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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition |OT| Rex'll show MOMO a thing or three

Man, why can't we just play it now. So many people have their hands on it. Its getting hard to dodge info that I'd rather experience first hand. I went back into my 400+ hour save and never got one of the rare blades and her battle is tough, going to have to work out a layout just to find her. Might wait until the upgrade pack finally releases to do it. Then I'll hit up a NG+.
 
alf717 said:
Man, why can't we just play it now. So many people have their hands on it. Its getting hard to dodge info that I'd rather experience first hand. I went back into my 400+ hour save and never got one of the rare blades and her battle is tough, going to have to work out a layout just to find her. Might wait until the upgrade pack finally releases to do it. Then I'll hit up a NG+.
Click to expand...
 
ハトリス said:
Played a bit of the Switch 1 version back then, and i wanted to love it, but every fight took an eternity. Is there a way to speed that up now?
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??? The regular enemies die pretty quickly, kinda too quickly…but if the bosses die too quickly then you never gonna get use you bladed combos.

Just most RPGs if you build your team right you can do stupid amount of damage.
 
ハトリス said:
Played a bit of the Switch 1 version back then, and i wanted to love it, but every fight took an eternity. Is there a way to speed that up now
Click to expand...
You need to use the pouch items. They are a core part of the combat system, use pouch items to help you recharge your skills faster. This is the biggest mistake everyone does, ignoring pouch items.

You can also use attack cancelling to speed up the recharge of your skills too.
 
ハトリス said:
Played a bit of the Switch 1 version back then, and i wanted to love it, but every fight took an eternity. Is there a way to speed that up now?
Click to expand...
yeah it can be a bit complicated at first but fights become very fast once you grasp the mechanics

Touch fuzZy. get BizZay said:
Helpful tips/resources for getting into Xenoblade 2 combat

Here's a guy talking through all of the game's mechanics from the most basic to the complex. He puts spoiler warnings before anything he thinks is helpful that is also a spoiler:



Here's a guy giving useful "before you start" tips to help you use your time efficiently while remaining spoiler free:



That dude also does a full let's play of the whole game which may be helpful for somebody trying to get into XC2 as a "play along guide." It's a bit of a mixed bag though. In their best moments, watching this kind of lets play provides useful explanations of mechanics along with demonstrations, together with tier lists accompanied by reasoned explanations, fun easter eggs, fascinating trivia about the game and its development process, and the like. In their worst moments these type of lets plays see you listening to cringe jokes, zoomer brain observations and lame puns delivered in a shrill, squeaky voice that sometimes becomes a microphone breaking squeal. You know your own history with and opinions about youtubers so decide based on that. Could also be useful just to watch the opening few hours of the game to get an idea of whether it would be fun for you or not. Spoilers, obviously:



This guy made a guide for every single blade in the game along with demonstrations of how to use their unique traits effectively. Spoilers for the identities and attributes of the rare blades:



I've also been watching XC2 videos this month hyping myself up to replay XC2 and I just replayed Torna so ama
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This day is dragging on!

This was the first upgrade we've all been waiting for on the Switch 2.

Can't believe it's almost here…

giphy.gif
 
jshackles said:
Looks like they really went the extra mile to include a ton of QoL stuff in this patch, I'm impressed. Combined with the fact that they made a lot of QoL changes in the months after launch (after I already beat the game), me and DonkeyPunchJr DonkeyPunchJr will be eating good.
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Hell yeah. I had such a love/hate relationship with this game. Glad to see they took all the criticism to heart and remedied most of it (even though it's kinda baffling that they thought it was a good idea in the first place). Sounds like it will be a much better experience this time around.
 
I am really wanting to get into this series, but excuse my ignorance in asking- where does X fit into the series? Is it before/after the trilogy? In between them? Not a part of them? Just wanting to know so when I get them I know what order to tackle them in.
 
MacReady13 said:
I am really wanting to get into this series, but excuse my ignorance in asking- where does X fit into the series? Is it before/after the trilogy? In between them? Not a part of them? Just wanting to know so when I get them I know what order to tackle them in.
Click to expand...
X is its own thing that isn't connected to the others.

You'll get the most out of 3 if you've played 1 & 2, although it's definitely not required.
 
MacReady13 said:
I am really wanting to get into this series, but excuse my ignorance in asking- where does X fit into the series? Is it before/after the trilogy? In between them? Not a part of them? Just wanting to know so when I get them I know what order to tackle them in.
Click to expand...
Not canonically connected.

There's some stuff they added to the Switch re-release post-game that kinda hints that maybe they are connected or will be connected in the future, but as it stands these games are currently not connected at all.
 
Switch 2 version is now online here.

Did one fight in my old savegame and compared a bit with XBC1 in handheld mode. 60fps seem super stable so far, not one drop in my short test, seems definitely more stable than XBC1.

Handheld resolution is unfortunately not as high as in XBC1. It is not terrible, but it is a little bit lower, not much, but a little bit. Giving that XBC1 wasn't native res either but a very very good upscale, 1 feels like somewhere in the 900p while this feels like it's scratching on the 720p with upscaling (not sure if same technique as in 1). If you look at your main characters face and zoom in a bit you can definitely see the softness that other lower res Switch games have, but it's still pretty good looking, just not as good as XBC1 when it comes to clarity but also not as bad as "Ewww, this is not native res, I rather don't want to play now" there are other games where not being native res look definitely way worse, even tho they might be similar resolution, so it's still good news. No idea if there is still dynamic res and it could drop further tho.... Will test docked tomorrow.
Menus and UI and everything all native 1080p like in XBC1.

Patch for the Standalone Add-on (I have it physical) is still not online tho.
 
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Been playing for an hour-ish in handheld mode. It's good to be back. Haven't played it in years, so paying attention to all the tutorials and thoroughly exploring everything has taken up most of my playtime so far lol. But feels super smooth and snappy. Compared to Switch¹ handheld mode the clarity and details are on another level. 💯

Can't wait to arrive at Gormott and take in the vistas.
 
I played around a bit, the game looks like the XB1 Switch 2 patch, so it can look slightly soft at times, but way better than the original Switch 1 release of course. Seeing the environments in high resolution is incredible.

I've noticed the same artifacts on the vegetation like XB1, so they are using the same upscaling model or something very similar at least. There is some hitching at times, especially when panning the camera fast, but nothing as egregious as Makna Forest and Eryth Sea in XB1 from the little I've seen.

There is still only a single save slot, so I'm not sure what to do, I don't want to override my complete save for a new playthrough.
 
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When does the upgrade pack actually unlock? The icon on my switch ui changed to the switch 2 edition, but starting it tells me it will start without the upgrade pack until it unlocks.

I got super excited when I turned my switch on and saw the icon updated lol
 
LordCBH said:
When does the upgrade pack actually unlock? The icon on my switch ui changed to the switch 2 edition, but starting it tells me it will start without the upgrade pack until it unlocks.

I got super excited when I turned my switch on and saw the icon updated lol
Click to expand...
It unlocked at midnight in my timezone.
 
LordCBH said:
When does the upgrade pack actually unlock? The icon on my switch ui changed to the switch 2 edition, but starting it tells me it will start without the upgrade pack until it unlocks.

I got super excited when I turned my switch on and saw the icon updated lol
Click to expand...
If you're in North America, it unlocks approximately 1 hour from this post.
 
jshackles said:
I'm kind of leaning towards new game plus myself. I finished the game before they introduced new game plus originally, and apparently there are new unique blades you can unlock in that mode. My only trepidation is that I'll keep my existing blade affinities from my first playthrough, most of which were maxed out, so I'll lose out on the grind there. But if I'm remembering correctly, that's somewhat fixed by just using different / new blades.
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Decide on what you are going to do? New Game or NG+?

Depending on the number of new blades in NG+ (and when you get them) you could just rock those the entire time but with the full cast affinities maxed I can see the difficulty in choice.
 
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Miyazaki's Slave said:
Decide on what you are going to do? New Game or NG+?

Depending on the number of new blades in NG+ (and when you get them) you could just rock those the entire time but with the full cast affinities maxed I can see the difficulty in choice.
Click to expand...
Maybe my memory is failing me but I remember you can get those blades as long as you had clear save data, remember Xenoblade 2 didn't have NG+ at launch, that was added later on.
 
Ok, this is kinda crazy. I just tested out the Docked mode.
While the Handheld mode is a little bit softer than the one in XBC1, unfortunately, (still looks really good) like I described here:

Retro Edge said:
Switch 2 version is now online here.

Did one fight in my old savegame and compared a bit with XBC1 in handheld mode. 60fps seem super stable so far, not one drop in my short test, seems definitely more stable than XBC1.

Handheld resolution is unfortunately not as high as in XBC1. It is not terrible, but it is a little bit lower, not much, but a little bit. Giving that XBC1 wasn't native res either but a very very good upscale, 1 feels like somewhere in the 900p while this feels like it's scratching on the 720p with upscaling (not sure if same technique as in 1). If you look at your main characters face and zoom in a bit you can definitely see the softness that other lower res Switch games have, but it's still pretty good looking, just not as good as XBC1 when it comes to clarity but also not as bad as "Ewww, this is not native res, I rather don't want to play now" there are other games where not being native res look definitely way worse, even tho they might be similar resolution, so it's still good news. No idea if there is still dynamic res and it could drop further tho.... Will test docked tomorrow.
Menus and UI and everything all native 1080p like in XBC1.

Patch for the Standalone Add-on (I have it physical) is still not online tho.
Click to expand...

The Docked mode is legitimately really impressive, especially to how this game looked before. It kinda even feels like it's a bit more high res than XBC1 in Docked. Just confusing how handheld couldn't be even better then, but this is incredible news for Docked fans and players. Really impressed here.

(Running on my LG C9 60 inch 4K OLED)

biSevv.jpg


biSugb.jpg


bivmG0.jpg


biSF93.jpg
 
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Hello, I can confirm the upgrade is working on my physical copy of Torna right now.

Doesn't change the title screen to "Torna switch 2 edition" or indicate that it is a different version the way the base game of XC2 does but it's definitely upgraded and looks and runs heaps better.

My impressions from ten minutes of playing late game Torna with the upgrade installed:

I wasn't thinking about 60 fps but I've been playing Torna every day for a week and when the framerate suddenly changes to feel super smooth 60 you really notice, it's great!

As for the visuals, the game always used a kind of blobbly "paint daubs" effect to try and smooth the edges of everything before, but it didn't really work. The res would lower mid gameplay and the aliasing on the edge of characters would look super nasty, like when you save jpegs in super low resolution and weird lines start appearing. But now it looks really clean like painted anime, it feel like this is how it was always supposed to look.

So yeah, visually it's MUCH better looking than I was expecting. I was basing my expectations on the XC1 Switch 2 edition and it definitely looks better than that so I'm REALLY HAPPY

Just keep in mind this is Torna I've seen, not XC2, I won't get to play XC2 until after I beat Torna tonight and I think Torna always looked a little better than XC2. And I've only played for like 10 minutes so I might change my take later. But right now I'm grinning like an idiot cuz I get to replay XC2 looking legit pretty now.

Also, the video recording works, but I'm supposed to be able to get a HuD free screencap by pressing L+R, right? That's not working in Torna for me
 
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Retro Edge said:
Ok, this is kinda crazy. I just tested out the Docked mode.
While the Handheld mode is a little bit softer than the one in XBC1, unfortunately, (still looks really good) like I described here:



The Docked mode is legitimately really impressive, especially to how this game looked before. It kinda even feels like it's a bit more high res than XBC1 in Docked. Just confusing how handheld couldn't be even better then, but this is incredible news for Docked fans and players. Really impressed here.

(Running on my LG C9 60 inch 4K OLED)
Click to expand...

I was trying to keep my expectations in check after XCX 4k being bad and XC1 4k being mid, but it really does look beautiful doesn't it???

I'm so pumped to replay XC2 looking all pretty hell yeah!
 
Just got up and decided to give the game and go. Very impressed so far. The resolution bump is noticeable. I'm playing off of my original save file and the only thing that jumped out at me was the music when I fought enemies. Its very low. I checked my settings and the audio was set kind of low but after adjusting the audio to the same levels the music is still low.

Tested Torna at version 2.0.0 and its looks beautiful as well. Same issue with the battle music, gonna mess with the settings and see if I can adjust something.
 
The visual upgrades are massive!
PM1LL5x.jpeg

C438hDq.jpeg


Like I stated earlier, Xenoblade 3 scaled down the graphical details for stable performance on the original Switch, while Xenoblade 2 pushed the original Switch to its limit but suffered from IQ and performance. I didn't really feel like a generational upgrade back then when playing XC3 on an emulator as opposed to XC2, where you could see all of those details were lost because of low IQ with just a simple resolution boost.

WKm9ecJ.jpeg

t2Q75qL.jpeg
 
Popped in the Standalone add-on too now. It's interesting that this gets handled via Switch 1 patch and it stays a Switch 1 game just being "Switch 2 aware" with higher res and FPS, but it makes sense. Resolution wise in Handheld it's very good, maybe even on XBC1 level and slightly better than XBC2 base game on Handheld. But it's a coin toss, it makes a very good impression at least. :)
 
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I'm a bit confused:
I have the switch cartridge and bought the upgrade pack.
On the homescreen are now the switch 2 version and the cartridge version.
When I start the switch 2 version it takes me to the eShop and says I need to buy it?
 
Gy8E5k2Zc8xODk3N.jpeg


Was delivered today, While not XBC2, I got my physical of XBC1 today. I'll happily wait for October with the physical releases for XBC2. I mean, I can just buy the upgrade for Switch 2, but I want all 4 of them physical for Switch 2. Though I did play through X with the upgrade.
But my local retailer has the Switch 2 version on promotion for X, so I might pull the trigger.

On a different note. How is XBC2 on Switch 2. Bet it looks and runs glorious.
 
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Kemosabe666 said:
I'm a bit confused:
I have the switch cartridge and bought the upgrade pack.
On the homescreen are now the switch 2 version and the cartridge version.
When I start the switch 2 version it takes me to the eShop and says I need to buy it?
Click to expand...

Is your physical version from a different region than your bought upgrade? Like physical Japanese and US eShop bought upgrade? That could be it.
 
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