Fans working on Xenoblade Chronicles HD retexture

[robometal cowboy]

Fans working on Xenoblade Chronicles HD retexture
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Looks like some pretty impressive work to me! Xenoblade Chronicles is a gorgeous title, but it's certainly held back a bit by the Wii's lack of HD. That's why these fans have stepped in to work their magic!

Check out more details on the project here

[LegendofSantiago]

That's actually pretty cool. The game does look beautiful despite having some ugly textures here and there and not being HD

[bszelda]

Woah! Maybe Nintendo should hire this fan to work on Wii U games? XD

[Broken_Cartridge]

Meh. It doesn't seem too impressive to me. It makes everything more crisp, but at the same time it's more apparent how crappy the graphics are.(i.e. 3D grass blends in with the ground texture before the HD revision and it looks papery after HD revision)

The best thing they did is used the official art for the character images in the HD version instead of still images of their character models.

All in all, it's ok, but I'll just play it on my Wii.

[CJLopez]

Seems like it only works through Dolphin a not in the actual Wii. Its really a shame, but i'll give it a try

[Orbulon]

Doesn't look much better to me, the hair texture in the original looks a whole lot better, and just seems brighter in the 'HD' texture remake. Not much to get excited about

[Syrek]

I think I'd be more excited about this if it was a mod that I could use for the Wii, through Homebrew or something like that. But until that becomes a reality, there's no point in getting myself psyched about something I can't even use yet.

[MoldyClay]

It's probably possible to do through Homebrew, or will be at some point.

Having said that, at this point, they just look brighter. Nothing particularly mindblowing. It's not as crazy as when you see HD textures for Ocarina or something.

Shulk's hair looks washed out, some of the new portraits for battle don't make sense (since they're just using other generic art).

The text looks more crisp, but it's a different font and not as fancy as the original.

It's got the right idea, but it's not what I'd call "HAMAZING".

Also not sure I understand the point of the PS3 and 360 button layouts.

[jasonmaivia]

Also not sure I understand the point of the PS3 and 360 button layouts.

It's because wireless PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers are compatible with PC software. You're able to use them like you would a Classic Controller or other traditional-style controller with many games and emulators.

[Red]

Possibly better late than never:

Significant spoilers over at the source page.

[Sir Ridley]

I prefer the original look. It's more easy on the eyes and more natural looking. It's good if they make it sharper, but they shouldn't make everything brighter and more colorful. That's not what the creators intended and to me it looks bad.

[AnoukiAgentYellow]

At a glance it looks like they just added more yellow.

[internet]

that character looks weird , and i don't know why people don't adjust their brightness setting or whatever

[thegreatscp]

Possibly better late than never:

Significant spoilers over at the source page.

I didn't see any spoilers

[NeroSuferoth]

It'd be nice to see the enviroments with a more crisp and colorful look, but Xenoblade's fugly character models are hopeless.

[Mirr0rR3flection]

So these fans weren't satisfied with the way it looked before?

I thought it looked fine without these changes.

[slmpika]

I read through your comments and just want to clarify some things that were brought up.
- The point of the HD textures is not to improve how the game looks already, but to improve how the game looks at an HD resolution after the emulator upscaling. The biggest improvement in my opinion are the fonts. I do agree that fonts more similar to the source fonts would be better.
- It would be possible with the right tools to pack these textures back into the game and play it on a Wii. However, it is unlikely that the Wii will be able to handle the large size of the new textures. In addition, it may even look worse on the Wii since they are designed for HD resolutions and will be shrunk on the Wii.
- The brightness of the new textures is not intentional, but a side effect. It is a combination of the fact that the HD textures have more contrast and that the emulator does not emulate the gamma setting correctly.

It's nice to see a positive response to this project. The creator of this project, unfortunately, just announced that he will be committing less time to the project. However, it's really easy to edit and replace the textures, so hopefully someone with some artistic talent will help move the project forward in the future.

[Red]

@thegreatscp
If you're currently playing Xenoblade and are not all too far in yet: Good, and don't watch back for now.
Spoilers may not be extremely evident at first sight, but the..."visual information" over there definitely isn't aimed at someone just starting the game or currently playing it around the halfway point. So again, just a heads-up that people may find more than they were asking for.

For everyone (close to) done with the game:

Spoiler:

...it should be pretty obvious which character's designs the page is a little too generous with. And no matter how clever or obvious one might deem this particular case, it's one of Xenoblade's central plot twists.

[ProtoKun]

That's quite the interesting work! It's not just an upscale, it's an update… something that could be worked for a Wii U release (even if digital).

Now, I don't think Shulk needs that shiny saiyan hair.

[MoldyClay]

@thegreatscp

There are some character related spoilers.

@jasonmaivia

Oh, okay.

@Mirr0rR3flection

Then you're very forgiving.

The textures are ugly up close. They aren't that bad from further away, but oh god. Up close they are crap. Specifically faces.

[DrNeroCF]

Just looks like a high contrast mode...

[MrGameBoy]

While Xenoblade looks great artistically, I feel the game does look like something that was rendered on a PS2. With that said, I don't think making the game more vibrant for the sake of brightening is enhancing its look; rather, I think it looks uglier than it should be. And changing the sprites to cleaner artwork somehow diminishes the game's personality. Hmmmm...

[Devil_Rising]

See how making everything shiny makes it ALL better?

The graphics are fine, and it's a great game. People need to quit being such graphics whores.

[WesFX]

I wish them well, but the difference on the head and grass seems basically like a recolor, and where I keep the camera, I doubt I'd notice that kind of change in the ground texture, even at 1080p.

So, I'm saying I'm not impressed.

[Mako]

They look a bit better, but these are not that impressive.