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Xenoblade 3D |OT| Is that a Monado in your pocket or are you just really feeling it?

I really like this so far, I played it for about an hour while in the laundromat. It doesn't shove cutscenes down your throat yet you still get a feeling for the characters' personalities, it's fun to explore and fight enemies, and I just like the relationship between the characters and I look forward to how that will affect gameplay as I move on. This is my first time playing too, so it's a real treat. The graphics do look pretty amused on the screen tbh, but it works just fine. I'm happy to be able to delve into a deep adventure game after not playing something unique for a while, I'm excited to see where it takes me!
 
I honestly don't know why everyone's freaking out by the way the game looks. I honestly think it looks fine and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

Maybe I'm not terribly picky. :/
It looks servicable, but not great. This is coming from someone who never played the original.
 
I picked it up, but I told myself i'd wait until I am done with MM3DS and BB on PS4.


Sigh, I have the game on Wii and a beefy system for Dolphin, but I am too lazy to set it all up. Does that make me a bad person?
 
So if I didn't like this on Wii the 3DS version isn't gonna change my mind, is it?

It's doubtful. It hasn't changed other than the convenience of gaming on the go and a graphical downgrade. Some reviews have said the game benefits from portable play though. Slower-paced high content games tend to be well suited for that.
 
The game isn't well suited for the 3DS screen resolution. Even playing it for a half hour, my eyes really never relax and settle with the scenery. The 3D effect makes it somewhat worst. There's a shimmery effect by cramming in detailed environment and scaling down the resolution + lack of anti aliasing in play.

The low resolution wasn't as apparent in other recent titles like Majora's Mask or Monster Hunter. Even that other ported over Wii title Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D wasn't that bad either. Not really feeling it.
A lot of people say the first area of the game is the roughest in terms of graphical fidelity, and that it gets better later on when you get to bigger areas
 

TheMoon

Member
Playing this for the first time ever and I was wondering when it comes to dialogue choices in those heart areas (don't know the name off the top of my head, my apologies) like where I meet Fiora for the first time, how was I supposed to know the correct choices to make for her to actually like me lol
You're not supposed to know.

So if I didn't like this on Wii the 3DS version isn't gonna change my mind, is it?
It's the exact (!) same game. Nothing changed. If you didn't like it before, you won't like it now.
 
Honestly don't get the people turning their noses up at this due to no Japanese voice track. I'm still pretty early but this is one of the best dubs I've heard from a game like this. You'll survive.

The graphics are a little rough and some of the text (notably the tutorial text) is blurry, but I've already made way more progress on this version than I ever did on the Wii version.

Pick it up, people.
 

El Odio

Banned
Put about an hour and a half into this already and I'm nearing the end of Tephra Cave for the ether cylinders. I don't know if it's the smaller screen compared to the tv I originally played this on but I feel like the faces at least don't look as bad as before.
 

Overside

Banned
some tips for playability concerning the camera:

Go into options, and move the camera control from normal, to 'fastest; for both X and y axis.

In game, hold the 'zl' button, the game will then show several options and the associated buttons, zoom in, zoom out, and reset. Reset is kind of pointless because if you just tap zl it resets the camera behind you.

Zoom out, quite a bit. The game controls and camera whips like a hummingbird on crack when you are zoomed up close. (The wii version was the same)

And finally, holding ZL locks the camera in place, so as long as you hold it, it wont rotate on its own. This can be used to control the camera in a more manual traditional style, instead of feeling like you are constantly fighting it to get that side angle you want or soemething.


Other options you may want to consider are turning pov to high, and turning off battle camera. (Pretty sure it was designed for people using wii mote controls, and its god awful compared to simply moving the camera where you want it yourself with an an analog stick or the nub.)
 
Played for 4 hours, picked it up this morning. Impressions:

Graphics: If you didn't like how it looked on the Wii your not going to like it now. WIth that said this game is not about graphics, its never been about graphics and the idea of HD port begging is stupid. The majority of us still play FF7 and love it even so many years after the fact, swallow the hype pill shut up and enjoy the game.

Menu: I for one was in the too cramped looks like shit camp. I still think it is cramped at times but honestly it is fine.

Gameplay: Nothing has changed it is all there in its epic glory and brilliant as ever before.

English only VA: Meh, shit happens we deal with it.

Oh and I read the Kotaku conversation about the game... Honestly its a handheld version of an amazing game from the Wii that was already archaic hardware when it came out... This game is exactly what Nintendo said it was going to be. Which for those that seem to not get the memo... The same exact game as Xenoblade for the Wii except slightly degraded graphics.

So far it is awesome just like it was when we played it the first time it came out... Difference is now I can take it everywhere and that is a pretty epic difference. For those on the fence about the game. Go get it, enjoy it and if you don't like it sell it for a bit o change in a year as I doubt Nintendo is going to keep this one in production.

Edit: For first time players do not worry about getting everything, and 100% the game first play through. Enjoy this as an adventure and remember... there is more than just Shulk.
 

Teggy

Member
How are people finding battery life? I played 3 hours off a full charge before the charge light came on. This is with 3D on - does 3D use a lot more battery?
 
It's doubtful. It hasn't changed other than the convenience of gaming on the go and a graphical downgrade. Some reviews have said the game benefits from portable play though. Slower-paced high content games tend to be well suited for that.

I mean I do tend to prefer RPGs in portable form now, but some of the big issues for me were the controls, the ui and the fetch questy mmorpg elements.
 

Luigi87

Member
I find it really impressive that this is running on n3DS as well as it does. I get the complaints about IQ, the shimmering on textures so to speak being what bothers me the most, but aside from that, this is really fantastic.
 

chidrock

Member
I have this ready to pick up, but I was wondering how the sense of scale was for the game being on a small screen? I know the biggest thing about this game was how large the world was. Does it feel immersive on the 3ds?
 

Crisium

Member
I'm really shocked it had texture downgrades. So much more RAM and even counting 3D it is pushing less pixels than the Wii version. Something about the 3DS GPU must be god awful to force them to downgrade textures.
 

EvilMario

Will QA for food.
At first I was jarred with how it looked after playing the Wii version. But that was three years ago and I've had a lot of Dolphin shots shoved in my face recently. Now a few hours in I actually think it looks pretty impressive and runs at a surprisingly smooth framerate.

And a spoiler note on the story, something I noticed replaying the game now
Shulk and Reyn speaking after 'the big battle' in the beginning, Shulk mentions he has two voices inside his head telling him to take two separate paths. I uh.. look at that dialogue a lot differently now knowing what takes place. I'm sure there will be a lot of that coming.
 

gogogow

Member
I'm really shocked it had texture downgrades. So much more RAM and even counting 3D it is pushing less pixels than the Wii version. Something about the 3DS GPU must be god awful to force them to downgrade textures.

So much more ram? The N3DS has only 10mb of video memory. The Wii has 88mb unified memory.
 

Xbro

Member
At first I was jarred with how it looked after playing the Wii version. But that was three years ago and I've had a lot of Dolphin shots shoved in my face recently. Now a few hours in I actually think it looks pretty impressive and runs at a surprisingly smooth framerate.

And a spoiler note on the story, something I noticed replaying the game now
Shulk and Reyn speaking at 'the big battle' in the beginning, Shulk mentions he has two voices inside his head telling him to take two separate paths. I uh.. look at that dialogue a lot differently now knowing what takes place. I'm sure there will be a lot of that coming.

Yes, that is a direct reference.
 

Overside

Banned

The textures shown are identical. Youve discovered the secret of texture layers and streaming. The difference between those shots is a texture layer thats not shown.

The 3ds version hasnt streamed on the top layer of textures in that shot (The texture that gives the appearence of tiles, over the blotched colors), but you can clearly see that the other layer is identical.... This isnt even compressed all that bad, there are much worse compressed textures. Still not the same thing as lowering resolution.

This happens a lot in xenoblade, its not always the same thing at the same time, but it happens enough todefinately notice it. (Both wii and 3ds), when teleporting, moving the camera to off scene locations quickly, or when cutscenes change camera angles, the top layer doesnt always load in advance of the area being seen.

However, that top layer and the detail it provides over the blotchy under layer does still exist just fine in xenoblade 3d. Here, Ill show you (sorry about not matching the time of day, I didnt think about it, but you really dont need it):
zlCfzTO0RggCn-PWFV


That layer that wasnt streamed in yet on the screen you provided is perfectly there now.

Man, Nintendo really fucked up with that promo video.
 

Overside

Banned
So much more ram? The N3DS has only 10mb of video memory. The Wii has 88mb unified memory.

No man, the new 3ds has 10Mb of vram compared to the wii's 3 Mb of vram.

And 256Mb of main FCram compared to the wii's split pool of 24Mb 1tsram and 64Mb gddr3.

People, its the freaking cartridge.
The cartridge was too small, so the japanese soundtrack had to be cut, and the textures had to be compressed to fit.
 

dogmaan

Girl got arse pubes.
I'm really disappointed by the 3D effect in this game, it feels like false advertising that Nintendo called it Xenoblade Chronicles 3D.
 

braves01

Banned
Wow, this game looks kind of bad...

It honestly looked pretty bad when it first came out on Wii, too. It's definitely not much of a looker on 3DS either, but it runs very smoothly so far (about 3 hours in, just starting on the real adventure). The graphical compromises seem worth it from that perspective, especially since there are still a TON of enemies on the map at any given time. Early game spoilers *
When the mechon invade Colony 9 at the beginning, there had to have been a dozen or more enemies in the commercial district but I didn't notice a hiccup
* The graphical compromises aren't nearly as significant as the performance compromises in DKCR 3D, example, which by the way I'd love Nintendo to patch for improved performance on n3DS at some point.
 
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