Infinite Undiscovery (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Sean Garmer on 11.03.2008

It's been a long time coming, but Tri-Ace's first RPG on the current gen systems is here and its a good one.

Tri-Ace has a special place in RPG lore with its Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile. The developer is also known for its unique story with loads of characters and inventive battle systems as well. So, with Infinite Undiscovery, they attempt to bring all of that into their first foray with the current-gen systems, and they do so with mostly good results.






Graphics:





This is usually an area that both the developer and publisher Square-Enix have no issue with, but not with infinite Undiscovery. Yes, I understand that this is Tri-Ace’s first game for the XBOX 360 but sometimes I feel like I’m still playing a PS2 game. The character models look fine in cutscenes, but don’t hold up as well during the regular parts of the game. The framerate slows down when the special attacks are unleashed in the heat of battle, and the game is a bit too dark in certain places, I adjusted the brightness on my TV screen and sometimes still couldn’t read subtitles, the help screens, or even see where I was going a few times. However, there are remarkable sights to see, especially the scenes with the moon chained up. Each character does have a unique look which brings a nice feeling to the game. The battles are also seamless with the enemies appearing on screen, and as long as you don’t do too much (which usually doesn’t occur unless it’s a boss battle) there are no issues with framerate. The only other issue with this department is the areas you explore. The more expansive environments like the forests, dungeons, and others of that ilk are very bland, which again, may be attributed to Tri-Ace’s inexperience with the system, but other than that, most of the areas you see in the game a nice to look at.



Gameplay





In this take on the JRPG genre, you play as a musician Capell, that is so strikingly similar to a hero named Sigmund that he is saved from the perils of jail by an archer named Aya. As you continue through the 20-30 hour quest Capell discovers his inner hero on his way to stopping the “Order of Chains” from controlling the moon and using its magical powers for evil. The game also gives you 18 other characters to help Capell during this journey. Overall, if you can get past the tedium of the first four hours, the story is intriguing, and very well done, it rewards the player with more captivating moments and twists the longer they go and that is how a game should be.


As far as the gameplay is concerned, the combat is in full real-time with the player controlling Capell the whole time, while the very good A.I. controls the other members of your party (in which you can have up to four). You can do weak and strong hack-n-slash combos by pressing A or B, or by holding down those same buttons. Whenever you do perform a combo, the game tells you which one, with a name bar at the top of the screen, usually followed by Capell screaming the name of it, thus allowing players to easily remember which buttons to press to get which combo. You can also have you’re A.I. release a big magic attack on your opponents. You can also choose one member of your team and “connect” with them to use a special ability. Like with Aya, you can use her archery ability to attack enemies or solve a puzzle. Truly though, the connect feature takes a bit of time to perform and can be costly, so it is really a feature for solving puzzles.

There are six ways to control your A.I. you can have them all focus on separate attackers, you can have them focus on Capell’s target, save MP, focus on healing and a few others, all which work well depending on the situation you are presented. As I mentioned the A.I. is quite intelligent, it does a good job holding its own in battle while you’re dealing with your own foes. The combat’s real-time system even goes down to the menu, which does not pause the game, so it makes it very difficult to heal your party while in battle and taking time to access the menu will probably result in death too. So to make-up for the realism Tri-Ace added a one button heal. If you press Y, the game will decide to use whatever you have in the inventory to heal you. This usually works well as the A.I. does a good job of deciding which person needs to be healed the most. However, this still presents a huge issue when you are in a boss battle and your healers die. As I said, the time it takes to navigate the menu and for the animation to go through, most of the time you are dead. So it can be really frustrating in those first few boss fights to get used to having to keep an eye on your health bar. To be fair though, with the way the combat system is if they didn’t employ this real-time thing completely, then you might as well call this Kingdom Hearts 2 ½. What I mean by that is, the game would be too easy as you are probably rarely going to die in regular battle, so the only time you face a huge challenge is when your team is split off or in a boss battle. Some may see this as stupid, but I think it is a good way to give the battles more strategy.





Speaking of split teams, the game uses its mass of 19 characters rather well and tries to implement them all into the game. Very similarly, to Final Fantasy VI, the game will in a few instances, force you to split your huge character base into separate teams, and here is the main issue I have with this game. 19 characters is way too much for one game. To the point where I forget that some of the characters are even in my party when they show up in the story. Not only that, but there is no auto equip function (where the game equips your party with the best equipment) for your characters. So when you have to use those characters you may never even touch once in the game, you have to suddenly equip them with a bunch of crap because there is no way you can afford to buy the best items for 19 characters. I really think they could have used maybe 10 at the most and it would have served the same purpose. Those instances are few in number, but when they become present, it’s a bit annoying. Overall though, you will be in control of Capell with your main party.


Sound:

Infinite Undiscovery isn’t going to win any best soundtrack awards, but it does the job. Every track matches the events occurring on screen well and is great to listen to in the background. The voice-over is generally fine, except it is directly dubbed from Japanese into English so some of the vocabulary comes off weird. Then it’s also obvious that the dubbing is broken as the mouth movements in many instances doesn’t match the lip movement. The one thing that does bug me is how they chose to do the voicing. There are times in the game where you go from one scene to the next, and one will have voice, then the middle scene might not, and the next scene may or may not have voice. I would say 75% of the game does have voice, but most RPG’s have trends where they decide to save disk space by omitting voice over work in certain areas and they remain consistent with that throughout the game. Infinite Undiscovery doesn’t do that and it comes off rather awkward because when it does happen it makes the player feel like something happened to the sound on their television because everything is dead silent with a bunch of subtitles appearing under the scene.



Lasting Appeal:





After the main quest is over there isn’t much to do, and not to mention that the game is short, with 25, maybe 30 hours if you like doing silly fetch quests inside towns for NPC villagers. Ultimately though, this game is very rewarding the farther you go, but at times it did leave me wanting more. I don’t know if Tri-Ace is going to consider a sequel, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea. As rewarding as all that is, if you are looking for an epic and long 50 to 60 hour quest this is not the RPG for you.


Fun Factor:





After I got through the sludge of the first four hours, I had a lot of fun with this game. The combat system gives you a chance to rip through packs of enemies with your party, the story is good and they are a few scenes that are truly magical and its short enough to where it doesn’t alienate fans that are not hardcore into the JRPG genre. In fact, it doesn’t even use a true element magic system, so the game seems even more appealing to the casual set because it doesn’t overwhelm you with the fantasy elements and that is a very good attribute to have, especially for a game that carries the publisher of Final Fantasy on its box. Due to the game’s real-time system I felt like I was playing an RPG version of Dynasty Warriors at times. That’s weird because I hate Dynasty Warriors, but I found myself enjoying this game.


The 411: This is a very nice effort from Tri-Ace on the XBOX 360. I hope that the upcoming Star Ocean game and their future games can hold up to this standard of storytelling and good gameplay. I hope that as they progress the graphics can get better, but truly, if you appreciate games that should be ancillary. To be honest though, because of the length of the quest I don’t know if I can recommend a purchase from anyone but the hardcore RPG fan that has to have everything RPG related that comes out on their console (like me, especially if it has Square-Enix on the box). For those casually into RPG’s or are interested after reading some reviews. If you find some help online you can probably finish this game within a week or two, so for most I would say rent this before you spend 60 bucks on it, but it has enough here to involve you for the whole process of the game. Like I said the story is very good and the battle system is a nice compliment to it too. So, any way you see fit, I say check this game out.

Graphics	7.5	There are lots of pretty things in this game, but there is also some of it that looks like a PS2 game
Gameplay	8.5	The battle system is real-time and compliments the good story, but the annoyance of too many characters can get bothersome
Sound	9.0	The soundtrack does the job, voice over is fine but sometimes the voiceover that is missing doesn't make the game look too good
Lasting Appeal	7.0	The story is very good, but leaves you very little extra to do in it or after it
Fun Factor	8.5	You will have fun going throughn the twists in the story and hacking away at the enemies
Overall	8.0   [ Very Good ]