Article.
Ultimately, there's the sense that Xenoblade 2 is a game of two halves - it's a visually upgraded experience over its Wii U predecessor, and holds up pretty well when playing docked, but the handheld experience just doesn't hold up to anything like the same standard. The game is impressive overall, but compared to the pristine works created by Nintendo itself this year, Xenoblade 2 feels like a step down in many ways. It looks and runs worse than Zelda, that's for sure, while lacking some of the more advanced rendering features. That said, the game itself is great fun - the characters are charming, the world is engaging and the soundtrack is superb. It may be rough around the edges, and we're not entirely sure that the portable mode holds up well at all, but it's still an excellent RPG for Switch users that's well worth checking out.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...-chronicles-2-push-switch-mobile-mode-too-far
It's a big one with many different points, so here is an extensive summary:
Resolution:
Docked:
- 720p throughout the game, with a sophisticated TAA solution that makes it looks cleaner but slightly blurrier;
Undocked:
- Dynamic resolution, very low, down to 368p at its lowest and up to 552p;
- Worst image quality in a Switch game in portable mode;
General points on visuals:
- Still a beautiful game;
- per-object motion blur;
- Great specular highlights;
- Very good cloud simulation, with proper volume;
- Screen space reflections for water reflections, an improvement from XBCX's cube maps;
- Improved lighting from XBCX, with a simulated ambient lighting feature;
- High foliage density;
- Good draw distance, though still visible (much better than XBCX);
- Realistic light diffusion and reflections;
- Good ambient occlusion;
- Shadows are static - they do not change depending on time of day;
- Collision detection is much better than XBCX;
- Side characters can look slightly iffy.
Points on frame rate:
- Performance is generally 30 fps, however;
- Memory issue/bug causes problems for frame rate when leaving a certain location and returning to it;
- It could be a memory streaming limitation, but the speed of the storage medium did not influence the results, so likely a bug;
- Other than that, mostly 30 fps;
- handheld feels similar to docked in terms of frame rate.
Final conclusion:
- A very nice looking game, even with flaws;
- Feels somewhat unrefined from a technical standpoint.
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