Infinite Undiscovery Xplay Review

4 out of 5

they like it!

video:

http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/videos/28539/Inf...ery_Review.html

Pros
* Engaging adventure
* The characters and plot get more appealing the farther in you go
* Excellent team-based gameplay and solid real-time action

Cons
* Starts poorly
* Annoying main character
* Not enough mobility
* Graphics are too old school with boring landscapes that are often hard to navigate
* Ridiculous name


The Xbox 360 is rapidly becoming the place for RPGs, thanks to hefty offerings from big league Japanese developers like Namco and Square Enix. The latest from the Square camp is the absurdly named Infinite Undiscovery, and much like Namco's latest, Tales of Vesperia, it adds a hefty helping of new stylings to its aging JRPG template. The result is a game definitely worth playing, provided you stick with it long enough.

Ah-Capell-Ah

Ostensibly a story about a case of mistaken identity, the game starts off in a prison where a young musician named Capell is being held for unknown reasons. Rescued by a beautiful and plucky archer named Aya, our young hero soon finds himself engulfed in the world-saving quest of the liberator Sigmund... who Capell happens to be the spitting image of. Capell, however, has no interests in saving the world, fighting, or, especially, getting hurt. Of course, as the game progresses he finds his inner hero—b****ing and moaning the whole way.

That Capell is oftentimes a remarkably annoying character is one of the big problems with the plot. Another key element sure to bring smirks to non-hardcore JRPG folks is the nature of the quest. It seems that some big bad evil dude is spreading a blight of monsters across the land in his quest to chain the moon. We're not making that up. Capell follows Sigmund's not-so-merry band all over the land to break gigantic chains connected to the moon. Really?

Problems at the Starting Gate

The biggest hurdle to enjoying Infinite Undiscovery is the first three or four hours, which are actually quite terrible. You'll have to work to get the meat of the game. Thankfully, once past a lame prison escape through dark, hard to navigate woods (complete with middling stealth elements), several other hard to navigate maps, a poorly done siege sequence, and two crazily annoying children who get thrust on you, Infinite Undiscovery begins to level out.

Characters still develop a bit too slowly through the game's roughly 25 hours, especially Capell, but the story and characters end up becoming much more involving. Even the annoying children start to become almost endearing after a while, and you'll also get a creepy, dead-eyed bear in your party.

Real-Time Adventuring

There are several key facets of the gameplay that make Infinite Undiscovery stand apart from traditional JRPGs. Much like Tales of Vesperia, combat is a real time, button mashing affair, where you only control the central character and the rest of the team is AI controlled. Unlike Tales, there are no segues to a combat arena. You run around the landscape with all monsters in full sight and simply start hacking at them.

If you attack an enemy before they see you, you'll get bonuses—and conversely, if they get to you first, you'll be at a stats disadvantage. You can configure your team’s actions to suit the situation—free attack, combo, focus on your target, conserve magic points, and so on. It’s not a terribly in-depth system, but the AI is usually smart enough to provide solid back-up, and a nice feature is the ability to request medical help for both yourself and hurt team mates with the press of a button.

The overall gameplay is fairly simplistic however. In fact, the general design makes Infinite Undiscovery feel like a cross between a standard Final Fantasy game and Dynasty Warriors. Oddly, the game doesn't pause when you access the gameplay menu to use items or change up skills. This is especially annoying during boss fights when you need to revive fallen teammates.

Teaming with Issues

The team-based focus is impressive though. While having a party limited to up to four is standard, it always leaves so many other characters in the background. Here, there are sequences where you can create two other AI-controlled parties that will complete other objectives or aid in combat. The problem is that the game uses this feature far too sparingly.

There are problems with the visuals as well. The game still looks like a PS2 game in higher res. Textures and lighting just seem primitive in comparison to other 360 titles, and even character models look like old school 3D. The audio is quite good, however. The soundtrack is standard dramatic fare, but works well, and the voice acting is generally well done, even if the dialogue is often laughable and the lip syncing is outright broken.

Discover the Undiscovered

For all the flaws in Infinite Undiscovery, once the game gets going it grows on you and keeps you playing. The story gets much better after the first several hours, and the quickly-paced action is a fun change of pace from standard JRPGs. The RPG elements, especially item creation and character development, are as deep as fans of the genre have come to expect and the team-play elements are excellent. Despite the numerous short-comings and ridiculous name, Infinite Undiscovery ends up being well worth playing.

Review by: Jason D'Aprile

Not bad man!

wait for djinn.......boss mana stock tu?

Sudah sampai boss..

well, at least is a ARPG looks not bad

Thks  boss!good!!  

one more question,got any special bonus bundled with it?like tov english ver?

don't have just the game only.

don't have just the game only.