The fine folks at DF have delivered their technical analysis of Nintendo's latest.

The basics:

- Runs on Unreal Engine 4

- Dynamic 900p when docked

- Dynamic 720p when portable

- Anti-aliasing has been added (It was absent from Pikmin 3)

- Stable 30fps at almost all times

- Geometry, materials and lighting all improved over Pikmin 3

They said it runs 810p-900p dynamically scaleing (docked), and spends more time at 810p than at 900p. (same with handheld mode 600p-720p)
Still runs 30fps (almost always), but now has AA.

It looks good imo (visually), for a pikmin game.

It does look good, but I seem to remember Pikmin 3 looking better on Wii U. Maybe its just because it was the first time the series was i HD and that had a big impact on me. I dont know. I was just expecting it to look a little better I guess. Great game though.

I feel like memory, time, and context can kinda play tricks on us, in that when Pikmin 3 came out in 2013 our brains compared it to the PS3/360 games that were out at the time, whereas with Pikmin 4 we unconsciously compare it more to today's much more advanced games which skews the comparison a little.

Pikmin 4's new camera angle also means you see the assets more up close.

Good points. Hopefully we dont have to wait 10 years for Pikmin 5:)

When Pikmin 3 came out I thought it had the best-looking leaves and fruit in any videogame up to that point. Nowadays the ground textures look flat and many creature models have noticeable pointed angles where they should be round thanks to relatively low polygon counts. Pikmin 4 is a huge improvement on both of those fronts. The textures are so much better up close and the models are so much more rounded.

Some people like to harp on the relative lack of improvements to Switch ports of Wii U games or Switch sequels that use the Wii U games as the base without taking into account that the systems have very different architectures. This really shows what can be done when a sequel is built from the ground up for the Switch instead of starting with the engine and assets of the Wii U predecessor. It even runs at a higher resolution than Pikmin 3 Deluxe on the same system despite all of its improvements to the base assets.

Not just for a Pikmin game, its easily one of the best looking Switch games. I'd say it's in competition for No.1, the somewhat low resolution is the only down side.

Luigi's Mansion 3 is cleaner but also less ambitious

I mean its a Switch game, what Switch game has better ground textures, materials or asset density then this? 

Wii U is comparative to home consoles of its time (PS3/360), PS4/X1 were brand new. Switch is not comparative to PS4 however, which is in itself a decade old lol

Thats a matter of tastes.... I guess.
I think theres alot of games that look visually more impressive than Pikmin 4, on the switch.

Super Mario Odyssey, Paper Mario The Origami King, Dragon Quest XI S, Final Fantasy 12 - The Zodiac Age, Octopath Traveler 1+2, Persona 5 Royal , Mario + Rabbids games,... ect ect.

It comes down to art style, and preferances I think.
But pikmin, while looking good compaired to older pikmin games, just doesnt wow me at all.
I think unless your a fan of pikmin games, these improvements to graphics are just going to brush off most people.

I can understand preferences but most of the games you mentioned aren't particularly impressive in terms of pushing graphical fidelity on the switch.