This is gonna be strange given how critical I am of GF's graphical prowess, but given it's unpopular...
I feel most Switch 1st/2nd party titles honestly are behind graphically despite GPU, same for Switch 2 so far. Note I don't mean compared to PS4, as it's silly, but I feel it genuinely was underwhelming. I preferred *Wii U's* at times.
Part of this issue is that Switch 1/2's CPU bottleneck and bandwidth from being handheld and decked does drastically impact certain things. Transparency sorting is suddenly a bigger issue than 6-7th Gen for the drawcalls. Bayonetta 3 suffers from horrid ways of trying to bypass this with aggressive yet ugly dithering, same with Mario Odyssey, though the latter doesn't have much transparent elements to begin with. Alternatively, Nintendo can just use alpha cut textures instead of alpha blended for opacity, but I find it bad, especially for how plastic it looks when it has specular
They do this in DK Bananza, and his fur is super flat as a result, standing out to other kongs as well who...just don't do it. I prefer how his fur is in Mario Party Superstars, even if that isn't using fur cards at all (which ironically means it'll never suffer from transparency issues). And this ignores how wax DK's skin looks overall, something his art notably doesn't do, ignoring that it's raytraced prerendered
This also was the period that devs...started to not really focus on lighting. Mario Kart 8/DX has a nice light probe system taking advantage of mixed baked lighting, along with the then newfound PBR model for shading, and dynamic directional shadows for chars. Mario Odyssey is more simplified, with char textures overly red tinted for skin. Which is weird cuz MK8 had to deal with a bigger workload (60fps Online multiplayer), while Odyssey is just a singleplayer offline game for the most part
Smash Ultimate has disgusting muted shading with heavy rimlighting. The bland char textures returning from Smash Wii U are more exposed, and art clash for particle styles is present. Chars rarely look like they fit the stage compared to previous entries. Mario and Sonic 2016 unironically looks better than M&S 2020 cuz of how over saturated and unlit shading is in the latter. Pikmin 3 I find better looking than 4
Or whatever the fuck Bandai Namco is doing lately with BLOOM oversaturated spam for lower end stuff. The grass and some chars are nuclear, the buildings weirdly dim, and no shadows besides a basic drop one
"But Sonikku" you might ask "How does this relate to Pokemon?"
Well the issue is a lot of fans when they want games to improve graphically don't really *know* how to outside better textures. People were gasing up LZA for the rimlight on chars, which I find shit with how much it takes over the model depending on shots. They're perfectly fine with flat toony particles clashing a middle tier detailed environment and char design. Or they want a "cel shaded anime" styled game which 90% of the time has limited lighting and texture diversity
Like I hate to say it, but even if GF suddenly became on level with most of everyone else now, it still won't be ok for me. Cuz the Switch is weirdly handicapping itself, and weird design trends popped up lately. It'll pacify fans at least
This doesn't mean Switch 1/2 doesn't have good looking games fitting for the GPU it uses. Kirby Star Allies (though laggy) and Air Riders are good, same for Mario Party Superstars. Luigi's Mansion 3 was also praised for interior lighting, and Pokemon New Snap is decent mostly (though Prof Mirror has heavy :| for facial expressions). BotW while I nitpick a lot is pretty dynamic for cel shading (though it's also on Wii U...), and Xenoblade's typically good. As much as I dislike Link's Awakening HD's aesthetic, it's graphically done well as well
Hopefully Gen 10 solidifies the graphics workflow, LZA is definitely better than before at least.