The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey look amazing, because the whole art style of the game and everything in it is optimized for that specific console to not overtax its resources. You just don't get photorealism, but that's okay because the art style accommodates for that. There are a few other games I've played that have great ports or don't have high graphics requirements in the first place. Subnautica looked great, and Return of the Obra Dinn and Hades look great too, though those last two games don't have super high graphics requirements in the first place.
Are we talking Switch original releases only or including ports? Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, and Splatoon 2/3 look excellent, and Okami HD is a great port/remaster that arguably looks better than the original. I haven't bought Monster Hunter Rise yet but it looked stunning in the demo. And of course there's beautiful 2D games like Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, etc. I've found that a lot of Switch games look really good, even launch games from 5 years ago, with really the only flaw in most games being a lot of aliasing.
Maybe my standards are a few years out of date, but personally I think that DOOM or DOOM Eternal looks good (provided that you don't mind dynamic resolution scaling, though it helps the game maintain a really good framerate).
In addition, the Metro games (2033 and Last Light) seem to carry over the atmospheric environments from the other platforms nicely. Curiously, even something like the Crysis games (all three) have been ported over, as has Bioshock (1, 2 and Infinite) and none of them are dumbed down experiences like for the earlier handheld consoles either!
Then again, personally I still think that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a good looking game: a bit more simplistic in comparison to others, sure, but the art direction is good, everything fits together nicely and it's consistent in whatever it tries to do.
I think this is the crux of it: if "today's standards" means every leaf on a tree is an individual element that moves under its own logic in a forest of infinitely visible trees, or straight photorealistic graphics, the Switch won't be there.
But most games don't need to go these lengths, the latest Splatoon 3 has way simpler graphics than that, but visually there's nothing that feels odd or hurts the eye. It looks "good".
Off the top: Monster Hunter Rise, Xenoblade series, Doom 2016 and Eternal, New Pokemon Snap, Zelda BOTW, Luigi's Mansion 3, Super Mario Odyssey, Astral Chain, Crysis, and Alien Isolation.
Zelda Breath of the Wild is one example that definitely looks good, but isn't that graphically intensive, being so heavily stylised rather than realistic
rthomas6|3 years ago
arduinomancer|3 years ago
Cr4shMyCar|3 years ago
scubbo|3 years ago
KronisLV|3 years ago
In addition, the Metro games (2033 and Last Light) seem to carry over the atmospheric environments from the other platforms nicely. Curiously, even something like the Crysis games (all three) have been ported over, as has Bioshock (1, 2 and Infinite) and none of them are dumbed down experiences like for the earlier handheld consoles either!
Then again, personally I still think that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a good looking game: a bit more simplistic in comparison to others, sure, but the art direction is good, everything fits together nicely and it's consistent in whatever it tries to do.
makeitdouble|3 years ago
I think this is the crux of it: if "today's standards" means every leaf on a tree is an individual element that moves under its own logic in a forest of infinitely visible trees, or straight photorealistic graphics, the Switch won't be there.
But most games don't need to go these lengths, the latest Splatoon 3 has way simpler graphics than that, but visually there's nothing that feels odd or hurts the eye. It looks "good".
groovybits|3 years ago
Lester_Square|3 years ago
Gigachad|3 years ago