By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - We Need to Talk About Xenoblade DE's Resolution

Tagged games:

 

How do you feel about 378-540p resolution in a major 2020 release?

Doesn't bother me at all. 33 52.38%
 
It's not great, but I'm g... 5 7.94%
 
I'm a little disappointed. 6 9.52%
 
It's a big let down. Real... 6 9.52%
 
This isn't acceptable for... 11 17.46%
 
I'm putting my Switch in the microwave. 2 3.17%
 
Total:63
Mar1217 said:
The problem here is that if people really want higher resolutions, Monolith will obviously have to make graphical concessions on some rendering aspects.

Now, if they actually do exactly that, I can see people whinning about it not being as good looking than previous titles despite a higher resolution.

Pretty much this.

In the development of this game, trade-offs and balances were made to give it the best visuals - in the original, they basically put N64 graphics in for the characters so they could have better visuals in the environments. Looking at arbitrary numbers, like the low end of a dynamic resolution, is meaningless compared to the actual result of what you see with your eyes.

I haven't read up on Eurogamer's assessment, but I think people raised their expectations too much with all these fictional tales about it being a brand new game built from the ground up rather than a remaster with budgets to enhance certain elements.

Obviously, some people are not going to see the value in the game, because it's an old game. Many of those, I believe, because they had larger expectations than what was delivered. This is why fans trying to build something up into something bigger than it is can backfire on their expectations, and actually damage the reputation of the product.

For me, this is day 1. But every Xeno-game has been day 1 for me since Xenogears... technically before day 1 in that case, since I originally imported it in Japanese.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Around the Network

This is mainly a Nintendo fanbase forum so I'm not surprised by the poll results, but stuff like this bothered me back in Halo 2 and Halo 3 when they used funny resolutions. I distinctly remember my favorite games having those flaws which were by no means immersion breaking, but I would definitely notice it today. This remaster and the Wonderful 101 kind of showcase why people are interested in Nintendo making a Switch Pro.



RolStoppable said:
curl-6 said:

My expectations are not "artificially shifted", I am and was well aware of the capabilities of the Wii and Wii U's hardware.

If that's the case, then you shouldn't have been impressed by games that made significant concessions in certain aspects in order to excel at what the developers were focusing on.

Knowing a system's capabilities doesn't mean you can't be impressed when those capabilities are pushed to deliver great results.



curl-6 said:
RolStoppable said:

If that's the case, then you shouldn't have been impressed by games that made significant concessions in certain aspects in order to excel at what the developers were focusing on.

Knowing a system's capabilities doesn't mean you can't be impressed when those capabilities are pushed to deliver great results.

Just because this game isn't pushing the hardware's capabilities, doesn't mean the results aren't great. Even Digital Foundary said it's a significant upgrade over the original in most areas. Stop whining just because it's not perfect. This routine is getting old.



Shaunodon said:
curl-6 said:

Knowing a system's capabilities doesn't mean you can't be impressed when those capabilities are pushed to deliver great results.

Just because this game isn't pushing the hardware's capabilities, doesn't mean the results aren't great. Even Digital Foundary said it's a significant upgrade over the original in most areas. Stop whining just because it's not perfect. This routine is getting old.

What "routine"? Aside from responding when quoted I merely made one post expressing my personal disappointment that Monolith's Switch efforts so far haven't wowed the way their predecessors did on Wii and Wii U, that's all.



Around the Network
NightlyPoe said:
One big, "Meh," from me. I'm getting rather tired of having Digital Foundry numbers as the basis for internet kerfuffles instead of the minor disappointments they are. We just went through this on Wonderful 101 for some silly reason. Games are games, not a set of benchmarks. If it does take away from the experience, by all means note it like it was in Xenoblade 2. But, no, we certainly don't "Need to talk about" Xenoblade's resolution.

It'll probably get a patch soon enough either way.

I disagree.
It's important to know what you are buying, Digital Foundry provides the empirical set of analysis so we can appropriately make the best decision to our individualistic needs.

And yes. Some of us are resolution hippies. Yes. Resolutions of 360P or less deserve criticism.

pikashoe said:

I like digital foundry but they unfortunately seem to have a very negative effect on fanboys and console wars.

They are just doing a job, providing the facts after gathering the information.
They tend to be pretty impartial of platforms.

Matsku said:

For me, fps are way more important than resolution so anything under 30 feels jarring.

It drops below 30fps. But it's not frequent.

SKMBlake said:
Well if it was just a remaster, it would probably be something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWfCOHJTSq4

But they decided to remake it based on the XC2 engine, which don't perform well on the Switch. Maybe they wanted to work on the engine once more after Torna, and to keep the relasing date short, decided to go for recreating the first game with a XC2 style approach.

And overall, resolution doesn't mean anything today, Spider-man on PS4 run at 900p and is one of the most beautiful games ever made, and Jedi Fallen Order runs at 586p on the Xbox One, so below HD for a 2019 game. But still looks great.

When you reach a point in the low-end of the resolution spectrum, the visuals start to suffer as the assets cannot be showcased in the best possible light.
Image can look soft or even pixelated to boot.

For some, it's not going to matter. For others... Most certainly.

And yeah. 586P on Xbox One isn't good either.

Ljink96 said:
While it's not a big deal to me, I can understand how frustrating it can be for some gamers. Who wants to play a blurry version of a game from 2010? Handheld performance of the game is solid so far for me, but it does get very blurry at times much like Xeno 2 but not as bad. What I don't like is people having an opinion that the game's resolution needs work or the game's geometry is still kinda rough, and some textures look outdated, and for others to act like those aren't valid criticisms.

Monolith Soft even said in an interview that they couldn't remake everything. This is a smaller team on XCDE. Even with all that being considered, this game docked for the most part is beautiful.

On a final note, while the Torna Engine is better, I wonder if moving to UE4 and eventually UE5 would help Monolith Soft better optimize their games. It sure helped Square Enix.

Considering how old the game was... And it was essentially released on revised Gamecube technology that came out almost 20 years ago, I think the geometry and texturing looks good all things considered. We can't expect it to look like a 2020 AAA game.

There are still a few textures from the original version of the game which apparently looks jarring, those deserve criticism.

But the geometric complexity is expected from a remaster, some aspects there have been large gains on this front, others not much. I think the increases on this front is fully expected of a remaster.

It's just that the game engine isn't very well optimized for the Switch which holds back that resolution and framerate... And potential visuals.

Leynos said:

"Man this game looks great visually"

*finds out it's 720P*

"This game looks like shit!"

A big issue is that these games aren't advertised with all their pixel-crawling glory, they are often sharp and shown in the best possible light. It's marketing 101.

DonFerrari said:
We have a word for that, it is called a demaster, Wonderfull 101 received a great one.

Wouldn't call it a demaster, there are legitimate improvements in every aspect, it just could have been "more".

curl-6 said:

I'm not buying the game, and 720p doesn't bother me, but I am a little bothered that a team that once pushed the hardware of the Wii and Wii U to astounding heights can't seem to get good results out of the Switch so far.

Granted, it could just be the fact that Xenoblade DE and 2 were developed by smaller teams in shorter timeframes, but it's a shame Monolith have declined a lot in the technical standard of their releases. Hopefully their next game breaks the slump and delivers the wow factor they used to be known for.

They aren't willing to build the engine from the ground up to fully leverage the Switch's capabilities.

I'll buy the game when it's a bit lower in price...

Trying to build a library of exclusives for the Switch and leave the multi-plats to technically superior platforms, but you also want the exclusives to be the absolute best they can be if they are exclusive to a platform, constructive criticism is one way to ensure that... And I think Monolith are getting that message right now.

There might be a few patches put out (I.E. Doom/Witcher) that could improve things yet, who knows.

FormerlyTeamSilent13 said:

This is mainly a Nintendo fanbase forum so I'm not surprised by the poll results, but stuff like this bothered me back in Halo 2 and Halo 3 when they used funny resolutions. I distinctly remember my favorite games having those flaws which were by no means immersion breaking, but I would definitely notice it today. This remaster and the Wonderful 101 kind of showcase why people are interested in Nintendo making a Switch Pro.

In Halo 3's case, I had a 32" 1366x768P television which was a pretty standard mid-range panel at the time... So Halo 3 being at 1152×640 still looked fairly crisp.
Plus Halo 3 enjoyed being one of the best looking games at the time with it's HDR Lighting effects, Tessellated water and so forth, so it still looked the goods.

But if Halo 3 released today with today's move towards 65" and larger 3840x2160 displays in the mid range market, it would get criticized for it's resolution and visuals.
As time goes on, our expectations change with newer technology... And Halo 3 was a visual powerhouse back in 2007. Today? Not so much. The bar got moved.

Halo 2 could have been better, it didn't live up to the trailers visuals, but it's resolution was a standard 480P for the era.

curl-6 said:
RolStoppable said:

If that's the case, then you shouldn't have been impressed by games that made significant concessions in certain aspects in order to excel at what the developers were focusing on.

Knowing a system's capabilities doesn't mean you can't be impressed when those capabilities are pushed to deliver great results.

Links Awakening comes to mind, it's actually a very charming visual package, it's not pushing 4k and 8192x8192 textures with Global Illumination, but what we did get was a real stunner of a game with it's impressive material shaders and DoF use, it actually did impress me that I was playing such a game on a hand held.

And it wasn't even at native resolution either.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Shaunodon said:

I'm guessing you didn't watch the DF review yet, but they mentioned it made some improvements in portable mode over Xenoblade 2, while still not being ideal.

It's possible expectations for this game were set a bit too high. Outside of static trees, not ideal portable mode, and underwhelming resolution with occasional dips, this game still looks fantastic.

I did, and I'm glad to hear that it's still a lovely looking game (as always), despite some letdowns. I also thought the fact that they pointed out moving trees in the 3DS version was hilarious. It is a little strange that Monolith dropped that for this release, as the emphasized the moving grass for Torna in many interviews.



Retro Tech Select - My Youtube channel. Covers throwback consumer electronics with a focus on "vid'ya games."

Latest Video: Top 12: Best Games on the N64 - Special Features, Episode 7

This is another glaring situation where DLSS would help tremendously, it would take this resolution and give you a very nice 720p undocked and full 1080p+ docked. Not much you can do on the current Switch, but for people who say DLSS wouldn't help even Nintendo's own dev teams are very wrong. 



Will wait for a patch. Nowadays some things are acceptable and some are not, and "it doesnt bother me" doesnt quite cut it for a "sideshow" game.



Jpcc86 said:

Will wait for a patch. Nowadays some things are acceptable and some are not, and "it doesnt bother me" doesnt quite cut it for a "sideshow" game.

You're welcome to find it unacceptable, but that's no different from "it doesn't bother me" other than you're vastly in the minority, given the overall reception from critics and players so far.