Can you make more cutish style graphics with irrlicht?

[topotheo]

I want to write a 2.5d game (platformer which uses 3d models instead of 2d sprites). This is my first 3d game.
At the moment I am deciding between either using a full fledged engine like godot (or maybe but probably not unity/unreal) or using something that is more of a framework for the 3d graphics like Irrlicht or Urho3D.

I like doing my stuff in C/C++ and also having freedom around how I write my game logic, that is what speaks for Irrlicht or Urho.
But what bothers me is that if I look at trailers for Unity/Unreal games on youtube, they all have this kind of "modern" (this is subjective of course) light/cute/colourful graphics as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xXD_9vS56E or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43wQ-3sV6nE
When I look at the demos of Irrlicht https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoxmNBKDmUU or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7het4oneNM they all look much more greyish/edgy (same goes for Urho3D). They very much remind me of 200x games like Morrowind for example.

Now I don't know which of the following is the case:
1. The engines just have different shaders and "default" graphics
2. The engines are just from different times and use different technologies which makes the outcome look different

And in both cases, how hard is it to get this kind of more colourful graphics in Irrlicht? Do I have to learn about shaders for that? (Or about what?) And how much do I have to learn?

Thanks very much in advance

[CuteAlien]

Basically Irrlicht doesn't come with many shaders except for some examples how to add your own shaders. So yeah, to have that kind of style with Irrlicht you will have to write your own shaders.

To start with shaders... probably it's easier to play around a while with that website: https://www.shadertoy.com/
(shader basics are all the same, once you get the idea it will be easier to write shaders for different systems).