Infinite Undiscovery

"A high potential game crippled by poor gameplay design and story."

(This review might contain some minor spoilers)

Tri-Ace has been one of my favorite developers over the years, because they always seemed to do things in a different, innovative, and inspiring way. Valkyrie Profile itself was a masterpiece, and Star Ocean the Second Story isn't too far behind it. Therefore I was surprised that playing this game was not an enjoyable experience despite my high hopes, and the excitement that there would be a Tri Ace game on the Xbox 360.

STORY: 5/10
Infinite Undiscovery's premise is certainly intriguing: A Mysterious group called the Order of Chains has created huge intricate chains and is trying to pull the moon into the earth. The moon is the domain of the God Veros and the people of the earth receive power through this being through what are called Lunaglyphs. As the threat of destruction of the moon crashing into the earth looms we are introduced to Cappell, who is a lookalike of an almost messianic hero named Sigmund. Sigmund with the help of his friends who together are called the Force has traveled to the chains and with Sigmund's power have severed them.

This is a storyline that has amazing potential but it ends up falling into terrible cliches, uninspiring villains, and the same type of end battles and plot devices that while interesting the first time have been used far too many times by Tri-Ace in previous games. This game had the story set up to do some things that had never been done before in a JRPG but instead decided to use tried and true cliches and make for a story that you've heard one too many times before.

Capell is a character who evolves and undergoes several changes throughout the game and is capable of displaying strong emotion and intensity, but ends up exactly like you would predict. The lead female is rude, catty, and unlikeable, Other potential love interests are likable and in one case is a breath of fresh air for the genre, but once again the gamer very quickly knows who Capelle is going to end up with.

The other characters are either so distant that you never learn anything relevant about them, others are completely one dimensional and boring. An example of these boring characters is Eugene, who is sort of Sigmunds "Master at Arms" He has a staff and carries a big backpack he is calm and pushes up his glasses alot. That's about it, even though he's one of the main characters that's how poorly he is developed, and although the gamer find out a little bit more information about him you have to dig deep and he is not different but enough to make him any different from Generic Healer/Mage.

Finally there are characters that are there for novelty. Rico and Rucha are two small children dress in blue (Rico) and Red (Rucha) then there are ninja/samurai type of characters that really sort of come out of nowhere and join your party. Finally there is a big fat red bear named Gustav. I'll admit it that he is a very fun/unique/likable character but he literally has nothing to do with the story. The same story that interrupts your progress constantly with terrible and long cutscenes. Fortunately you can skip these but if they mention where you need to go next (see gamplay problems later) and are skipped they are impossible to access again. Finally not to beat a dead horse but both the voice acting (localization's fault) and the motion capture (the developer's fault) are such that I felt embarrassed somehow to be watching them.

As can be expected Capell wakes up in a jail cell and he has no memory. For a game trying to set itself apart from 100s of other games that have main characters with amnesia that have a sword as a weapon, it does a bad job. Oh but he can play the flute ....well that might be some thing that's new but it isn't necessarily a trait that makes the gamer want to slog the whole game through for. Almost all other characters are conveniently strong independent orphans whose parents tragically died either due to fire. Rico and Rucha are one of the few characters that are blessed to have parents but their mother is one of the worst parents ever. After an extremely traumatic death in the family, instead of comforting and keeping her two young children safe in the village, she cheerfully insists that the main character armed with a small sword and a flute take her grieving children with him to save the earth. This particular moment was so ludicrous that even Capell pretty much told her that it wasn't a good idea but unfortunately Capell lacks a spine. I mention this because it really illustrates how fast the story went from intriguing and then took a nosedive.

Finally the bosses that the gamer spent so much time and effort to get to are both so badly designed that I laughed outright at them. One of them could be described as having purple dreadlocks and wearing a toga....no I'm not kidding. I personally feel that if these bosses came so close to destroying the world then the world rightly should be destroyed out of shame.

GRAPHICS 9/10:
This is where the game shines. The environments are very beautiful, especially the outdoor areas and cities. The gamer can tell that alot of attention to detail was paid. I however was awestruck upon the Forces arrival to the azure blue city of Kolton. Until then the graphics were pretty good, but Kolton is astonishingly beautiful with chandeliers,snow, and buildings made out of marble, and heavenly Cathedrals. Kolton has an atmosphere that is in a league of it's own and it is laid out very well and has very fitting and well composed music. Vesplume Tower and the Underwater Palace, the dragon shrine, and Helgita are also worthy of praise

GAMEPLAY 6/10
Gameplay could be describe as really good ideas mixed in with some REALLY bad ideas. Unfortunately the bad outweighs the good.

Item Creation in Star Ocean 2/3 was fun because you never knew what you were going to get. Part of it was self-discovery. Infinite Undiscovery doesn't live up to it's name in this regard. It also features IC but it is a little bit different. It is based on levels and the game tells you both what the item the character is capable of making and what ingredients the character needs to create it. Characters cannot specialize in more than one art except for Sigmund(but he can't level up past a certain point) some characters cannot do IC at all. The process will either produce the item or fails, either way the materials are lost. Also unlike in SO2 (keep in mind a playstation game) that could create from even on the world map from your party, in IU the only time you can IC with your party is when you are in a dangerous setting you unequip your weapon and sit down in a circle with your party this can be pretty dangerous, so most gamers will opt to IC in cities primarily. Unfortunately, in cities you have to "connect" with another member of your party which involves finding them in the spot they stay in the village. You can have only one character follow you around, some items take an unreasonable amount of time, IC fails quite a bit and you cannot make items like potions in bulk you have to keep waiting and pressing A.

An example of how poorly designed this is: The gamer arrives in Halgita for the first time and wants to create a new suit of armor. Well the first step will be to explore every nook and cranny in the city which if you hurry and don't talk to anyone will take you a half an hour...seriously. And this is to find where all the character are. Then you find the character who makes armor and it turns out that you can make the armor but you need two items that two different characters can form that you remember so you send away the smith (who goes all the way back to where he came from) you find and dismiss each of the other characters in two entirely different locations and they form the items. Then you go back to the smith and you forget to save and the smith fails to make the armor. Now you don't have the materials anymore and you just wasted all that time. And you will find yourself situations even more ludicrous than that.

Savepoints are few and far between and no that doesn't mean the game is just more challenging (it's not very difficult until the Seraphic Gate), it means the game is time consuming because the gamer can't play in 15 minute intervals he has to go through the whole dungeon to get to the next save point. Players are not told any detail about where to go next. Near the beginning of the game the gamer is thrust out into an open field with a rampaging dragon breathing fireball at him, it is quite easy to die because the character get up so slowly that another fireball can hit him. Did I mention during this time the gamer cannot attack and has no idea where he/she should be going?

But soon after that is a part where even some fairly hardcore gamers would quit in disgust. The character goes from one dungeon which is much too large and spacious, to another dungeon which is even larger desert. Then without telling any pertinent information, the gamer is forced to wander around the desert like Moses until he happens to run into a village...which is infested with monsters! The gamer exits this dungeon out back into the desert (Again is not told where to go) until they run into a refugee camp for the area that was the previous mini-dungeon. Now you have an ESCORT mission back through the desert while most of your party leaves you and goes into the city. Finally once you get the refugees back to their village you still have to go through the enemy infested desert to get to the city assuming you even know where it is still. The game doesn't let you "discover" things at the gamer's own pace, and the storyline locks areas you might want to visit again and makes you follow the linear path until the end of the game. The optional dungeon "seraphic gate" makes you travel the exact same areas you grew to hate (because there aren't many areas just incredibly spacious ones) and gives you one single save point.

Finally battle itself is fun for awhile, the best parts of the game are when the gamer is allowed for form three different groups (of course you only control Capell) but it is very cool to see the other groups fighting monsters in other areas. Compared to games such as Kingdom Hearts the game's AI isn't too terrible either, characters do a good job of keeping you alive especially if they are healers and in towns only rarely get struck through the walls (Interesting that the collision detection as far as doors is very tightly enforced.) All and all the most enjoyable parts for me were Kolton, Vesplume Tower, and the Underwater Palace. It was in those areas and unfortunately ONLY those areas where I felt like I was playing a great game instead of doing a chore.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/08

Game Release: Infinite Undiscovery (US, 09/02/08)