Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Handheld Mode Screencap

I never did get around to buying older Xenoblade games, because too many new games have come out. So I’ll be going into it blind, but that’s actually really exciting.

To be honest, all those cons don't bother me at all.
Still excited about it!

You know, I might just stick with english VA. Anyone know whether it‘s possible to switch between English and Japanese mid-game?

Undocked the game takes a huge hit visually. Kinda shocked at that screenshot. Seems monolith were not bothered about the portable experience

It looks decent enough to me.

Not nearly what I was expecting hearing people say it looked bad.

It's noticeably toned down, but it looks better than DB Xenoverse 2, which had horrible pixelated outlines. Seems to be the AA that gives everything a soft, more blurred outline. But overall not bad.

It looks okay to me. Hopefully they focused on having a stable framerate and sacrificed the graphics for that. Plus, a good five hours in handheld mode is nothing to sneeze at. Obviously, docked is still the best way of playing the game but that‘s like saying the sky is blue.

I’m not quite sure what people are on about, every picture in portable mode looks great to me....

That last picture of portable mode is... really rough. If open field sections actually look like that, I could see the comparison to Xenoblade 3D.

I wonder if the resolution drops drastically in more demanding areas.

Of course, it'll look better in person and in motion regardless, but that's a bit discouraging.

@GoldenGamer88 I mean, docked will yield the best visual performance. It won't be the "best way" for me to play, though, as I find portable gaming to be much comfier.

@Ralizah Why would the resolution be lowered in portable mode? It still has the same processing power right?

@Fastballer Downclocked GPU, I believe. Almost every AAA Switch game so far has reduced resolution in handheld mode. The Switch screen can only go up to 720p, after all. The problem here is that sections of this look like they're dropping way below 720p.

Even in those pictures it looks good to me, Xenoblade 3D looks in no way similar. When viewing it on the Switch screen rather than a tablet, monitor or whatever it’ll look better. Also Switch screenshots look terrible compared to the actual picture quality, so I wouldn’t judge it on that.

For me the pictures look very good. But I don't understand why the game renders in 600p instead of 720p. Of course, this resolution doesn't fit the screen and the picture is much more blurrier than it has to be.
Having a 720p-display, the portable version should always try to match this resolution. Better pass on some effects or objects than falling below the 720p, I would say.

@Chandlero It depends where the bottleneck lies. The CPU clocks are the same in portable mode unlike the GPU, so going under 720p could be the better option. I’m sure if the devs could then they would have it running at native resolution, but if they have to cut so much to get there then it’s not worth it.

Yep, that’s enough to put me off getting it. I watched a vid of someone playing it on reddit and it really piqued my interest, but I assume he was playing it docked. I play mine almost exclusively handheld and that screenshot of the open world environment will cause me to hold off.

We can't have anything now, can we?

@Hughesy: Maybe, it was easier for the portable mode but this really enjoys me. Having such a nice portable device like the Switch that doesn't use the display in full glory.

However, this shows that the Switch is indeed a real hybrid and not just another handheld. It has games fitting to the docked mode and games fitting in the portable mode.

@Roamer It's one screenshot. I don't know if that's typical of the game's performance in open field sections, how heavily compressed it was, etc. On the actual system, in motion, it might look a lot better. People have posted some awfully ugly pictures of Breath of the Wild, for example, and that's a game I consider to look stunning on the handheld display.

I'm definitely becoming wary again, though. I'd originally planned on pre-purchasing it, but now I think I'll wait. Watch undocked footage of the game. Ask people here on NL on their impressions of the game's portable performance (because we have a wonderful and helpful community here!)

I don't think my expectations are too high. I was cool with Mario + Rabbids, and that ran at 600p undocked.

@Ralizah Yeah, did mean 'best way' in a more graphics, resolution and such sense. Obviously, everyone prefers to play their Switch in other ways. For me, it pretty much depends on the game. Action-packed or beautiful games like Zelda, Mario Kart, Splatoon and now Xenoblade practically demand a nice big tv and Pro Controller whereas indies, I like to play more in handheld mode.

None of the posted pictures look horrible to me. If it runs good, I won‘t complain. I did play XC1 on the 3DS after all so I might just be used to the blurry look lol.

Thats like that guy from Polygon who...attempted shall we say, to play DOOM. And then said Star Fox Zero was so bad to control he wouldnt review it.

So yeah...

To be honest I sort of just sit and expect games to be panned. If they are, I have the satisfaction of not having my hopes up. If they arent, i have my expectations surpassed and im happy.

But a lot around thid game has been negativity be it art style, voices, visuals, animations, dlc, tutorials, pacing, depth....ugh.

I dint expect it to go well nor see Xenoblade move past enthusiastic niche.