Just like Xenoblade. Now the ugly parts are just less ugly. Whether or not the good looking parts are better looking seems to depend on who you ask, but I think we just need to see more of the game first. The opening area does look "better" than everything between Colony 9 and Colony 6 (first 15-20% of the story), but it's not easily comparable to most of the new areas you visit after that.

As for the bottom comment I agree. Well, assuming you're talking about visual polish, which I think you are.

XCX may not be 1080p/60fps with subsurface scattering, 8k textures, and x16 SMAA, but I still think its a great looking game personally. What it lacks in character detail it makes up for in scope and imaginative design.

Hell, even in the first Xenoblade I frequently stopped to drink in the incredible landscapes.

I'm pleased with Xenoblade X's graphics. They look great to me. But they don't look great to everyone, and they don't look objectively great compared to most modern AA or AAA games. Xenoblade's main appeal lies elsewhere.

I'm not in the habit of stopping to admire the scenery in games or in real life. I try to do so every once in a while but it always feels forced, even when I know I like what I see.

It's certainly not on the technological level of Killzone Shadowfall or Ryse, but it's still one of the more impressive looking console games to me, largely thanks to its appealing open world.

Just like Xenoblade. Now the ugly parts are just less ugly. Whether or not the good looking parts are better looking seems to depend on who you ask, but I think we just need to see more of the game first. The opening area does look "better" than everything between Colony 9 and Colony 6 (first 15-20% of the story), but it's not easily comparable to most of the new areas you visit after that.

As for the bottom comment I agree. Well, assuming you're talking about visual polish, which I think you are.

Anyway, in another thread Ryuzaki admitted that the game was never downgraded and has simply had "bad graphics from the start." This is a compromise I'm willing to accept. I always thought Xenoblade was an eyesore even compared to its Wii contemporaries. Although looking at Xenoblade X is like breathing clean air after being trapped in a smokey room for two years, I never doubted that many people would be unable to agree with the design choices that lead to the game looking "ugly," such as low-poly character models, low-res textures, outrageous amounts of pop-in, awkward rigging and animations, and generally poor quality assets, such as the grass. And these are only the things I notice, I can't imagine what people who actually pay attention to jaggies and lighting and other stuff see when they look at the game.

Ironically, Ryuzaki was moderated for saying the game has bad graphics, even though I find that statement far less objectionable than saying a game has been visually downgraded without explaining why he thinks so, when the game obviously hasn't been. Something else I find strange is that his moderated comment was made before his comment in this thread about the game being downgraded. Maybe after being moderated for saying the game has bad graphics, he thought he must have been right in the first place to say that it has been downgraded, since he wasn't reprimanded for that stance.

??? XCX characters aren't low polygon. their only lacking parts are the face and even that seem to be improving as we get more screens (elma's hair looked better than in the E3 demo in these new images). also, it doesnt have any more low res textures and poor quality assets than any other game. everygame has low quality stuff, but you're making it seem like every XCX asset is low quality, when in realitly it's mostly high quality.

They said Q2 2015 in Japan apparently. Over here it's just 2015.

It depends on what you consider low or high quality. I believe the character models in X use fewer polygons than most character models in other (modern) games, because Xenoblade's character models were relatively low-poly. As for me, I can hardly tell so far. But I think once I've spent some time with both Xenoblade X and Zelda Wii U I'll be seeing a massive difference in the quality of character models and other assets.

How about we leave behind subjective words like low and high. Most of XCX's assets seem to be of limited quality -- in this case limited by the developers, who chose to use simpler assets in order to free up resources so that the world could be bigger and the loading times shorter.

I dont think most of the assets is of limited quality. I'd say it's the minority, like any other game. oh, and low polygon should only reffer to N64-PS2 level models, that's why i corrected that part. the characters in XCX are LOWER polygon than the wii u can normally handle (but still great), just like the first xeno on wii. I'm thinking that has more to do with monolith expirience and style than wii u hardware itself.