> many games have hyper stylized menus with flowery wingdings all over them
It can work depending on the style/tone of the game.
The real problem, in my opinion, is all the games nowadays with perfectly flat, generic, colorless UIs with absolutely no style or identity. Nintendo has been doing this a lot, for example.
I'll be honest, I went back to some OLD bootstrap styling for some things and I liked it a lot. The candy looking buttons are nice ...
I'm done with flat and muted all the time.
Also (more to my example) it looks like a realistic UI. A lot of game stylized UI are UI nobody would ever make intentionally for a thing you're supposed to use often.
So yeah like you say just some depth and realistic UI feel goes a long way.
It can work depending on the style/tone of the game.
The real problem, in my opinion, is all the games nowadays with perfectly flat, generic, colorless UIs with absolutely no style or identity. Nintendo has been doing this a lot, for example.