this is probably giving too much benefit of the doubt, but I took oatmeal’s post to refer specifically to the New Super Mario Bros. subseries, not Dread, and though Dread looks good, it isn’t cel-shaded, handrawn sprites, etc. It’s “just” 3D in a 2D plane.
Metroid Prime looked and still looks incredible, but I guess I would describe it as “generic” 3D in that it doesn’t have a fundamentally distinct art style—Dread’s doesn’t have a visual style akin to the yarn and crafted aesthetics in recent Kirby and Yoshi games, for instance. I’m sure there’s a better word than “generic” to describe that though.