The HD transition was tough on many devs, Nintendo included.

If we rule out Zelda/BOTW to keep things interesting, which series from Nintendo do you think had the best HD debut, and why?

You don't get BoTW without Xenoblade X. So that's my pick.

Yoshi's Woolly World. Looks great and gameplay wise, it's not too different to Yoshi's Island (which is my favourite game), so I really enjoyed it.

Bit of a cheat, given that Luigi's Mansion on GC dates back to 2001 and Dark Moon was on (hardware-wise) fairly anemic handheld, but Luigi's Mansion 3 (besides arguably being best looking Switch 1 game) is astronomical jump in visuals compared to its SD ancestors.

If you ever played Xenoblade X on the Wii U, you know there is no other answer. Even on the Switch it's still one of the most impressive open worlds ever.

Mario Kart 8 or Pikmin 3. It's the only two Nintendo IPs (internally developed, not out-sourced or co-produced) where I played them and the HD didn't get in the way or pull me out of the game and make me think about said HD. They were just MK and Pikmin games, only for (then) modern consoles.

Either 3D World or MK8.

Probably is MK8 but I'll vote for 3D World to give it some appreaciation.

How?

Even if the base version of MarioKart 8 was comically lacking in what it had to offer (roster, gameplay modes, tracks), I’d still say this Nintendo franchise saw the best transition to HD. Game looks incredible even by today’s standards! And that music… ooh so good! In addition to being the most fun game on Wii U, yeah, I can’t not go with MarioKart.

Honorable mentions would be Pikmin 3 or SM3DWorld. Both are great games, look and run very nice, even if they are the lowest point of their respective series (which, I mean, the “weakest” Pikmin and 3D Mario is still better than like 99% of games IMO lol).

Mario Kart 8