Digital Foundry has done a new hands-on  examination of Xenoblade Chronicles DE to see how it holds up from a technical perspective.

Here are the main highlights:

– Maxes out at 720p when docked
– Can drop to 504p in certain cases
– Maxes out at 540p when in portable mode
– Can drop to 378p in certain cases
– Sharpening filter adjusted from Xenoblade Chronicles 2
– Seems to hold a higher resolution more often than Xenoblade Chronicles 2
– Some visual tweaks in docked vs. portable
– Screen space reflections used on water eliminated in portable mode
– Distant point lights are drawn further out when docked
– Shadow resolution paired back in portable mode
– Textures have been reworked/touched up from the Wii version
– In some cases normal maps are now used
– Specular highlights now play off the surface in a more realistic manner
– Updated polygon models, mainly for faces and hands
– Overall character detail elsewhere only updated slightly
– Proper shadow maps for rendering
– Attempt at simulating light shafts and volumetric lighting
– Now has per-pixel motion blur for dramatic action
– Trees are much more static on Switch compared to Wii, but tree models on Switch were updated
– Foliage pops into view on Switch
– Holds 30 frames per second most of the time