Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles X - Switch 2 Edition

Didn't see a thread for this, decided to make one myself despite not being as active in the forums anymore these days. lol

So, yeah, I didn't get the upgrade yet, and heard way too many mixed feelings/opinions on this. Wondering if I should just get it or not, even though I still think it should've been a free upgrade.

Like, are the problems THAT bad, or are people just overreacting because it's Nintendo and the entire internet hates them right now because reasons? lol

I'd imagine it'll get fixed in an update soon anyways.

I've played this for a couple of hours right after it launched, so before reading any of the news and comments about the visual issues (which could've affected my judgment had I read them before playing). I didn't notice anything wrong when playing docked. The game looks quite good in 4K, though it's obvious that they haven't done the sort of thorough upgrading of visual assets you can see in the S2 editions of BotW and TotK, it's mostly just an upscaling job. The 60 FPS felt nice and smooth.

In handheld mode I did notice the image quality was blurrier than you'd expect with an upgrade like this, though it didn't much affect my enjoyment of the game or the actual gameplay. Maybe it's different for people who are really sensitive to these sort of things, but for me it was okay. A bit disappointing but still fine to play.

So yeah, I'm sure the game does suffer from the sort of issues these analysis say, and I do think Nintendo/Monolith should fix it, but at the same time I don't think it's nearly as bad as some of these comments make it sound.

I just completed XCX Switch 2 Edition, the game runs smooth except battle in nla in chapter 13 act 3,
also the image quality not bad as everyone says, yes it looks blurry sometimes but otherwise still decent due to increased resolution

I've also played it end to end, and yes, the image quality issues can be lived with, especially when playing docked. It's not what you'd expect from a 4K image, and lacks detail if you zoom in, but it's good enough when you're sat three metres away.

It's just that if I play it handheld, on the Switch 2 next to the Switch Lite, the latter produces a far more stable image, albeit at a lower frame rate and resolution, but with none of the shimmering and blurring. That's a major disappointment and I think that the game deserved better than that.

I'm mostly just seeing aliasing...which is kinda common on Nintendo games in general...I'm guessing the pop-in can be patched. Seems like the game was updated for Switch 2, but not entirely and some things need to be ironed out more. Maybe it'll be fixed for when the physical version is released.

That said, despite how old this game is...it's still a basically a freakin' heart attack simulator for me. >_>
...Also...

...lol

I'd guess that they felt that they couldn't fix the pop-in because it'd spoil the Chapter 13 dad-joke.

Seriously, it was a necessary feature of the game on Wii U, because it only had a limited amount of RAM to store textures and everything needed to be loaded (with potentially high latency) from the optical drive.

If I had to guess, it's something that's too deeply built into the game engine for them to fix it easily, and that may also preclude them using the advanced features of the Switch 2 GPU that allow for higher quality upscaling for games built with cross-platform engines.

I never got that far in the game, so...shrugs
...Anyways yeah, the other thing that still bugs me are some of these missions. Like, I'm level 18 right now, some missions have the recommendation of level 5...or has a tyrant at level 10. Simple, pretty easy? Right?

...Only for me to get to the location and the items I need to grab are right on top overpowered enemies with absolutely no way of getting them, or the tyrant is unreachable. Like...wtf? Why say the recommended level is 5 when I have to be 30 to do this damn thing? And by the time I get the Skell I'll be able to one shot that tyrant. lol

This game makes no sense sometimes. x_x

@Joeynator3000 There is an art called Shadowrunner, which Elma gets very early on, that temporarily makes you invisible to enemies and allows you to sneak past. It uses 1000 TP, so you've got to be quite sparing with it but, once she gets the Blood Sacrifice art, you can pretty much use it whenever you need it.

You can also try sneaking past high level enemies by staying outside their cones of vision and moving slowly past the ones sensitive to audio. Sometimes changing the time of day will make them non-aggressive or vanish entirely. This can all be a bit hit and miss but it generally works a lot better than just trying to make a run for it.

Always loved the graphics of the xenoblade games and my jaw dropped back in the day of the wii when I saw the visuals it offered on such a humble platform but sadly could never get into the games themselves just not my sort of games so when I saw the updated Switch 2 visuals for this I was really just focused on the visuals and have to say the horrible pop in and other issues really looked poor I felt. The game engine just looks the same as wii and the improved graphics have less charm than the wii I feel.

It just feels like the graphics have deteriorated coming to Switch 2 not improved. Wii U and original Switch looked better too. If this is your first Switch 2 upgrade game its a horrible experience visually. wii had 8 gflops of performance, wii u I think 176 Gflops, Switch 1 about 380 Gflops docked and Switch 2, 2.2 Teraflops docked. You would never think the Switch 2 had 2.2 teraflops of GPU performance looking at those visuals or over 3x the CPU performance of Switch 1. Surely one of the least optimised games for Switch 2 so far. It's actually gone backwards in quality.

When you see a mismatch between the listed quest level, and the level of the enemies in the tagged area? Its because the map flags the nearest location with the relevant monster/item for the quest, not the only one or the intended one. Try fast traveling to a different location on the map, and you'll likely see the quest markers reshuffle. There is always a level-appropriate location for finding the relevant monster/item, you just might need to explore around a bit to find it.

@Joeynator3000 You don't? Higher level enemies in starting areas is a staple of the series. You avoid them. Stay out of sight or if they're hearing based, walk quietly. If you're spotted, run. It's pretty simple actually.

@metaphysician They're actually location specific items.

Thing is, I thought they were in fixed locations, turns out fast traveling to the same location randomizes the items again. So I can manage to grab them after that.

But yeah, it's still annoying when it says require level is like 15 and then they throw you in a location with level 40 enemies everywhere. lol

Personally I like the upgrade and I don't think it's "bad", just it could be better. I remember when I first launched it and was really happy with how smooth the 60fps looked and how quickly stuff loads, so it's a massive QOL upgrade on it's own. But when I started looking closer at stuff like skells and buildings, it seemed pretty clear to me that they didn't upgrade the visuals that much, certainly not as much as stuff like breath of the wild.

Either way, I was happy with the game before and am even happier with it now that I have the upgrade. I don't think it's the massive downgrade people on reddit and twitter keep claiming it is. But of course I think it could've been better and ideally such a basic upgrade would've been free, but I guess we don't know how much work it takes to make this game run stably at 60fps.

Overall my experience was basically the same as Polvasti's, the upgrade is just fine.

Pretty sure it can be fixed, but yeah I'm noticing the aliasing and weird texture issues. I'm hoping it'll get updates and fixes by the time the physical version releases, that's what I'm thinking.

Anyways, gonna start chapter 6 soon, and finally get that damn skell. Still can't remember where I originally left off back on Wii U...think the chapter took place in...Slyvavum?...However you spell that name. lol