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The Series-ously SX-y Xbox Thread with the super not great name that I may need to workshop

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
So it seems production of the Xbox One quietly ended in 2020... and Kotaku's editors have been taking turns relieving themselves on its grave. Look, I'm not going to pretend that the system didn't have problems. We all saw the grim direction Don Mattrick wanted to take the Xbox One. Those of us who owned the system groused about the slow interface and the lack of a share button and the games that should have been ported to it but instead went straight to the Playstation 4.

The thing is, though, many of these problems were fixed. The Xbox One of 2013 is not the same as the Xbox One of today, and that has a lot to do with Microsoft's dedication to fixing past errors, even when it was abundantly clear that the One was going to trail behind the PS4 for the rest of its life. They improved the GUI so the cursor didn't take two or three seconds to jump to the next game in your library, they did away with the Kinect surveillance and limitations on used game sharing, they introduced a controller with a share button, they gave us backward compatibility on a massive scale... that's a lot of effort and money invested in righting a sinking ship.

Past console manufacturers (read: Sega) would have just scuttled their machines at the first sign of financial danger and released a new, equally doomed system two years later, but Microsoft did right by its customers and transformed what could have been a crap console into something that was genuinely worth playing, and keeping. Hell, I prefer the Xbox One to the Playstation 4, and 98% of the reason is because Microsoft stuck with it, improving the overall experience and broadening its library with backward compatibility. For those reasons, I think the Xbox One deserves better than the golden showers Kotaku has been giving it.

(I know, this is the Xbox Series thread, but I'm posting this here because I couldn't find an Xbox One dedicated thread. Also, my investment in the Xbox One ecosystem will likely lead me to buy a Series in a few years, when the prices drop. Why start over with the PS5 when I can have a full library from the moment I buy a Series?)
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
I'm playing Killer Instinct, and holy hell is that game fun. Even with my low level of skill you can do super cool stuff and every character I've tried feels absolutely busted.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Still waiting to see if any exclusives that I'm interested in come to fruition from all those cRPG devs that Microsoft bought, but it was certainly nice to see Microsoft put effort and resources into bringing old releases into the future. And where applicable they made sure the ol' Xbox 360 got these games as well.

And over in camp Sony we still can't even get one measly dang Tokyo Jungle remaster. And now it's all the more unlikely to happen with Japan Studio's shutdown. And the Ratchet & Clank PS3 games are still stuck on PS3 (and PS Now). But hey, you can play all the QTE cartoons by that Cage shithead on modern platforms! And a PS5 Demon's Souls remake with questionable alterations!
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
That Kotaku article is so aggressively negative, it’s as if it was written by Bizarro Stuart Gipp.

I got a PS5 for Christmas, and besides Ratchet, there‘s nothing on there I want that I couldn’t play on my PS4 or an Xbox Series X.
 

4-So

Spicy
I wasn't impressed with the original Xbox One but ended up picking up a Xbox One X and it was substantially better experience. If the One X had been the original release, The Gamers™ would be singing a different tune, not that it really matters.

I do most of my gaming on the PS5 but I'm quite fond of the Series X, especially with Game Pass being the most value for the buck you can probably have with modern gaming.
 

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
Forgot to respond to this:

I'm playing Killer Instinct, and holy hell is that game fun. Even with my low level of skill you can do super cool stuff and every character I've tried feels absolutely busted.

I love that game. It was the first Xbox One game I ever got to play at a preview event, and it was one of the games that convinced me I needed an Xbox One.
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
So I was a good boy and did all my chores and ordered myself an Xbox X or whatever the new fangled thing with a disc drive is called. Without wading through the whole thread (and I apologize if this has been covered ad nauseum) is there a consensus for "must have" games for the system? Please do not answer in the form of "just try game pass". I just spent seventeen years determining what I was going to watch on Netflix. That was the chore I had to do.
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
Are you looking for specific Xbox Series X Exclusives, or any Xbox general platform games you can play on X?

Anything, I suppose. The 360 was my dominant system that generation, and I have a One, but I think I wound up getting like five games "for" it (though Battletoads made it worth it, as far as I was concerned).

569bigpimple.gif
 
Here are some games i loved on Xbox platform, many not exclusive. Also get Pass

No order:
The Ascent
Battletoads - needs another mention
Gears 5
Halo Infinite
Demon's Tilt
Streets of Rage 4
Wasteland 3
Outer Worlds
Mass Effect Legendary
Various Final Fantasy rereleases - 8 and 12 specifically for me
Forza Horizons 5
Crusader Kings 3 just on console now, not sure how good that experience is, but cool game
Resident Evil(s)
Rtype Final 2
The Gunk
INFERNAX
Lost Odyssey - on BC due to wild providence

Just off top of my head, I'm sure you played others of these elsewhere, but X Platform been my main since 360 - ill update as they come to me!
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
If you don't care about having a collection, consider Game Pass - all the first party games are in there, so it's a pretty good deal if you're after exclusives (or just a lot of games).
 
Are… there any of the former?
SORTA

Like the issue with Xb is this:
exclusives tend to be very beautiful shootmans and driving. Due to Gears 5 I am now a very into shootmans now, and Halo is rocking my world.

THAT SAID
the obsidian, bethesda, inxile buyouts are pretty compelling to me. Looking forward to SPACEJANK in november.
And I can't recommend Wasteland 3 Enough.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I meant that more in the sense that I'm *genuinely unsure* if there are any Series X games that are not playable on the One
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Psychonauts 2 is good.
Unlike on the 360, Lost Odyssey doesn't run like total butt on Series S/X, so you might check it out.
I'm assuming you have Rare Replay if you're a Battletoads fan, but don't forget that.
Is Tell Me Why still free? It's a Dontnod game in the vein of Life is Strange. For that matter are Phantom Dust, Crackdown 1 & 2 and Too Human still free to download?
Panzer Dragoon Orta is among the playable OG XBox games.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Please do not answer in the form of "just try game pass".
I think you're saying that people should give you lists rather than just a broad Gamepass suggestion, but I want to be clear that you really, really should get it if only to try games rather than buy them. It's a stupidly good deal, and if you haven't been in the ecosystem before you can probably get a month for $1.

For me, I have no idea if any of these are exclusives or not but they're all good:

Mass Effect Legendary edition - just spectacular
Halo Infinite - Gamepass only, do not pay full version for this but dang is it fun.
Elder Scrolls Online - requires gold/gamepass
Carto
Spiritfarer
Haven
The Messenger
Ori and the Blind Forest (if you like it get the sequel Will of the Wisps)
Unpacking
Cuphead
Disney Afternoon Collection
Final Fantasy XV
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Several of the Dead or Alive games (don't laugh; they're good fighters!) just went backward compatible, as did Otogi and Otogi 2. Otogi 2 is ridiculously hard (a From Software trademark, I guess) but damn does it do incredible things with the Xbox hardware. You're tearing down two story buildings and flinging exploding spiders into objects in the distance, causing big property damage and ample particle effects. Otogi 2 is pulling off these spectacular effects on the original Xbox, which are more common now but should have been beyond the reach of a game system nearly twenty years ago.

Honestly, your best bet for loading up an Xbox Series X is to start with the Xbox and Xbox 360 games. They're a strong foundation for the brand, and some of those games still look terrific, upscaled to look even better on the Series. If you've got to have something more modern, I would suggest Yakuza: Like a Dragon or maybe Nier Automata. I was on the fence about the latter, but it's growing on me, even with the genre-straddling gameplay. Recore is okay, but it feels like Keiji Inafune was paid to make Horizon Zero Dawn for the Xbox but accidentally made another Mega Man X instead. Killer Instinct is a strong early fighting game for the system that suffers slightly from being too technical and having overly specialized characters. (There's a robot comprised of three different pieces, and you have to defeat all three pieces to claim victory. It's weird.)
 
Will cosign Killer Instinct - great game!
Great OG Xbox games on BC
Crimson Skies, Gun Valkyrie, Panzer Orta, KOTOR 1+2, Republic Commando.
I meant that more in the sense that I'm *genuinely unsure* if there are any Series X games that are not playable on the One
Yea - good point. That said in last 2 years I went from One on 1080, to One-X on 1080, to One-X on 4k 60fps to Series X on 4k 120 fps OLED. I hate to say this, but it really adds a lot. Gears 5, seeing it on on those combos. Wild transition. WILD!
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Oh yeah, the difference in visual quality is staggering, especially if you go directly from a One to a Series X, but the library doesn't really change
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Unless you want King of Fighters XV. The almighty power of the Xbox Series was necessary for this game... for some reason.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
There are a couple of Series only XBox games, and plenty of games exclusive to the XBox family. I just can't think of any games that are ENTIRELY XBox Series exclusives.
 

4-So

Spicy
Series X has become my default Battlefield 1 machine - 5+ years later and it's still probably the best Battlefield DICE has released - but I'll second (third? fourth?) the Forza games and Halo Infinite.

Yes, GamePass is well worth it. I was able to try a number of games - like the Yakuza series - that I likely would never have paid for outright, and a lot of great indie stuff hits at launch or shortly thereafter, like Cyber Shadow and Infernax.
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
I really appreciate everyone's contributions to recommendations. And, yes, to be clear I will likely get GamePass, but I generally do not do well with the choice paralysis of having access to so many games simultaneously.

Follow up question: I am a videogame hoarder, and that includes systems. However, I have used my Virtual Boy more than my Playstation 1 over the years because the PS2 did/does absolutely everything I ever needed from the PS1. Meanwhile, my PS3 is going to be out and playable for the rest of time, because future Playstations didn't even try to account for my need to occasionally play Final Fantasy 13-2. The Xbox One got some good backwards compatibility going eventually, but X360 is still immediately there because I own too many discs that are not working on XOne. Is the Xbox Series X 100% playing everything that was on XOne, or is it one of those things where it is "fully backwards compatible"... but with a lot of corollary asterisks*? Trying to plan ahead on my interior design here...

* question void in Tennessee.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
100% backwards compatible, some games got fancy updates that make them look much nicer on the Series, so it’s like Forwards Compatibility
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I really appreciate everyone's contributions to recommendations. And, yes, to be clear I will likely get GamePass, but I generally do not do well with the choice paralysis of having access to so many games simultaneously.
One thing I will note is that stuff moves on and off Game Pass fairly frequently, so what can help with paralysis is focusing only on what is leaving soon.
 

ozacrot

Jogurt Joestar
(he/him)
100% backwards compatible, some games got fancy updates that make them look much nicer on the Series, so it’s like Forwards Compatibility
The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy (all on Gamepass!) had some of the most noteworthy visual upgrades here - all three of them run faster and look better than I remembered.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Okay, here's what I don't get about Smart Delivery. So Microsoft gives you a free next gen upgrade for some games, right? That's great, just spiffy, but Xbox Series is backward compatible with the Xbox One by default, and can improve performance in various ways, either through faster loading or higher frame rates. At what point does an Xbox Series specific game and an Xbox One game enhanced by the Xbox Series make any substantial difference?
 
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