Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Why Xenoblade Chronicles HAD to look like shit -Destructoid

Really good read on the damage HD has wrought upon the JRPG and it sort of backs up what Yoshinori Kitase has been saying about the difficulty of producing RPGs on consoles this generation.

The textures of Xenoblade are not even the best I've seen on the Wii, but the scope the game achieves is unlike anything I've played this generation. Even Skyrim.

[Malacite]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

I don't really buy that notion at all.

Honestly I feel like it's just laziness on the part of most devs - especially with PS3 games as Blu Ray affords so much space.

[Armando]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

Honestly I feel like it's just laziness on the part of most devs - especially with PS3 games as Blu Ray affords so much space.

It has nothing to do with space and everything to do with development costs. Space has never been an issue. Optical discs don't cost much. They could make a 4-disc PS3 game, but good luck financing a game that big with graphics like those.

Good luck getting it out quick, too.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

I don't really buy that notion at all.

Honestly I feel like it's just laziness on the part of most devs - especially with PS3 games as Blu Ray affords so much space.

Nope. It's the cost of modeling and maintaing a stable experience on such a massive scale that makes it too expensive for HD. Think back to GTA San Andreas or FFXII. They had massive worlds, but how much of the actual landscape was ever recycled?

As big and lovely as Skyrim is, it very much relies on recycled content, sooner on dungeons than other content, but still noticeable.

Yet handhelds now enjoy the kinds of RPGs we enjoyed in previous generations, seldom ever having to give up thier sense of scope. Valkyria Chroncles might have been plausible for PS3 a second time, but with an anime to coincide with and tighter releases expected from the higher ups, PSP made it cheaper and easier to get the job done more quickly and made both PSP games more profitable than the original ever was.

[DakAttack]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

Excuses. That's all I'm reading.

I looked up screenshots of the game, and it looks fine. It looks exactly like something you'd see on a console that's technically inferior to most phones, but the art direction is wonderful.

[Armando]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii



This is from 2006. It's been 6 years since then. If this wiki is to be believed, PSX and PS2 Final Fantasies cost around $45 million, without any marketing factored in - and these are games that look much worse than Xenoblade. MGS4 was $60 million. Gran Turismo was $80 million and GTA IV is $100 million. Those aren't even RPGs.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

The art direction is fine, the headline was just ribbing a GI editor for what he said.

As for excuses, show me the games from this generation that maintain the kind of scope Xenoblade does without digging into Bethesda's or Rockstar's backlog? I'll save you time - you won't find anything. I'm not ripping on Skyrim or Fallout 3 when I cite the tremendous amount of cut-and-paste - they have to do that. They couldn't be what they are without doing that. And how often does a GTA or TES come along? Game of this scope are in the minority and it has everything to do with cost. We could have a pretty competitive genre were it not for the cost. We're fortunate to see Skyrim, Xenoblade and Dragon's Dogma release as close together as we have and GTAV likely later this year

Enjoy it while it lasts, though. We're not going to see a year like this again for a while.

[Malacite]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

I still don't see how the game couldn't have been done on 360 or PS3 - if it's possible on the Wii, then it's more than doable on those platforms. That's what I was getting at - if the devs want to be lazy and/or just focus on beautifying the game over adding substance (which has been the problem with SE for some time now) then it's entirely their fault. Don't blame the hardware.

I'm well aware that the game's graphics needed to be scaled back due to the sheer scope of the game - but it could have either been made to look a bit better on the other platforms, or perform better thanks to the more powerful processors, GPUs and disc space.

And no, discs are NOT cheap - yes they are cheap to manufacture, but for whatever ridiculous reason, the big 3 charge ludicrous sums (Microsoft is the worst offender here for multi-disc games) for each disc. I can't quote the exact figures but I remember reading about it years ago and just shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. There's no reason to pay a stupid premium on a piece of plastic that costs 10 cents to make >_>

Final Edit: Just as further proof, I'd like to point out that MAG was purposely scaled down graphically (as was Resistance 2) to enable the large-scale environments used in multiplayer. So don't tell me there aren't any devs willing to do this for the sake of an epic experience (Sadly Zipper is being shutdown after their next game is done).

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

Mal, its could be on PS3 or 360, it would just be too expensive to be made possible on PS3 and 360. That and Nintendo owns Monolith Soft, so that prevents it anyway.

MAG and Resistance 2 scaled down graphics because Sony forbids compression of assets on the Blu-Ray format so they can meet the "lossless" audio/video/claim. You can hop up and down about how great the storage space is, but the fact remains that that space seldom, if ever, is fully utilized.

[Kailea]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

I think Xenoblade looks wonderful (for a Wii title) and love the story/game play/music......... is that not what matters?

I agree wit the article some though, if that game had been released on PS3/360, it would have looked better, but everything else would have been sacrificed......

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

The Scope of the game is amazing. The other day I was on Digit 2 looking down on a colony and now I'm on the Mechonis thigh looking down at that severed hand that became an island. You just don'[ get that kind of effect much anymore in games. It happens in Skyrim, too, but its just not as exotic a location as people living on two massive dead gods.

[Kailea]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

I am going to try something, been wanting to for a while just to see if I could, and Xenoblade is a good game to try it out on.

I have my copy, but I am downloading an ISO of it, then I am going to do this........
Xenoblade HD Retexture Project - Updated: Version 02 Released + PS3/Xbox360 Buttons

All that has to be done, is use a renaming tool, and rename all the files from the PAL to the NTSC name and your good to go, I also imported my save from my Wii's SD card and have Dolphin all configured, all I am waiting for now is the ISO to finish.

[Raydeus]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

I don't buy it either.

No one was expecting Crysis or Skyrim graphics from a JRPG like this. And everyone knows SE tends to go too far, which is why the guy in the article picked them. In another console (or even PC) Xenoblade could get better waaaaaaay better looking just with after effects, Anisotropic filtering for the textures and a native rendering resolution higher than 480p.

FFXI is a huge proof of that. Gameplay-wise XI may be stagnant, but no one who has actually played the game in PC or 360 can say the graphics are bad. On the contrary, we are still amazed a PS2 game can still look so good after all these years. And we are still talking of PS2 models with no HD textures whatsoever and a shoddy port, just with a better hardware to run it. Which is what this game is really, a PS2 game like XII, only maybe larger.

And considering what I've seen making mods I'm very doubtful better quality textures on the exact same models wouldn't have done a world of difference for pretty much the same budget. No to mention making higher quality textures is no different than doing crappy ones unless the hardware is so bad you have to keep retweaking stuff to make them as small as possible, which does indeed take some extra time.

So no, I don't buy it. The game was definitely doable on a better console without sacrificing content and without having to spend that much more on "fancy graphics".

[Kailea]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

except Nintendo owns them...... so I still find it funny that people say "sucks that it is on the Wii" when in reality it is the only system it would have come out on.

I am trying out the game on my PC with the HD pack, to see how the game can really look if pushed.

I could care less what others think, many wont even look at the game because it is on Wii, and I hate to tell them, but they are missing out on a very good title. I guess I am one of the "lucky" few, I can switch between all my systems, and not even blink any eye.

[Raydeus]

Re: Why Xenoblade would have only been possible on the Wii

except Nintendo owns them...... so I still find it funny that people say "sucks that it is on the Wii" when in reality it is the only system it would have come out on.

That's not the point though. The point was the game looked like crap in the Wii and the guy making the argument that it would've taken too much money to make on another console because "of the HD o'doom" which was just not true no matter how hard he tried to go comparing the so limited HD games to this awesome marvel of low-res excellence.

If anything the Wii's cheapness was what actually hurt RPGs and gaming in general because it told developers and publishers that you can go on developing low res RPGs and people will buy them and even make excuses for you. Which meant more money in their pockets at the expense of technical innovation.



As for the game itself I can say that while I'm actually intrigued by the concept I don't really think I'm missing out at all.