Cladun X3 PC port impressions, Steam Deck recommended settings, ROG Ally, and more

NIS America is launching Cladun X3 next week in the West for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam) following its debut in Japan earlier this year on consoles. Ahead of its release, I've been playing Cladun X3 on Steam to cover the PC port and more. I have also played a bit of the Japanese demo released for Cladun X3 on Switch and PS5. Compared to most of my PC port articles, this one is a bit short given the game's PC features, but there are a few things I hope can be fixed by or soon after launch.

If you've not kept up with the game, NIS' pixel action RPG series has returned after eight years with Cladun X3, and based on my time with it, this entry feels like an expansion on the core of the original in just about every way offering a lot more customization across the board. Cladun X3's Western launch also arrives after the Japanese version got a lot of content updates and patches. Read about those here. 

Cladun X3 PC port features and graphics options

Cladun X3 is a very basic PC port, but it can scale above the console versions. The graphics and display options appear in two menus here: Settings and Screen Settings. The general Settings menu has all the volume and other gameplay-related display options in addition to toggling on a "pixel smoothening filter" and blur the top and bottom of the screen for a tilt shift-like effect. The other options here let you toggle a character outline, sort items, choose between a pixel and smooth font, and swap between a modern and retro soundtrack.

The Screen Settings is where you can adjust the screen mode (borderless fullscreen or windowed), resolution (720p, 800, 768p, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K), enable anti-aliasing, enable v-sync, adjust the brightness, and the frame rate target (60 or 120). There are few things to note here. Despite having 800p as a resolution option, Cladun X3 is a 16:9 game. The frame target of 60fps is the default and if you try using 120fps, you get an unsupported message near it. 

Beyond graphics and display options, Cladun X3 has keyboard and mouse controls in addition to controller support, but the mouse controls seem to only be for the menu. You can adjust and rebind certain inputs in two sets: Dungeons and Menus / Edit Mode. Both of these are available for controller and keyboard & mouse input options. 

Cladun X3 Steam Deck impressions

Out of the box, Cladun X3 plays fine on Steam Deck. While it has no 16:10 support, it has full controller support and Steam Cloud. I tested the latter across three devices multiple times over the last week. I noticed it has some scrolling issues in general that affect every version of the game. This is similar to the issue in the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters where the scrolling for the background or environment feels like it isn't as fast as the character movement speed (especially for diagonal movement), but it is more noticeable in the console versions based on the Japanese demos I played on PS5 and Switch. On Steam Deck OLED when playing with the 120fps target, I had a few performance drops in very heavy situations, but the only real issue I ran into is poor frame pacing. It isn't very bad on PC, but I hope it can be fixed because improper frame pacing is more noticeable in games like this. 

Beyond that, I noticed the GPU usage could spike once in a while, but I wasn't able to replicate this. Given the PSP origins of the Cladun gameplay and style, Cladun X3 feels right at home on a portable and I've not run into any issues playing it on my Steam Deck OLED running the stable SteamOS and also my Steam Deck LCD running the preview version of SteamOS. 

Cladun X3 Steam Deck recommended settings

There isn't much to say here given how Cladun X3 plays fine out of the box, but I recommend disabling the pixel smoothening filter. If you plan on playing this docked on Steam Deck, make sure to enable the higher resolutions from the game's properties, but I don't recommend playing at 4K because I ran into a lot of hitching at that resolution. Cladun X3 is quite demanding at that resolution (for PC handhelds) despite its appearance.

Cladun X3 ROG Ally impressions

Cladun X3 is a better experience on ROG Ally than Steam Deck when using the 120fps target. Despite the unsupported warning, I don't recommend playing with the 60fps target on ROG Ally because it feels awful unless you set your ROG Ally screen to 60hz before launching the game. I stuck to the 120fps mode and played at 1080p with almost no issues barring some minor hitching. I assume the VRR screen is helping out here, but it just felt better with more consistent performance on ROG Ally compared to Steam Deck. You can also get great performance when playing in the 10W silent mode on ROG Ally. 

I hope the frame pacing issues and diagonal scrolling issues can be addressed, but since they are still present in the console demos months after launch, I'm not sure if they will be addressed. I don't have access to the Western console versions, but Cladun X3's bite-sized gameplay is a great fit for portables. I will probably likely grab the Switch version to play on Switch 2 in the future. 

Cladun X3 launches on September 26 digitally for PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). It is currently available in Japan on PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.