Infinite Undiscovery – Xbox 360
Grade: Pass
(7.0)
I am a tri-Ace fan through and through. I was much more vehement and fanservicy back in the early century, but I was certainly excited to play a tri-Ace RPG on the 360, because I thought it would be um, good for once. There were a few technical issues in the game that could have easily been corrected I believe, and some of these issues take away from the enjoyment factor. I’d say the learning curve is fairly short and small, but control figuration and button mapping definitely takes time getting used to as I believe every button is used on the controller in this game. The storyline is acceptable as is a lot of the characterization that has been done well, but it sort of quicktails into “what?” during the last 10 minutes of dialog. Infinite Undiscovery is a game that clearly shows it shortcomings, but it is playable, and playable always gives my brain a sense of calm.
The storyline surrounds a flute player named Capell who was arrested for being Sigmund, a faction leader attempting to break all the chains of the moon that ensare the Earth. Capell is broken out of jail by supporters of the faction, and after a bit of hooha, Capell later joins the faction. The story initially is one of simply follow-the-leader Sigmund, though there is meat tossed into the fray. For example, the chains cause blight and famine to inhabitants of the world, and the chains are imposed by the Order of the Chains led by the Dreadknight and are also understood as ensaring the moon. The moon grants the people prosperity and a gift called Lunaglyphs which embue the wielder with special powers, longer lives and a higher rank in society. It’s given to children when they are born, but if they are born by lunar eclipse they are considered unblessed. Nothing more can be said about the story that will not spoil, but there is definitely an interesting dichotomy between the classes of unblesseds and blesseds that are played through really well, and emotionally. Many of the characters are somewhat passable for human in what they’d say under the story’s circumstances. Therefore, the initial lameness of Capell character and Aya’s somewhat annoying brashness help to develop them into some of the better quality characters in the game. Perhaps Edward’s characterization matches their quality as he later becomes one of the few characters with a nice noggin’ on their shoulders. I can’t really think of any characters I disliked. There’s many PCs and NPCs (but are in your team) that are introduced in the game, but they’re still memorable by whatever lines they say. Wait. Komachi’s sidekick — I forget her name? Yeah, she’s one of the few characters full of fail who join to join because someone else did. The ending of the game made me drop this game down from an 8.0 to 7.0 as it really sucks and doesn’t wrap ANYTHING up even though it shows you what characters are doing.
Ah. The battle system. Now this is what I like. Of course there are things such as Item Creation, skill creation, stat increases from items, cooking, smithery and etc by specific characters which add to the plethora of things you can do in battle. But. Actually playing the game is simultaneous and fun. The game is fully real time. That means, if you’re an idiot, while you’re fighting you might create an item and get pulverized by an enemy. Or, once you’ve finished destroying some troops, you quickly have Rucha make your team something to eat. Or, around a corner you spot extremely annoying enemies and decide to have Capell increase his strength by 20 points, Def+5, etc. Who knows? The choice–is yours. Skills are mapped to two buttons, commands are mapped to others to make designated AIs do specific thing. Quick note: the AI and AI options are intelligent for once as they saved MY ass plenty of times when I just rush into a big group of enemies and die. Equipped skills level up, though leveling them up is extremely slow. Anyway. To actual battles. I still don’t know the 360’s Dpad and I go from patterning clearly, but in order to do physical attacks, you use the lower two buttons. Pressing them consecutively once, twice, three times or holding creates different combos or doesn’t a special move. You’re able to counter and freeze an enemy with the L2 button. At times, if you have your AI on Combo, the entire area will turn into a colorful mess and you won’t necessarily be able to discern where you are exactly, but it’s a good thing the game has auto-target within vicinity or else that would have been extremely frustrating. Capell can sheath and unsheath his sword (you need to unsheath your sword to open treasure boxes which can become annoying because if they are mimics, they will kill you). Connecting to a team member to do a specific move or get the team advantage (basically a surprise attack lower the enemy’s DEF increasing your ATK+AP accrual) is a spiffy aspect to the game to. It’s as if they took SO3’s battle system (and SO4’s from the look of it), and made it a completely free roaming game. I like it. I like all of the characters’ unique skills too (though I can’t say the same for the mages).
Music? Motoi Sakuraba. Nothing else to say. Once you’ve heard one, you’ve heard it all. Not a bad OST at all, but. . . definitely nothing that stands out. NOW for the technical issues! Other than trying to self-target enemies (I turned auto target on) and get a mind splitting headache, the VOICE acting and SOUND. On the first disc of the game, the sound goes in and out or sounds scrappy. I don’t know if this is exclusive to my copy as it was a Used copy, but playing it on two different TV screens is at least telling me it’s not the TV. Voice acting does NOT match up with the words for 70% of the game making the cutscenes appear as if they’re lagging. You can get stuck in corners and pulverized by an enemy with no chance of moving. In one of the first larger dungeons that I can’t remember, when moving onto a new screen you’ll be walking into a black abyss that will segment and load slowly into the actual dungeon. Either my 360 or game disc or developmental lag problems. I can’t remember any other major technical issues that stand out, but those certainly are annoying. Luckily this game’s battle system is above average (and yes, enemies do have weaknesses, but for the majority of the game, you don’t need to know them~) that keeps it afloat with its okay storyline. Otherwise, it’d be more frustration that enjoyment.
Yes, the soundtrack is that fleeting. I don’t care to cover it at all.
Filed under: RPG Chatter , infinite undiscovery
