I'm an enormous, earth-quaking fan of the Switch 2, which accompanies me on every trip I take, whether for work or pleasure, and a big part of my enjoyment of the console has been around its upgrades to existing games. The Switch 1 was a marvel, but it was underpowered by the time the Switch 2 came around, and too many titles ran poorly on it.
Others were arguably technical marvels, looking and playing great, but very obviously in a bracket where they could benefit from the massive additional headroom provided by the Switch 2's upgraded power. Case in point: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, which brought a much-loved Wii U RPG to the Switch 1, but did so at 30fps.
People have been clamouring for an upgrade since the day the Switch 2 arrived, and it's now here. Sadly, the patch isn't free, but at just £4.19 it's not an egregiously priced extra to get the upgrade pack. What is a bit more problematic is how the new visuals are presented.
Rather than just offering a 60fps mode with the same visual presentation as on Switch 1, or maybe boosting the resolution a bit into the bargain, it would seem that a decision was made to use an AI upscaler to be more ambitious. Somehow, though, the results are nothing like the impressive work we've seen elsewhere (like the sumptuous presentation of Resident Evil: Requiem).
Instead, while the game does now boast a locked 60fps from the performance side of things, its visual clarity has taken a really weird turn. In handheld mode in particular, there's a very visible layer of flicker that now exists in basically any and all detail, whether it's near or far from the player, and it shimmers constantly in a very distracting manner.
It's fairly baffling, and while there are plenty of sequences where I can't say I've had much of an issue with it, if you pay even a little attention, it starts to feel like a major issue. In fact, plenty of players are now saying on Reddit that they've been able to get refunds for the upgrade pack through Nintendo's customer support by complaining.
The fact that some fans would rather play the older version to at least get sharp picture quality despite the 30fps limit is a bit of an indictment of the upgrade pack, and it all feels like a baffling own goal from Monolith Software, the developer of the Xenoblade series.
Whether it outsourced the upgrade pack isn't clear at this stage, but you'd have to assume that it's going to make some major and hopefully quick adjustments to seriously improve how it works as soon as possible.
After all, if you spent £4.19 you might be disappointed, but other people will be spending £55 on the full game for Switch 2 without any background knowledge, and they're liable to be a bit more upset.
So, this is a rare duff note in what's been a great run of gaming on my Switch 2, and one that I'll keep an eye on moving forward. If the game gets a major update to fix these issues, I'll be fascinated to see how quickly it happens and what approach it takes.
