Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition looks fantastic for a switch game

Yes yes, I know. The irony of me creating a thread about graphics. Considering my 1070 and general apathy.

Its by no means a graphics king, which makes sense considering that it is a Switch game. But when you take into account the scale and scope of the world, the fact that you can seamlessly move from one part of the map to the other with no loading, short load times (otherwise), while still looking this good. Shows just how much good programming can do. And why you dont need great hardware to have a beautiful game, even before factoring in artstyle (which makes many indie games look better than AAA games).

The difference between something like this and say Pokemon is quite baffling. I genuinely hope Monolith Soft get involved with helping Game Freak for their next game.

This makes it genuinely exciting to see what Monolith Soft can pull off with the Switch 2. It also is a strong lesson in why AAA game developers should treat their employees well, retain their talent, and not break the company apart for short term gains (hello there Naughty Dog).

What do you guys think?

Yeah I've always felt this series stood out with its visuals. Before on Wii and Wii u too. Maybe there was also a gamecube version? Don't remember.

Nah, it started with the Wii.

But XenoSaga on the PS2 looked great.

Why are Sony & Nintendo doing all these remasters, are they that void of new ideas like Crapcom?

I guess people don't expect much from the Switch? Because this looked good on the Wii U already:

Nintendo should make more games like this.

Very hyped for this game! Day 1!,

It did, and the Switch version looks even better!

Just goes to show how much art style and talent can make up for hardware.

The Xenoblade X trailer from 2013 is one of the greatest trailers of all time:

I was blown away by this trailer back in 2013. The Wii U hardware was barely above the PS3 or X360, yet this looked better than anything I'd seen on the PS3 or X360 up until then. Not to mention that epic music from Hiroyuki Sawano (i.e. the Attack on Titan composer).

And it still looks good today! Monolith Soft are the kings of optimization. They really know how to push Nintendo hardware to their limits, regardless of how dated the Nintendo hardware might be. And yeah, makes sense why Pokemon gets so much backlash, because it looks pretty bad compared to what Xenoblade and Zelda pull off on the Switch.

Yeah, it looks great. Loved the game on the Wii U and am really looking forward to playing the Switch version as well.

@Jag85: This game fidelity looks on par with some of the early AAA PS4/Xbox One games. And with the inevitable increase of hardware prices. I think optimization, will likely be what defines good looking games for a few years. This is Assassin's Creed Black Flag, a PS4/XB:One game that has a MUCH smaller scope and scale.

And here is Knack

Also, iirc, Hiroyuki Sawano stated, he learnt a lot from composing for Xenoblade Chronicles X, and applied what he learnt later on to Attack On Titan.

I agree Monolith are the kings of optimization. That title woudl have gone to Naughty Dog back in the day but these days... I am not sure. Naughty Dog lost most of their talent. So that even though Sony throws so much money into them, they take years to make a game these days and when they do, it is merely on par with other Sony First Party studios.

Total Assembly also used to be mighty impressive with their scale, but these days... again.

Crytek too used to make a really impressive engine even with PC hardware but it very much looks like Monolith have surpassed them since.

Black Flag is an Xbox360/Ps3 game that does about a hundred graphical things more than the Xenoblade games. I love the world design in the Xenoblade games, but they're also incredibly static, no-life environments. Hardly any foliage, npcs, structures. And whatever there is, is again, very static. Not to mention it (XCX) needed a bunch of extra downloads for texture streaming and to reduce the ridiculous pop-in.

Xenoblade games look incredibly well because of their scale and vistas. That's where its strenghts lie. But let's not pretend they're also doing a thousand other things. They're singleplayer MMO games. They get their open world heads kicked in by the likes of Rockstar.

Gonna hold off on XCX until the Switch 2 hits. Xenoblade DE ran at 720P on switch and that was way too blurry for a game so grand. I wanna see this studio do so much more with their worlds, but they need better hardware.

*edit* 10-15 years ago they would've been an easy top 3. Gonna have to see what they're gonna do with the Switch 2.

The character models certainly benefited quite a lot, on WiiU they all had this stretched face look to them that was very off-putting.

Regardless nice for fans. Usually bloated massive RPGs are not my style, and avoid them when possible, however that doesn't mean I don't have friends who love this series.

Reserve rare times for myself to enjoy tactical and strategy RPGs more than the regular turn-base kind. As I'm a huge Disgaea fan and almost anything Larian puts out.

Not that I haven't tried any of the other big names in the RPG space, I just get bored very quickly, usually because I need some meat on the bones and these games always start so story thick with exceedingly light actual gamplay in the 'early' hours (ususally 20 hours of nothing)

I just don't have time for that more than not. At most usually have time for one grand RPG a year, so these games are for those who have a lot of free-time or will only commit to one of these games for six months+.

Still think it's pretty ugly.

The big vistas and shit can look nice, yeah. But the animations are stale, the character designs are (in my opinion) awful, the framerate is slow, the UI looks awful, there are ugly numbers and effects everywhere in combat..

It's fugly, but probably pretty fun though. One of those JRPGs I'd actually consider trying sometime.

Yeah that was the first thing I noticed too with this reboot.

And with Nintendo showing off clips. I became genuinely impressed by what they pulled off on the Switch. Either this or Xenoblade 3 is the most technically impressie Switch game.

But as you stated, it is still an RPG way too big for its own good.

Still excited to play it again though.

But what they pull off here, makes me excited to see what they can pull off with the Switch 2. As most AAA studios fail to retain employees, many Nintendo studios, including Monolith Soft retain them. And what Nintendo is lacking in hardware, they can somewhat make up for in optimization that comes with having experienced programmers, unless of course, you are Game Freak.

Technical graphics have mostly plateued, and I believe a large reason for that, in addition to diminishing returns, is just that talent goes as fast as it comes. I do hope that develoeprs eventually start treating their employees well. Because the way AAA studios are being run now is unsustainable.

Visually speaking, GTAV got its open world head kicked in by Xenoblade X back in 2013...

@Maroxad said:

@Jag85: This game fidelity looks on par with some of the early AAA PS4/Xbox One games. And with the inevitable increase of hardware prices. I think optimization, will likely be what defines good looking games for a few years. This is Assassin's Creed Black Flag, a PS4/XB:One game that has a MUCH smaller scope and scale.

And here is Knack

Also, iirc, Hiroyuki Sawano stated, he learnt a lot from composing for Xenoblade Chronicles X, and applied what he learnt later on to Attack On Titan.

I agree Monolith are the kings of optimization. That title woudl have gone to Naughty Dog back in the day but these days... I am not sure. Naughty Dog lost most of their talent. So that even though Sony throws so much money into them, they take years to make a game these days and when they do, it is merely on par with other Sony First Party studios.

Total Assembly also used to be mighty impressive with their scale, but these days... again.

Crytek too used to make a really impressive engine even with PC hardware but it very much looks like Monolith have surpassed them since.

Yeah, Xenoblade X did look visually impressive even compared to early PS4/XB1 games. Not necessarily because it's technically doing nearly as much on screen, but mainly because of the art design and sense of scale. It goes to show how art design trumps technical graphics.

Interesting stuff about Sawano. He said in an interview that Xenoblade X was the first soundtrack he made for an international audience. While the first season of Attack on Titan came out before he worked on Xenoblade X, AoT was made for a domestic Japanese audience but unexpectedly became huge internationally. So with Xenoblade X, he started making music for an international audience, which carried over to later seasons of AoT and other stuff he made.

You mean Creative Assembly? I don't play Total War games, but heard Sega made cuts to Creative Assembly.

Crytek fell off since their heyday. Crytek was the graphics king over a decade ago, but they haven't made anything that looks impressive since Ryse: Son of Rome.

@Jag85: Yup. The way The Total War games would render thousands of units on thescreen at teh same time was mighty impressive at the time.

@Jag85: You just posted 2 flashy trailers. The stuff that Rockstar does with its open world games is just something that Monolith can't touch. This was also the case with GTAV. Monolith makes beatiful looking worlds (so does rockstar and then some), but its strengths lie in its vistas and scale. Everything else in their worlds is incredibly static. A lot of open world elements have to suffer because of Monolith's choice in this matter, although I don't mind. It sets their games apart. But the argument that XCX kicks GTAV's ass in visual open world design is absolute nonsense. And I would personally pick XCX over GTAV. Jurassic Park>Los Santos.

Pictures speak louder than words. Visually, GTAV on the PS3/X360 looks like crap compared to Xenoblade X on the Wii U...

...And yes, a lot of it comes down to art design. GTAV has terrible art design, whereas Xenoblade X has great art design.

@Maroxad: Well that is it. If the game is well received and has a healthy fandom, avoid casting shame on it. Better to make my preferences known for why I will not consider the game.

Too many losers call widely praised and actively loved game "overrated" or "crap" without any meaningful context. They're just bitter douche bags. Find the shade throwing such low hanging bait, attempting to get a reaction from the simple minded and overly-passionate fans.

I can point out why I do not want to play these games, however that does not mean I do not respect what they achieve, and who the demographic target is. It's not for me and that's ok.

The only games feel I roast heavily are barely functional slop that has a toxic gatekeeping crowd defending what is essentially harmful to the hobby as a whole.

When GTA5 launched, it was a technical mess. I remember so, many graphical glitches.

All of this subjective. You've, once again, said nothing. Half-assed argument. Plenty of people will pass off Xenoblade as weeb looking shit, as a lot of people will pass off GTA because of boring realisms.

And XCX needed graphics, texture streaming and pop in packs. And the game still ran inconsistent and looked muddy beyond belief. And this was on better hardware.

Try and compare all you want. Let your personal bias run free, but Monolith is way out of their league against Rockstar.

Optimization techniques? That's your argument? It utilized them. And utilizing optimization techniques is a good thing. I never ran into issues from these optimization techniques when actually playing the game.

One was a buggy mess, the other was consistant. Even at the time GTA5 wasnt particularly impressive. and had so much Jank. Xenoblade X did look good and was arguably the most technically impressive Wii U game. Much like how Xenoblade 3 or X is the most impressive Switch game.

2013 GTA looked decent... when it worked. And the optimization was absolutely terrible on PC, when that came out.

Seriously the PC ports alone disqualify Rockstar from being in the running.

Speaking of better software engineering.

It seems the filesize has been reduced from 15gb to 13.4. In constrast the Wii U version was 20 GB.

Really goes to show just how much quality engineering matters. And you wont get quality engineering if you dont retain employees.

@Maroxad: To be fair though the Wii U version ran from the disc so it probably had some redundant data on the disc that could be accessed quicker if needed.

Optimization techniques that filled up half your harddrive to keep the game from rendering structures 3ft in front of you. And it still had troubles. Same thing with GTA5. Hardware. Programming only gets you so far, which isn't even what this argument is about. It wasn't even an argument. Resident east vs west boi got triggered because of 3 words in my post. I've made my stance very clear in my first post. Ever since, it's been misconstrued and turned into an argument that wasn't even an argument. This is why I hardly use message boards.

And I don't get where you're getting that GTA5 was a buggy mess. It was obviously running on hardware too weak for what it was trying to do, but that was about it. And not impressive? Whilst touting XC2? C'mon, now. I'd respect your argument more if you'd admit to your own bias. And I haven't played Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I found XC2 to be a stagnant experience, in too many respects. And from what I've gathered, XC3 is more of the same. Might get it one of these days if it's ever cheap enough.

And plenty of pubs don't give a shit about PC optimization. It's a horrible thing, but using that as some kind of gotcha is weak. Nintendo isn't even bothering in the slightest with PC. Well, that would make them Satan themselves.

That is the most likely reason. Still, that also affected the downloaded game.

But still, seeing a developer reduce file size in this day and age is refreshing. I have seen a few patches do that in games in the early '00s. But that was a long time ago.

@freedomfreak: I never talked about XC2.

I am talking about how XCX and XC3 are pulling off marvels on their respective hardware.

Rockstar willingly put out a broken and poorly optimized PC port. Don't try to handwave away everything that refutes your narrative. That is so dishoenst.

@Maroxad: Ah, ok. I didn’t realize that there was a downloadable version of the game. That version may have been smaller then the on disc version then.

Yeah the Switch version file size has most likely been better reduced regardless. Like you say though, it’s a good thing to see.

@Maroxad: I'm messing them up. Was talking about Chronicles. First Xenoblade is best. XCX most impressive. Didn't care for XC2, which is why I haven't played XC3.

And I never argued they weren't impressive. Can't help it if people see red and see only what they wanna see.

I'll pick this up whenever Switch 2 arrives.

My hope is that the Switch 2 will enhance Switch 1 games, sorta like the PS5 did.

Unlikely but fingers crossed.

As someone who think the only positive on XC2 is the soundtrack (absolute belter): XC3 is far superior in basically every way. Closer to the first one. If you like 1 and XCX then 3 is a safe bet imho. 2 was just a colossal misfire.

Anywho on topic: yeah it's quite impressive alright. As I understand it, in docked mode it will also be running at 1080P. If it maintains a locked 1080P30 on the Switch: that's impressive. The character models have been nicely tidied up too and it looks like they are brining in collision detection in NLA...something that was a bit odd in the Wiiu build. But needed to save every CPU cycle I suppose.

XCX on the wiiu is one of those technical miracles in my book. There were compromises, sure, but Monolithsoft punched very smart overall. Being able to have that massive world with basically no loading screens and offering a generally smooth experience on the wiiu was an outstanding achievement.

Botw is more impressive on the Wiiu but Nintendo cheated with that one (Mandatory install and the game used more than 1GB of ram on the wiiu). ...Not that there is anything wrong with cheating in game dev :).

XC1 on the wii was also very impressive. Really pushed that system to the absolute limit.

The fact that R* is being brought up as a comparison is a credit to Monolithsoft. R* basically crap on everyone when it comes to tech. The most technically advanced game on the PS4 is RDR2. The most technically advanced PS3 game is GTA5. GTA6 will dunk on every other PS5/XSX/S game in the tech department. R* have the power of sheer, colossal amounts of money backing them...never hurts.

@osan0: Good to hear about XC3. I'll put it on the list of switch games I still need to play. Just waiting to see how Nintendo is gonna handle their BC program. Could see them going the Sony route. 10 bucks to upgrade if you own it. Or full nintendo lawyer evil where they straight up charge full price for these updated versions. Or free. Haha haa aha

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for. I already putting my launch Switch to rest as I'm gonna focus on building that hype within me cause I'm so excited for a next-gen console coming from Nintendo. That being said, Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition & (fingers cross) Metroid Prime 4 will be the games I wanna play on Switch 2.

Just playing some BC enhanced games on the Xbox, it's amazing what 7th gen games look like with the advantages of modern hardware. Makes me reflect like it seems all modern hardware has done is tell devs not to worry about optimization, make the game's as big as you want to while they're at it.

Pure copium. Any side-by-side comparison shows Xenoblade X (Wii U) visually wiped the floor with GTAV (PS3/X360).

Grand Theft Auto V

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Looks nice. And devs making this run relatively well on the switch should be commended.

He says against the person who prefers Chronicles over GTA5. We get it. East le good. West le bad. I'm scared of people like you. Japan goes to war and you're gonna be the first to start bayonetting babies.

Looks good, still the open world game with the most impressive map design