So, the "old television lines" artefact I'm seeing on nearly every effect in this game, that's juste the stream compression right? Not an actual design choice?
That being said, I understand how people might miss the look of X. The "spacefaring" element of it was very attractive. I also think it's still too early to write off the looks for XBC2 on account of the 2 mere zones we've seen because a/ we've seen so very little of each and b/ being a Xenoblade game, there's still so much more to see and I actually wouldn't be surprised if for once they kept the awesome scale things under wraps for wow effect later. Character design remains more than debatable of course. As for the HUD, I'm honestly not bothered by it in the slightest. Granular options for icons instead of text (for elemental Arts), smaller blade Portraits and so on would be appreciated for sure, but given the systems in place, I feel like they've done a good enough UI job. I'm still more concerned with the sheer amount of characters on screen at any given time. 3 party member + 3 Blades + x enemies + possible non-party allies + loot...that's nothing to do with UI but it's still very easy to make that mess unreadable.
Oh and BOTW made sure I could never fully enjoy any open-air game where there's not a vertical traversal option that made sense. If the cast can't climb and paraglide, at some point I sure as hell hope they have blades that fly. The verticality of Xenoblade landscapes will make me sorely miss the freedom Zelda allows.
