I mean, Cuphead is one of the more visually impressive games... ever. It has an art style and it works it to the fullest extent. And Silksong is also quite gorgeous.

This comes up every other year or so it seems. People think 2D means "low effort" and get angry that so many fighting games moved on to 3D. But the reality is that actually making sprites is a VERY labor intensive process that often requires a deep understanding of the entire rendering pipeline (including the hardware it is displayed on). At this point, "most" online people are aware that many of the NES/SNES sprites were specifically made with CRT "blurring" in mind but it goes way beyond that. So that is why franchises like Street Fighter just have "generic" 3d models.

And ArcSys more or less made their entire model (wait for it) simple-ish 3d models with cell shading and very specific lighting systems to appear 2D even though they aren't. Which is why stuff like the super attacks always look so impressive as you do the zoom and spin around.

I can't speak for blands 4 since 3 (and the pre-sequel...) were so aggressively obnoxious that I just replay 2 every 3 or 4 years. But just look at this thread where you have weirdos saying that UE5 games look like they are from 2016. People are deeply stupid and games need to pop and sizzle to stand out. And while I don't know (or care) if blands 4 succeeded... just look at ArcSys for how you can use modern engines to make cellshaded 3d models look AMAZING.

It is very specifically for actually 2D games, but check out some of Cobra Code's videos on youtube. They have put a LOT of work into how to use UE5 to make sprite based 2D games look GOOD and it is actually fascinating. And that is still sidestepping the initial sprite work for the most part.

And as another example of why sprites are actually a ridiculous amount of work to get right. Mina The Hollower (?) is the latest game from the Shovel Knight devs. And... most of us who tried the demo on a high resolution display felt REALLY weird because of the way the sprites and animations looked upscaled (I saw a breakdown of why. I did not understand it). The devs are putting in the work to fix that ahead of launch but it really speaks to the kinds of problems that come up when you go from testing on a Steam Deck or in a debug window to stretched across a 1440p display at 120-ish Hz.