So what looked better, and in what ways? Please, tell me.
There's a graphical ceiling when you try to make games "realistic," and I think it's starting to show: games looked impressive, but even the Xbone/PS4 games are having to rely on impressive scenes or backdrop to really catch an eye. BF4 had the obligatory destructible environment (scripted) and then a huge expansive backdrop; AC4 (or was it Pirates!, I forgot) had ships blowing up and water efffects; Ryse had ships blowing up and water effects (oh wait, did I mix those two up?). Titanfall had impressive robots, except the FPS part was corridor shooting and the mech part was Hawken. X had mechas, weird giant Named creatures and a huge expansive environment that shat on Gaul plains.
If you merely look from a tech perspective... sure, X probably loses. If you're looking at the promo reels themselves and not scrutinizing every screenshot, every scene things start to feel more similar. Then you weigh in what you enjoyed the most: I'm growing weary of BroShooters, AC never did it for me, I could give two shits about Rome. Successor to Xenoblade and a possible link to early episodes of Xenogears? Holy shit, sign me up!
Emotions and such directly affect how you view things, how you taste, whether a piece of music is good, etc. Xenoblade was such a good experience for many people that, looking at it we automatically shit our pants in excitement. As far as graphics for GAMES go this is perfectly fine, because we get the games to play them. The music by ACE might not be all that fucking spectacular, but it gets exponentially better as a result of the gestalt of music, world view and the greatness of the game. If all I wanted to do was marvel at graphics I can play on my PC.
