This happens when you shrink a TV game into handheld. It happens to every PS4 game I remote-play with the Vita.
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Fire Emblem Three Houses has ridiculously small Text (Update: Kotaku Article)
- Thread starter 60fps
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Right on, man. Good avatar, and good points.This is Nintendo Threehouse gameplay on my TV.
This is Edge of Tomorrow with subtitles, same viewing distance.
Why do videogame subtitles have to be so freaking small?
Great thread, not specifically about FE, but how in general way too many games hover between uncomfortable and unusable. Give me text size options.
This is a common mistake for teams making their first jump to HD games. It would totally suck if the game gets ruined by being a text heavy game with tiny text.
I think quite a few? But there's options. It is overall interface scaling options that can be set for either mode. Into the Breach, Slay the Spire, and I think Wargroove, all recently.
It looks perfectly fine to me, but I understand that the option should be available on any game with a small default font. I see the examples about Xc2, and even if it's not bad at all, I would prefer the option to reduce the font/UI as it was a little bit intrusive IMO.
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This comparison was done on a 86" TV.
There is no excuse for videogame subtitles to be so freaking small.
What the hell is wrong with some of you? It's not all that negative a topic except for the people who almost seem offended at the op for some wacky reason. Someone thinks the text is small in portable. Some people agree, some don't. Y'all are in here acting like people are talking boycotts and trying to bash the game. It's not the first time text on a switch game is a bit small and it won't be the last. No one is hurting anyone by making a thread talking about it. Like seriously,we've got jokers talking about being gaslit? It's a difference of opinion on a font in a game. Chill.
The dragon quest builders 2 demo had some small text as well. Still going to buy, of course, but wish it were bigger.
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With regards to the Xenoblade 2 comparison, not only was the font itself small, but it was also an atrocious font that kind of faded around the edges, making the part that reads well even smaller than the absolute boundaries of the font. The font here will be at least slightly more readable if we are allowed to change the color of the text box so it contrasts better, but the serifs pose a problem with them eating up some of the space and imposing the main lines of the lettering to smaller than they need to be.
It ain't great, but this barely registers on the list of worst UIs and fonts to me. Options are always good, though, and the English font looks like it is simply worse than the JP font, which just sucks.
It ain't great, but this barely registers on the list of worst UIs and fonts to me. Options are always good, though, and the English font looks like it is simply worse than the JP font, which just sucks.
Is that actually how they're approaching it? Because that sounds incredibly backwards to me. Surely the more optimal approach would be to design with the handheld in mind and scale upwards, y'know?
If you look up responsive web design, one of the key ideas is "mobile first": you design with the smallest screen in mind, such as a standard smartphone screen, and then scale upwards from there. And one of the reasons why is because it's far easier to do that than to start big and scale down. I'd imagine this would be a proper approach for Switch development, since it by design must juggle between multiple resolution sizes.
I am on a semi black out so i didn't notice this till now. :( What a waste of free space, they should really increase the font size. Nintendo, please fix this :(
This comparison was done on a 86" TV.
There is no excuse for videogame subtitles to be so freaking small.
Honestly I prefer the text size in Three Houses and find that movie subtitles take up too much space, blocking parts of the on-screen action. I can see why some people may struggle with the size, but this specific screenshot of Three Houses looks perfect to my liking.
subtitles are that way after years of accessibity studies. your liking can be an option, but subtitles must be some kind of way due to accessibility issues
I dont get the "Battle UI" comparision.
Its 2 different things being compared there.
On 3DS its the pre battle screen, while on Switch its the actual battle being shown.
Once you confirm the attack on 3ds, and you go to the actual battle, there is no UI on screen at all, with all of it going to the second screen.
For example, this is the screen that is the equivalent to the 3DS screen for the pre battle ui:
Its 2 different things being compared there.
On 3DS its the pre battle screen, while on Switch its the actual battle being shown.
Once you confirm the attack on 3ds, and you go to the actual battle, there is no UI on screen at all, with all of it going to the second screen.
For example, this is the screen that is the equivalent to the 3DS screen for the pre battle ui:
Hopefully some of the text and UI elements scale up a bit when going from Docked to Handheld, as well as just having adjustable options for Text size in the game settings. Though I doubt some of those UI elements will change much, if at all, let alone be affected by any potential user controlled options. Text in dialogue boxes is easy to adjust, but lots of those icons and what not are probably going to be as is. They're fine for me but I can see how it might be challenging and simply not comfortable for some.
This comparison was done on a 86" TV.
There is no excuse for videogame subtitles to be so freaking small.
You know i'd be interested in seeing someone edit the text to fill the text box just to get an idea of what it could look like. I
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Ok, with the Switch Lite having a smaller screen it's even more important for games to have options for bigger text size - or just to have text optimized for handheld mode to begin with!
Right, good idea.
I remember this, and I actually expected it to be solved with the switch since you're selling the game as something that can be played outside, even more so with the new model they just announced :/ (The screen is even smaller for that one)Now imagine this in a 480p screen.
I understand that there's people that don't like having a cluttered screen, and I hate when a command takes like one third of the screen, but there's better ways than this.
It makes me wonder if the majority of development and testing are done docked on a TV in a lot of cases. I felt the same way about Octopath Traveler, which had tiny text and a bit of a non-standard font that made things more difficult to read in handheld than it should have been. Xenoblade 2 is kinda the opposite, where text is frickin' HUGE. LOL It'd be nice if there was a Nintendo guideline/requirement for docked/handheld text size, at least when it comes to in-game dialogue and menus/tooltips. I kinda get it when a game started on a platform that isn't Switch, but these games that are exclusives or come out there first, it seems like a big oversight.
That font looks normal size and the font size on the 3DS FE games looks large as shit tbh.
lmao
lmao
This comparison was done on a 86" TV.
There is no excuse for videogame subtitles to be so freaking small.
Okay I see what people are saying now, I apologize.
I shrunk my browser window down so that the image becomes roughly the size of the Switch screen, and yeah that feels small.
They should dynamically adjust font size based on portable/docked mode.
DQB2 text is really small on portable mode, at least for an old fart like me. FE seems better, at least on screenshots, we'll see in two weeks. How small is the Lite screen?
5.5 inches
But it should possible be better on the Lite, since smaller screen means a sharper image, since its still gonna be 720
720p is still crisp on an original Switch screen but not on a big tv. I'm more concern with the diagonal surface of the menus.
When XC2 goes down to 480p, you notice it easily, even in portable mode. It's like 3DS all over again. But as far as I seen video of FE, it seems pretty much 720@60 all the time isn't it?
When XC2 goes down to 480p, you notice it easily, even in portable mode. It's like 3DS all over again. But as far as I seen video of FE, it seems pretty much 720@60 all the time isn't it?
It is small, and that's unfortunate. I wish modern games used a larger font size. I loved XC2 because of this. I dropped playing XCX on Wii U because of the strain on my eye from the impossibly tiny text in that game.
Its incredible when indie devs can create unique game layouts and fonts for TV/portable mode, yet first party Nintendo games do not.
Just seems to be a weird lack of uniformity when taking advantage of the Switch features overall within first party studios, or rather there is no system for uniformity in place.
Just seems to be a weird lack of uniformity when taking advantage of the Switch features overall within first party studios, or rather there is no system for uniformity in place.
Movie subtitles are typically regulated to always be the same size, videogames have no such rules so people do whatever they want.
Also, changing font size late in dev can be a big issue depending on how the game was built.
Its super annoying
Also, changing font size late in dev can be a big issue depending on how the game was built.
Its super annoying
Would it be possible to made it adaptative as websites? Say, you limit the font size to two min/max value? I guess it would be hell to QA though.
Every game codes their shit differently and Japanese games are made to favor Japanese text so I have no idea. You would need the big publishers to agree on a set of guidelines for accessibility in all their games in order to see some standardized results
There are regulations, but game companies have been given exemptions until recently.
I think there is a legitimate complaint to made here, by people hard of sight, that the text is too small. Obviously we'll have to wait for the game to come out first, to see if we can configure it, but there are certainly regulations...
Yeah, it won't happens. But with streaming more common, I wonder if they'll plan for 5'' as a baseline.
That was really the bump segue? There could be an option to or it might have gotten edited since then. We still know basically nothing and the switch lite really has nothing to do with this
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Of course it has, its screen is slightly smaller than the normal one, making text even smaller.
Not sure if you guys have played Dragon Quest Builders 2 demo, but the font is also so freaking small. It's not a Switch exclusive issue though...it's the same on PS4 unfortunately.
again though, we dont know what the options will be in the game yet and the switch lite wont even be out when FE comes out. Chill for a bit
Yeah, I guess it's a question about aesthetics vs usability. I would like to vote with my wallet but DQB2 is eagerly waited by my daughter and I want to play something on my Switch (so FE it is).