Daemon X Machina is a mech-action game that actually cares about what its fans think. Over the course of the game's development, Marvelous Entertainment has continually called on its fanbase to provide feedback and share their thoughts about how to improve the game. There has even been lengthy demos and messages of thanks from the producer, Kenichiro Tsukuda.
It should come as no surprise then that the developer of this title has taken onboard even more advice from fans. In a Daemon X Machina interview viewable on the Switch news feed, Tsukuda explained how his development team made frame rate a top priority after users raised concerns about the demo:
We took all the main points that users brought up. A lot of users mentioned that they wanted a better frame rate. When we released that demo, the was still early in development and had a lot of adjustments that need to be done. So, it was something that we were actively working on, but when we saw the user feedback we made sure to make that one of our top priorities.
With so many developers and publishers often under fire on the Switch for failing to provide silky-smooth experiences, it's nice to see a developer putting frame rate at the forefront of its development priorities.
Marvelous Entertainment has even made an effort to display other adjustments to the game in entire videos. You can read more about these major improvements in our previous post or view the video below:
Did you try out the demo of Daemon X Machina? Will you be picking this one up when it finally releases this September? Tell us below.
[source gonintendo.com]
Comments 58
I'm hoping this game is fun and 60fps! There's definitely hope!
I would love 60 frames... But just give me a rock solid 30 no dips.
I’m interested to see how the review turns out for this. I played the test and definitely submitted my feedback. So far the change showings seem like the dev used a beta the way it really should be used.
The demo did look pretty choppy when I played it. I’m glad they are fixing the problems the demo had. Hoping for a 60fps.
That's great and all, but I'll believe it when I see it. Evidently it wasn't something they fixed in time for the demo feedback trailer. The combination of muddy graphics and low FPS made the game basically unplayable for me.
Guess 30fps which I can accept, preordered the Orbital edition
While the demo was obviously a little rough, I quite enjoyed what I played of it. Got the game preordered and will definitely grab it at launch.
It's reliving to hear that the developers are aware of the framerate issues and are working hard to fix them.
Props to them I hope the game does well.
Demo still felt like a boring helicopter simulator more than a mech game and the main character was still the worst kind of silent protagonist... the weapon the other character point at the bad guys.
The protagonist in FE 3 Houses is silent too, but he/she still feels like a character within minutes of appearing. I played the demo for like 2 hours and felt more like a robot than the mechs themselves.
Tough crowd. They sent out a very early rough beta for feedback. They listened to feedback, thanked everyone for the feedback and adjusted it accordingly, customer response? Screw you, not sold, demo was crap, 60fps or nothing.
I admire the gratitude shown towards the developers. 🙄
im glad these devs are listening to our feedback and making this game even better.
@Wavey84 someone is being salty.
I'm really lokking forward for the game and the OST.
Preordered the limited edition
Hold back on the compliments until the final game releases.
The game was pretty fun @ 30FPS but the sudden dips in the demo was a bit of a turn off.. As long as it's stable at heavy and chaotic scenes then all's godd. Pretty excited!
This is how you do a beta/demo. People that are complaining are perhaps too used to companies like EA; when playing their "demos" you can bet your ass you're actually playing a slice of the full thing, with all the feedback being somewhat useless.
Personally I tried the demo and I found it decent; nothing spectacular. But after seeing how much they're trying to improve, I might consider buying it if the costumers' reception is good.
Eh, you shouldn't have had to see user feedback to have that as one of your top priorities.
Any fast action game should be 60fps. If the developer can't get it to that level, drop the resolution / details etc.
@60frames-please Don't know why people are give you dislikes?
Best of luck for this game I’m rooting for ya
If you preorder the game on eshop you get some digital bonus skins. Does anyone know if those are exclusive to the eshop or do we get them later as dlc or something?
I REALLY hope they release a new demo when the game launches, to prove how much it has improved.
Even at 60fps, I'm not going to buy this game.
I absolutely hated the demo, the design is ugly, the sensations are not there, the gameplay is not engaging, the colours are atrocious, the resolution is too low with no antialiasing...
Too much things that I don't like in this game. A huge pass for me.
Well, of course I would prefer 60 fps, but solid 30 fps would be cool enough for me to pick it up
I had fun, I would have prefered the mechs so be a little faster but I had fun playing the demo so yeah, if they work on that, I'll check that out
@Heavyarms55 I'm suspecting that (Potential Guessing Spoilers)
That may be the point, you may be more of a mech yourself, look at how the upgrades in the demo could make you more and more mechanical.
@NintendoFan4Lyf No surprises at all to be honest, I know what this lot are like...they never disappoint.
@PCkid I can generally understand people's desires for 60 frames in fast paced titles but your resolution and aliasing arguments have me wondering why you are even commenting on Nintendo articles at all lmao
I agree with the developers frame rate should be a priority in very game BOTW struggles to maintains 30 frames per second and it gets frustrating
@8itmap_k1d UNPLAYABLE!!!!? BAHAHAHA
@AranBogard love your profile pic
@KBuckley27 to be fair BOTW was a port and I think they rushed it out a bit because of the Switch. I have no doubt they would have delayed BOTW2 to clean it up more, and they did in fact make performance enhancements after launch. With the sequel being announced though it’s not too surprising that we never got another performance update as they’re probably hard at work on the sequel.
@Snakesglowcaps Yes. The art style, in tandem with the low resolution, lack of AA and low framerate, meant it was not up to a standard I considered playable.
I'm sensitive to framerate drops and very low framerates, but it amazes me how some people seem more interested in playing benchmarks than playing the games.... FRAPS and Bandicam must be their favorite games of all time. They love it so much, it hertz.
I'll wait for reviews before grabbing this one. It's encouraging that the devs seem to be seriously addressing fans' feedback, but I'm still on the fence.
@PCkid well you dont like the most of the things Nintendo releases so we are used to it
Of course everyone would prefer 60 FPS with perfect frame pacing, but you're not going to get that out of the Switch.
30 with no drops and no timing issues is probably the best to hope for.
@Judgedean They've got choppy eyes!
@60frames-please I think any fast action game on any console should run at 60fps - this problem isn't just with the Switch even though it has more of an excuse due to lower specs but look at Mario Kart and Splatoon as proof that games can look good and run at 60fps.
@Judgedean Yep, Mario Kart 8 is fun, but I probably wouldn't play it if it ran at 30fps. I've never played Sonic Team Racing or CTR on Switch because of their bad frame rates. 60fps or bust!
@8itmap_k1d me and you have two very different versions of unplayable. BOTW has a below standard resolution and framedips. Would you consider that unplayable?
@60frames-please I’m pretty damn sure CTR and Sonic Racing have been reported to have very stable frame rates. I wouldn’t call stable 30 bad. Since when did 60 even become so important to everyone. Remember when games on 64 ran at like 15-20 FPS and no one said a damn thing. Now that FPS is more mainstream seems like it’s all anyone cares about. I’ll take 30 locked or close too it. 60 is great for sure but even on my one x I’d rather play at 4K 30 than 60 1080
@graysoncharles If Mario Kart and Tropical Freeze can both reach 1080p and 60 FPS on the Switch, there's a lot of games that don't have much excuse. Obviously, some games do demand more graphically, and not everyone can afford to do the intense optimization those titles already had to have to run on the Wii U, but I'd like to see more teams make that effort.
@Snakesglowcaps Super Smash Bros. and F-Zero X both ran at 60 FPS on the N64. While there's plenty of types of games I personally don't mind a stable 30 FPS for, it's not like this is something new.
@Snakesglowcaps PC players demand 120 or even 240.
I think they hurt themselves by calling it a demo. Demo implies that it's a taste of the finished product, I play a demo to decide if I want to purchase a game. On the other hand, I play a beta or a playtest with the full realization that I'm looking at an unfinished product and that my feedback will help refine it to a finished state.
Anyway, I'm withholding judgement until it's released, but for me this is definitely a try before I buy game.
@Snakesglowcaps Yeah, I respect what you're saying. I think 60fps has always been important to me. It looks vastly different and superior to me. Also, I did play N64 games and was bothered by the frame rate. I always like to point out that it was the introduction of 3D games with polygons and such that seems to have dropped the standard. Even then, many, many games on PS2, GameCube, and Xbox ran at 60, and I wish that trend had continued and restored 60fps as the standard for smooth movement of objects on screen.
@Heavyarms55 You're kidding right? That is an insult to helicopter sims. The demo sucked megaton levels of butt.
@HikaruKitsune pretty silly being a Nintendo fan if ya ask me expecting 60 fps
@CoastersPaul is that true? To be fair that’s a technical marvel considering the hardware and graphics for those two particular games. There’s technical marvels nowadays as well. I really wish Nintendo would personally invest in helping these developers get better performance. It sounds as if they did with MK11 on Switch and a handful of others.
@cryptologous
I don't get your point.
My eyes are not burning when I play Mariokart8, the same with donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze etc...
I'm sorry but Deamon X Machina is really bad when it's about framerate, resolution and AA.
@DenDen
You're absolutely wrong.
Zelda BOTW is probably my favorite game for the last 10 years.
Excuse me to be critical about the catalogue of today...
Or we get old games, or games without ambitions, or game with technical issues and the cherry on the pie, the joycons are not reliable at all.
I know that fanboys defend blindly their almighty brand but I'm not like that.
When Nintendo brings Zelda BOTW, I'm the 1st one to applaud but when I get ports, unfinished games, hardware issues... I don't try to put the dust under the mat.
@PCkid Are you really expecting a third party third person mech shooter that takes place on massive maps featuring massive boss battles running on a non-native game engine to perform at a high frame rate with a good resolution and anti aliasing, all on an affordable portable console?
The Switch isn't a tank lmao. It's had technical issues even in first party titles since day one. Breath of the Wild hardly runs at all in areas like the Lost Woods. And that's on a first party engine developed by Nintendo themselves. My point is your expectations are somewhere in the stratosphere when they have no reason to be.
A last note: I'm not sure if you've seen the mecha market, but it is almost non-existent these days. The fan base is loyal, but niche. What other options does a mecha fan have if they want a feature-complete mecha title to play while on the go? Furthermore, have you tried this game handheld? Because it doesn't look all that bad handheld, and it is that niche of mecha + portable that the game is targeted at.
@cryptologous
A WiiU has a weaker processor and 1Gb of RAM compare to the 4Gb of the Switch...
AND GUESS WHAT ?
Xenoblade Chronicles X runs 10 times better than Xenoblade Chronicles 2 with much more impressive graphics and it runs way better.
So now, explain me why something massive like X with trillion stuffs everywhere can run like that and in the same time Deamon X Machina or Xenoblade Chronicles 2 run poorly on a more powerful system ?
@PCkid The Wii U was over half way through its life cycle when Xenoblade X dropped. The developers were working with the Wii U infrastructure since development started. They had a full team and four years to put the game together. Until BOTW came along, it was far and away the best looking Wii U title, bar none. One could even argue its more impressive in certain regards.
Xenoblade 2 started development before the developers even had access to Switch hardware. It had a 3 year production cycle. Most of production was carried out by 40 people because a lot of the team was assisting with Breath of the Wild. It was going to be one of the first games to launch on hardware no developers had ever worked on.
The power jump between the Wii U and the Switch is no where near as large as the jump from, say, the PS3 to the PS4. Pair that with working on new tech, and it seems a bit silly to even conceive that Xenoblade 2 would be able to match Xenoblade X in 3 years, yet they came pretty damn close. Let me stress this again: Xenoblade X is the best looking title on the Wii U by a MILE. Similarly, Crysis 1 looked better than every PC game that came out after it until Crysis 2, FOUR YEARS later. The argument that newer titles unambiguously have to trump prior games graphically just doesn't make any sense.
To further all this, Daemon X Machina is being developed by a studio who only formed in 2011. They initially focused on DS titles. They haven't made a huge hit yet. Daemon is an incredibly niche title. There is no way on god's good earth they are working with a massive budget.
In comparison, Monolith Soft are one of the biggest game developers in the RPG sector on the planet. They've been around for 19 years. They've developed for Nintendo for most of that time. Hell, their team often ends up getting contracted to work on first party Nintendo titles. They focus almost purely on the most popular sector of Nintendo content; RPGs.
Tell me with a straight face if you think the budgets being worked with between Xenoblade 2 and Daemon X Machina are even remotely comparable.
There is so much more that goes into game production than what you see at the end, and if all you care about is visual fidelity, the PC market is always available. Picking out an extreme outlier doesn't really do anything to help you.
@Quarth what were we saying about gifs?
@cryptologous
Do you really think that Monolith Soft had another experience with the Wii U before Xenoblade Chronicles X ?
Do you really think that Monolith Soft wasn't aware about the Switch hardware from the start of the development for Xeno2 ?
Whatever, the result stays the result and I'm sorry to say it again but Deamon X Machina runs poorly and the demo ahs shown how not engaging is that game.
It's just my opinion and I understand if you think different but for my standards, the game is mediocre.
@WiltonRoots LOL, I've put him on ignore, but yeah: Cobalt is back.
@PCkid No but they were working on Wii U hardware from day one when developing Xeno X. It is public knowledge that Monolith Soft did not know about the Switch's technical specs or development software kits when they started developing Xeno 2. That's not a matter of me "thinking", that is just public information.
Fair enough man. I don't really have anything else to add. I haven't actually said whether or not I agree with your views on the game's quality on the whole in this thread so it's anyone's guess whether or not I think differently. Just don't see much reason to make some of the comments you did given the context of the game's production and its target audience. Time will tell if it's worth the coin I guess!
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