Topic: Place your bets. Xenoblade, the entire series on one cartridge, or milked?

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition = 13.7 GB
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 = 13.2 GB
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country = 3.5 GB
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 = 14.4 GB
Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed = 4.4 GB

49. 2 GB total.

Technically, Nintendo could offer one compilation release, with the entire series on one Switch 2 cartridge.

Or will they serve it us all a la carte again?

If they're gonna make Switch 2 remastered versions of those games, presumably they'll take way more space because of the higher quality assets, so they won't fit on one cartridge. And if they're not gonna remaster the games, what would be the point of re-releasing them?

Nah there's no way. They didn't even include the DLC in the Switch 2 version of BotW, let alone bundle it with Tears, so if they do Switch 2 editions for Xenoblade it'll be one by one.

No disagreement.

I suppose at the very least I would like to see Nintendo repackage 2 and 2 Torna the Golden Country, as well as 3 and 3 Future Redeemed, together on one cartridge.

XC DE
XC 2 + 2 Torna the Golden Country
XC 3 + 3 Future Redeemed

The trilogy with its two extra campaigns (Torna / Future Redeemed) could fit on a single Switch 2 cartridge, but not the entire series as Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is 15GB. The Wii U version was 20GB which is impressive by itself.

The sticky thing with Torna the Golden Country, and Future Redeemed is that they're not straight forward digital DLCs. They're part of Expansion Passes which includes a bunch of bonus content for the main base game too.
This gets muddier with the physical release of Torna, which is a stand alone title that includes a download code for a version of Xenoblade 2's Expansion Pass that specifically excludes the Torna content.

I'd say Xenoblade 2 is also a strong contender for a Switch 2 Edition with a new post-story campaign, as it's the game with the weakest graphical engine on the Switch, and has an untold story that takes place in parallel to the events of Xenoblade 1's "Future Connected" campaign (in which rifts and fog beasts appear).

So yeah it's far more likely that they'd milk any Switch 2 releases and keep them standalone, and like Breath of the Wild more than likely not include the Expansion Pass with any Switch 2 Edition they might do.

I would gladly buy a remastered version of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 if they would also remaster away the blatant fanservice in the character designs. 😅 That's the main reason I still haven't played it, even though I liked both XC 1 and XC 3 (which both had their share of fanservice too, but nothing as embarrassing as in XC 2).

I doubt they'll get new switch 2 releases at all, probably just performance patches like a bunch of other first party games have got.

I'm not expecting the same company that sold the 20-years-old Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for full price to do us that favour.

And just like with Breath of the Wild's rerelease, I'm also not expecting them to bundle the DLCs.

Yeah, I know. But a guy can hope.

I'm out here feeling like D-Fens at Whammy Burger.

I just hope the Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of these games don't take too long to come out.

Particularly for XCX. I'm actually putting that on pause in anticipation of a patch.

@Ralizah
Ironically, XCX is the one that least needs a patch. It seems to run native res in handheld mode and doesn't really have framerate issues. Not to say a NSW2 Edition wouldn't be appreciated, but it's no XC2. It's very playable as is.

@JaxonH XC3 and XCX both run well on Switch, yeah. But it's also the entry I have the least experience with, and it'd be fun to play it without the dynamic resolution and 30fps cap.

Honestly, almost no first-party Switch game would benefit more from an extensive NS2 patch than XC2. Amazing game, but it's a technical mess, especially when undocked. These masterpieces deserve to thrive on powerful hardware.

@Ralizah
$100 can fix that ya know... Xenoblade 2 in 720p handheld with stable framerate. In an ideal world all 4 XC games would get either a NSW2 Edition or free update. But like Nintendo, I leave luck to heaven. If I have the power to solve the issue now, I'm taking it.

@JaxonH Aren't only the launch Switches hackable? I sold mine when I realized I was never going back to playing games on that murky screen. It looks embarrassingly bad next to the SWOLED and NS2 panels

I could see Nintendo heavily relying on these NS2 Edition release this gen to pad out the release schedule, like Sony has with their remasters, so I think we'll probably be seeing them in the build-up to Xenoblade 4/X2/whatever they're cooking Xeno-wise.

I think the Xenoblade games will get free Switch 2 updates like Odyssey and they'll announce them close to the franchise's 15th anniversary alongside a restock of the XC3 collector's edition.

@JaxonH
Yeah, the engine that Monolith Soft have been working with has been tuned really well for the Switch 1, it's a remarkable feat.
Xenoblade 2 was originally built on an iteration of the Xenoblade X Wii U engine, and every subsequent Xenoblade game on Switch has looked and performed better and better.

Xenoblade X masks loading times extremely well, by using a highly effective LOD system for the models and actors and their textures. You can occasionally catch it after a fast travel though, and there's a noticeable stutter in performance after you change your active members or their ground / skell gear, as it has to reload those actors.
These stutters have an impact on menu responsiveness too, things like shop menus for unlocking slots or managing skells can be annoyingly unresponsive, and the issue seems to exacerbate the longer the software's been running.

Performance dips in Xenoblade X have been very rare, I noticed a few during the opening hour of the game, and I sometimes encounter them in parts of Cauldros particularly in some types of weather like brimstone.

A Switch 2 update for Xenoblade X will just smooth out the performance here, fewer dips, better loads, but most importantly will probably make 4K60 FPS a reality.
Switch 2 updates for the other entries, particularly 2, can definitely improve the internal resolution so that it can hit native.

I'd like to believe Monolith Soft are done with the mainline Xenoblade games. Future Redeemed's ending with Rex being a giga-Chad points to that. I don't know enough of X's story to know it that would be the direction they'd go in. Tetsuya Takahashi and his wifey Soraya Saga love mecha, but I feel they're ready to move on to something new.

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/08/monolith-soft-1st-production-...

@JaxonH
I don't use the Switch undocked too often but will for RPGs like XCX and it jumped out at me how clean this seemed in handheld mode. I think there was the occasional pop in of an NPC or two in the commercial or residential district, but that was it. Don't recall any frame issues and the colors looked nice.

@Magician That would be a nice offering on Switch 2 64g cart with updates would make a great CE volume.

@Ralizah
If you mean by the jig method, yes. But v2 Switch, Switch Lite and Switch OLED can be hacked via a modchip. It's essentially a last gen platform at this point so I don't think they'll mind discussion now as long as no links are shared or piracy discussed (which I'm against anyways- I use purely for overclocking). I found an Etsy listing for the Switch OLED. They provide the chip and perform the installation and cover return shipping. Packed mine up, shipped it out (no joycon attached and no mSD inserted), then 2 weeks later it was sitting on my porch ready to go.

Take a microSD card, download the HATs pack and your choice of overclocking suite to it and you're good to go. I personally use NX-Venom OC Suite. Highly recommended.

And the overclocking suite is amazing. A specific button combo pulls up an overlay menu any time you want. From there you can undervolt and overclock with both global OC settings and game specific OC settings. If you open the menu and change clocks while in-game, it saves those settings just for that game. You can also set clocks separately for docked, handheld, and handheld while charging. I've got my RAM increased to 2,566 MHz globally, so it's running at nearly twice the stock clocks (1,600 MHz). Well, 1 GHz higher anyways. Then on a game by game basis I pull up the overlay menu and increase the GPU clocks as needed. That menu also lets you toggle between handheld and docked image output. So you can output the docked image in handheld mode.

Stock clocks for GPU are 307/384 Mhz in handheld mode and 768 Mhz docked. So I output docked image in handheld mode and increase the GPU to 768 Mhz, or if needed I go up to 921 Mhz or even 998 Mhz. Best not to crack 1,000 Mhz on battery. If actually docked and not running on battery though it's safe to push close to 1,300.

You can also activate a Status Overlay similar to SteamDeck's that tells you %CPU, %GPU, %RAM, Total Watts drawn and estimated battery life remaining. I keep that on and if I see GPU maxing at 99% utilization I'll increase the clock. Same for CPU. But CPU isn't the bottleneck nearly as often as GPU.

How far you can push your RAM and how much you can undervolt heavily depends on the silicon lottery. Hekate (the H part of the HATs pack) is the pre-boot software that loads before the OS. It allows you to backup your NAND and restore it, create emuNAND (emulated NAND- that's where I play all my games to avoid a ban, as it's a separate, walled environment emulating the system OS but with homebrew capabilities, though you CAN load the real OS with homebrew enabled, thus overclocking on the real OS, and I've done that with no ban- I think the bans only happen if you play online with homebrew cheats and stuff- simply overclocking is pretty safe, but I still tend to stick to emuNAND just in case).

My Switch OLED hit the silicon lottery jackpot. In Hekate (which you can set to automatically boot before the OS when powering on, or set to automatically load system OS or automatically load emuNAND- if auto-loading into the system or emuNAND you can access Hekate by holding Volume Minus when the boot logo appears) you can view the brand and model of RAM you have. I have Samsung MGCL-AB (I think AA is best but AB is a close second- there's a dozen different ones you can have from various other brands also like Hinyx). But then you also can see your CPU and GPU Speedo values. Anything over 1650 is considered top tier. Anything in the 1500's is below average. My CPU Speedo is 1690, GPU Speedo is 1688 and my SOC Speedo is 1703- absolutely unheard of numbers. My last one was around 1635 and 1590. Which is average. You can still OC the heck out of it but with my numbers you can really undervolt and push it to the max.

The overlay for NX-Venom Overclocking Suite has been updated for so many years it's incredible now. You can leave settings to default and just increase clocks as desired, but it also let's you tweak the CPU, GPU and RAM settings. It now tells you what RAM timings to use based on the brand and model RAM you have. It has a slider where you tell it your GPU Speedo and it adjusts accordingly. The remaining settings I just copied from someone else who lives and breaths overclocking the system and it's worked fantastic for me.

All this to say. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on my Switch OLED runs at native 720p with the docked image, the dynamic resolution never drops and the framerate stays locked at 30fps. I've done 60fps too with handheld image but I prefer the sharp 720p, and as long as framerate is stable I'm happy.

You can also set framerate caps as desired (Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes- cap too 30fps and output the docked image- it's amazing), or override framerate caps (though it doesn't work for every game). I run Persona 5 Royal with 720p docked image at 60fps and still get 4hrs+ battery life.

Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity? Flawless. Bayonetta 3? Oh it looks so good at 720p 60fps locked in handheld mode. I could go on but you get the point.

Best $100 I've ever spent. And while Switch 2 will naturally max dynamic resolution and framerates the Switch 2 will not be outputting the docked image in handheld mode, so many games will be left at 540p max and tons of jagged edges. They'll look and run better than Switch, for sure, but they definitely won't look and run as good as a chipped OLED.