Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Okay so for reference the Wii u gamepad is a 480p screen with the game streamed from the Wii U to the screen. This is ALWAYS happening, and it has dedicated resources to do so.

As such you get a constant 480p image, as the resources are locked to always accomodate that as the screen is ALWAYS on at 480p

Switch handheld mode is the system running on a battery and powering the screen at maximum 720p from the same battery.

When docked the Switch gets access to a direct power supply where upon finding it has access to both a screen via HDMI and a power supply, it outputs to the TV and uses all of its specs. When undocked, due to not needing higher resolution output and because of battery life concerns, it uses around half the specs of the system.

However, because of the screen being powered by the system components and battery as well as the game running via the same components, developers need to be concious of what they do.

Because both aspects share the same battery, unlike on wii u, and because both share the same pool of components, unlike on Wii U as the Switch screen isnt always on and as such the game doesnt isolate specs for handheld play exclusively, the game has to run in what it can.

In this case, rather than taking the image already processed, streaming it, and having a battery power the display in a seperate device at 480p, the Switch has to display the image and play the game itself off of the same power supply.

Ultimately this will result in issues such as resource management, because it isnt something the game always has to deal with, like on wii u where it was always on, whereas on wii u, your spec doesnt change, its the same all the time with a stream to a screen.

I played some more and got Ursula with the polar bear, one of the rare Blades.

I think I understand 90% of the game now.
The battles got much better now with a party of 8 (3 mains, 5 blades).
I got used to all the menus, the map system (which I think is fine now).
Took me only 20 hours. ^^

Despite a few initial disappointments and whys that are still apparent (more on the technical side), the major issues (gameplay side) are resolved, now that I've spent more time with the game.

Oh yea, it has.. kinda... and it’s called Season Pass.

I’m shocked how much attention people pay to graphics. We all know Switch isn’t next gen hardware power house. We also know it’s portable and depending on battery for handheld. I’m not defending XC2 low resolution or questioning if they could have had it better looking but trying to say - accept it as it is or sell it, stop playing it, burn it or whatever.
Good luck whining Monolith about resolution patches.. we are talkin about Nintendo, hello. They do what they want to do. I was waiting for XCX patch to fix text size but it never happened so good luck with 720, 900, 1080, 4K, 8K patches.

Retro is modern these days.. just look at Project: Octopath Traveler DEMO graphics. People were blown away with how “cute and retro and pixeled, nice and what not” game looks. And I call that lazy programming. Just play it 1 hour handheld and look how much battery it will drain and how hot your Switch will be.
And how many of us have Sonic Mania - gorgeous 1080p old school retro game in all its glorious pixeled graphics? Its pixeled as hell but great game we all love and play. Neo Geo anyone?!

I remember playing Crash Bandicoot and MGS on PlayStation back in days.. and you know what.. I didn’t give a **** about graphics on my CRT then and those were my best gaming days of my life. Nobody cared about graphics back in days, it was all about fun but now Digital Foundry is the most popular gaming YouTube channel.

@Whitewatermoose
I hope they won’t. I love that part of “kinkynes” they went with this game and anime style in general.
People get offended by everything these days. Crybabies everywhere man, I’m telling you.

I feel confident in saying that no one outside of gaming cares. If they were going to, it would've been a problem for a number of releases the past few years (most obvious being Bayonetta 2).

And again, I never want to see or hear from the people who were butthurt about X again, so I hope not.

@Whitewatermoose Long and short people complained they took out Lin's swimwear for the west and called it censorship.

This ignores the fact you have two options. Either have a 13 year old in a VERY revealing bikini which in the west isnt exactly a wise move, or change her age up.

Problem there a huge story aspect between characters is based on the fact she is so young.

So what do you do?

And of course, the idiots came out

Wait!? People are already finishing this game? I've only gotten to the point where I saved Nia from prison, finishing chapter 1.
By the way, anyone else live streaming this series?

@Whitewatermoose Nintendo published Bayonetta 2 and teamed up with Playboy to advertise the game.So why would they change Xenoblade 2? If they didn't do a single thing to Bayo 2?

Pleasant discussions here! I finally reached a plateau; an incredibly anticlimactic one, at that. The Security Tirkin in the factory annihilates me every time I approach him. I managed to mostly avoid any struggles until this point, but due to how they're building the plot, Tora's absence as a tank is infinitely harmful to my brigade. I was forced to reassemble my Blade loadout completely and am attempting to build up these common Blades. The filthy commoners can't accomplish anything.

If anyone has gotten through Chapter 5, I'm open to some tips.

That. And also.. they wouldn’t start a project around that concept if they were afraid of some restrictions later.. it’s not like they’re in business from yesterday.

@JTMnM I had a lot of issues with this part as well, i switched over and played as nia and it helped me a lot.

@Nekoo77 There's an idea! Thank you, I'll try it out. I have issues with her maintaining her role as a healer.

@JTMnM Yeah no problem! i also have these issues, at some points i pull all her blades besides Dromarch just so she cant change for certain fights. seems to help

@Nekoo77 Okay, so what was once an impossible fight was made simple by helping Nia fulfill her role as a healer. It was laughably easy when you consider I have been stuck on this fight for hours. I had suspicions, but now they are confirmed: The healer AI is pretty awful. Tank AI seems to do what it's supposed to, but Blade healer AI needs a patch or something.

Diatribe aside, thanks again for the pointer. I still can't believe I was stuck on this fight. It was over in a couple minutes after the party change.

@JTMnM Glad i could help! I was stuck on that fight for a good 2 or 3 hours, the healer AI isnt great i agree with you 100%

I think it was a little more than just Lyn. There was the boob slider and then there was other outfits for the other characters as well. It was aggravating because Nintendo was being very heavy-handed with a number of their games at that time. The worst offense was Tokyo Mirage Sessions, where they had a cloud cover up the entire chest area of a boss just because it showed cleavage. It looked absolutely ridiculous and was the first time I ever thought to myself the game is lesser then because of their heavy-handed censorship. And situations like that I do consider censorship. Not always and I don't necessarily think all changes are censorship. I understand it we live in different cultures and different things are acceptable and you have age ratings you have to worry about and all of that. But the game had a T rating and they were basically ruining the look of boss and character designs for no reason at all. They also removed that entire quest line that had to do with this obsessed photographer. I don't know. I didn't so much mind the changes in X, but Tokyo Mirage Sessions really got to me.

But it seems those days are past, so...

Also, I've noticed there are certain fights that I simply could not beat with Pyra, but I switched to my common blade Ikaruga (looks like that giant black dog beast from Avatar but with 2 rings in his mouth) and I actually won the fight. He's a HLR type. Mind you this was before I got Poppi. It was a side quest where this kid had ran off and he was trapped by a tree surrounded by enemies. There were three level 9 enemies that you had to beat at the same time. It really opened my eyes when I realized this common blade helped me win a fight I simply couldn't win with the main story character.

@JTMnM
So, how do you help other Blades fulfill their roles? I was under the impression you really had no control over the other blades except to activate a special when prompted for a combo.

@JaxonH Have you played the first Xenoblade? Swap Rex out for Nia, and your party immediately becomes more resilient. It was shocking to see my failed attempts at canceling and healing serve the party better than the usual Nia/Dromarch AI. In other words, an efficient Nia makes the game more than a bit easier.

@JaxonH Yeah, the censorship in TMS was out of control. Remember how they turned a wedding dress into a wedding... shirt?

But, as you said, those days seem to be over. Nintendo games change in development so that there aren't disparities between different versions.

Some info I dug up from a google search. Might be helpful to raise field skills in the affinity menu (like raising Pyra's Focus to Level 2

Blades
Dromarch - Like: Meat / Board Games
Perun - Like: Fish
Poppi alpha - Like: Instruments / Staple Foods / Love: Roly-Poly Maracas / Fizz Juice
Pyra - Like: Veggies / Literature / Love: Jenerossi Tea / Woodgrain Alphorn
Ursula - Like: Desserts / Cosmetics / Love: Torigonda
Zenobia - Like: Meat / Literature

Drivers
Rex - Like: Art / Drinks
Nia - Like: Fish / Love: Cream Orange Paratha
Tora - Like: Music / Drinks / Love: Juicy Samod

1 Save your game
2 Run around town and buy 3 (or more) of everything.
3 Equip 1 of everything in each drivers pouch (you can put a new item in a pouch that already has an item)
4 Note the likes/loves
5 If necessary switch blades and repeat the process for that driver
6 Reload the game
7 Buy items to unlock loves and if you have any likes that weren't unlocked buy the cheapest item from that category to unlock
8 Save your game so you can reference them anytime you want
9 Put a cheap item in each pouch after this process is completed to protect your nice stuff from being auto-replenished
10 Go to next town and repeat

@Ralizah
Right.

And while for some people they just wanted to see skin, I personally thought it just made the characters look ridiculous... and I think a lot of people agree. I know you do.

The Blades have interest ??
Are those interests affect in Battle or their Parameter ?