not as bad as the Wii days, SD content on HDTVs looked really, really rough. 

At TOTK is HD resolution. 

I completely disagree. At no point did it occure to me that anything looked crap.
I actually think Link's hair look better than the hair in many far more graphically advanced games look. Hair are often a weak point in almost photo realistic games.

Like any art, some of it comes down to personal preference. That said, like any art, there are also some objective criteria that can be used to evaluate.