Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition has brought one of the best games on the Wii to the Switch, but the process wasn't easy, according to the🥃 developers of the game.
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition has overhauled the visuals of the original game, which was built𒈔 with SD visuals in mind, as it was released on the Nintendo Wii. The developers have done an amazing job upgrading the character models and making the world look vibrant. The game also added several QoL improvements in order to make combat and th꧂e sidequests less frustrating, as well as adding a new post-story campaign that links it more closely to its sequel.
Xenoblade Chronicles already received one updated port for the New Nintendo 3DS, but the developers of the remake still had trouble with the Switch version of the game. Producer Shigekazu Yamada recently spoke to and he discussed the issues facing the development team when porting Xenoblade Chronicles from the Wii to the Switch.
"Because we already had the rendering engine for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Torna - The Golden Country to use as a basis, we could 🔜immediately start cr🅺eating new assets, and existing data was converted to HD using a semi-automatic conversion process. After that, artists added their particular touches to complete the quality upgrade."
There was a hiccup though: The code itself was outdated and had to be rewritten with a "modern mindset," according to Yamada. "The vast number of complex specifications of Xenoblade Chronicles made this wor♉k extremely challenging," Yamada explains. "Towards the end of the development phase, we kept finding specifications in the so🌺urce code that not even the original staff members knew about or had since forgotten."
It's clear that the developers of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition put a lot of work into the game. We just hope that a port of Xenoblade Chronicles X won't require as much 🐷work, as it was developed for the Wii U and it already has HD visuals. The developers would need to remove the GamePad integration, but as the numerous W♛ii U ports to the Switch have proven, this won't be too much of an issue.
The Xenoblade Chronicles series found attention after the release when Shulk was added to the Super Smash Bros. series. There is now an entire fanbase for the later Xenoblade games that can now experience Shulk's adventure for the first time on the Switch, and we're grateful for the work the developers put into bringing Xenoblade Chronicles to modern standards.
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is available now for Nintendo Switch.
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