Infinite Undiscovery is worth a look for 360 Japanese RPG fans, but maybe not for the Japanese RPG initiate.
I’ve been playing this game for over a month now, but what can I say – it’s a Japanese RPG and I only get a couple hours each night to play video games. So, I’ve been slowly making my way along, and have spent about 40 hours total on the game: 20 hours to beat it on Normal difficulty and then another 20 to beat it on Hard difficulty. I actually beat the game on Hard difficulty a little under 10 hours because I raced through it, skipping all cutscenes and optional quests, but then had to put in another 10 hours to gear up and grind to beat the optional end-game dungeon. I’m currently playing the game on the hardest mode, Infinity, and I’m about 10 hours in but it’s going ultra slow because enemies are a lot stronger and I’m trying to nab the last few Achievements I didn’t get on the previous times through. At my current rate it’ll take me probably another 30 hours or so to beat, which means I’ll have ended up spending over 80 hours to get the 1000 Achievement points for this game. Some may wonder if it’s worth it, and my only response is that depends on how much of a Japanese RPG fan you are. I actually enjoyed the game more on subsequent playthroughs – meaning either the game is just more fun to play once you know what to expect or the cutscenes kind of bored me and I skipped them all the second and third time around.
Good
- combat system is fun and a lot more action packed than a typical Japanese RPG
- crafting is intuitive and you can make some really cool gear with it
- several difficulty levels extend replayability
Bad
- storyline takes a while to pick up
- actual game length is pretty short for a Japanese RPG: about 15-20 hours
- not a game that is easily accessible by those that have never played a Japanese RPG before
Intro
Infinite Undiscovery comes to us courtesy of publisher Square-Enix, the big Japanese RPG publisher behind Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Underneath that massive publisher lies the development studio tri-Ace, a Japanese RPG company that was exclusively published by Enix until the Squaresoft and Enix merger back in 2003. Since then, Square-Enix has published tri-Ace’s games. The developer’s portfolio consists of several Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile games. Infinite Undiscovery is the first game tri-Ace has developed that is not in the Star Ocean nor the Valkyrie Profile universe.
At last year’s E3, Infinite Undiscovery was announced to be one of Square-Enix’s major three upcoming 360 releases, leading the way for The Last Remnant and Star Ocean: The Last Hope. It seemed like a very exciting bit of news for Japanese RPG fans, along with the fact that Final Fantasy XIII would be released on the 360 domestically. When Infinite Undiscovery was released in the fall of 2008, it got decent Japanese reviews and went on to sell about 120,000 copies in Japan. Unfortunately, Western audiences didn’t feel the same way, slamming the game as mediocre and perhaps that contributed to the game only selling 200,000 copies domestically.
For those of you that recall, the other two big Japanese RPG games that were released on the 360 are Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Blue Dragon is perhaps the top selling 360 game in Japan, clocking in at about 210,000 copies sold in Japan while selling about 340,000 stateside. However, Lost Odyssey was a bit different, selling only 110,000 copies in Japan while selling about 540,000 in the U.S. Wrap your head around that for a minute – while Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were both ranked at about 78%-79% according to Metacritic, Infinite Undiscovery got an agregate score of 68%. Yet it outsold Lost Odyssey in Japan. Apparently the game is perhaps a little too antiquated a Japanese RPG for Western audiences, but the Japanese still found it enjoyable. For Western gamers that also loves Japanese RPGs like myself, we are caught in the crossfire here since our reviewers don’t like the game, but the Japanese do. Thus, I’d say that Japanese RPGs are difficult to trust Western reviewers on – it’s best to read about the game itself and formulate your decision. Hopefully mine helps.
The evil Dreadknight Leonid is often accompanied by his faithful Saranda.
Storyline and Premise
In Infinite Undiscovery, you play the character Capell, a reluctant protagonist who has very little fighting ability but is good with the flute. He is rescued in prison early on in the game by a woman named Aya, who mistakens Capell for the Liberator hero known as Sigmund. Capell and Sigmund meet, and are surprised by how similar the two look. Capell gets caught up in Sigmund’s crusade to liberate the moon from the evil Dreadknight Leonid. Leonid has chained the planet to the moon, and hopes to take it over (yeah pretty crazy stuff) but Sigmund is able to break these chains that hold the moon. Capell discovers that he is also able to break the chains as well, and several other characters in their party travel the world looking to break each chain that enslaved the moon. The storyline is definitely kind of “out there” and a little boring at times, but fortunately it picks up if you stick with it.
The game spans two discs, and the reason that several Japanese RPGs span more than one disc is simply due to cutscenes. Those videos apparently take a lot of space and Infinite Undiscovery has a ton of them. Throughout the game at important moments the game will often switch to a cutscene, and they’re pretty well done. The only problem is, about a fifth of the cutscenes have no spoken dialogue. There’s no sound whatsoever and it’s definitely jarring considering most of the other cutscenes are spoken. What I suspect is that the developer didn’t want to have the game end up on 3 discs, so they cut out as much audio as they could to keep it on two discs. Sloppy, and that also means there’s no option for a Japanese language track – something that Japanese RPG fans love.
The premise of the game is an open world very similar to any online MMORPG or Final Fantasy XII. You are only allowed to control Capell, while the AI controls the other three characters (4 max) that are chosen to accompany him. Capell’s party travels from town to town to hunt for the base of these chains, where he has to defeat the chain’s protector before destroying the chain. The game is a little shorter than I thought: 5-6 towns, a handful of outdoor areas, and maybe 6-7 dungeons. It ends up ending at not even the 20 hour mark.
Sometimes combat can be pretty crazy with so many things going on at once in real-time.
Gameplay Mechanics
Combat
Combat is one of the best parts of Infinite Undiscovery. Unlike the traditional Japanese RPG, everything in Infinite Undiscovery is real-time based. There’s no turns, pausing, etc. Even when you go to the menu screen to equip characters or use items, the game is still running so you can be attacked by enemies. While that’s not necessarily a positive attribute, it’s done well because when you bring up the menu all the characters sit down like they’re resting so it fits well in the general flow of the game. The combat in Infinite Undiscovery is similar to online MMORPG games and Final Fantasy XII – there’s no random encounters or anything but you can see all nearby enemies and attack any that you want. Attack them first and you have the potential to surprise them, netting bonus experience points and a higher probability of a rare drop.
Most of the characters, including the main character Capell, can be assigned two Special Ability slots and using each of those abilities will cost the user Magic Points. Special Abilities can be leveled through use to do more damage, maxing out at level 3. Each non-magic using character ends up learning perhaps 10 or so abilities, and you are able to set which two abilities you want the character to use in combat. For magic users, each of them ends up learning a dozen or so spells too with half being healing spells and the other half being offensive spells. You are able to turn off any spells that you do not want them to use in the field, so there is a pretty good level of customization for how you want the AI to control your party.
There is also an interesting combo system in the game. You and your party can string along hits in such a way to combo an enemy, sort of like a fighting game. There are three combo types in the game: Aerial, Ground, and Down combos. Aerial combos can be achieved by using a special ability that has the potential to launch an opponent into the air. From there, party members can continue to attack the opponent and juggle him. I think my highest juggle was a 40 hit or so. Ground combos are simply lengthy attacks that chain on the ground, so if your party members are all hitting in sequence, it will combo the enemy – I had over a 100 hit Ground combo on a boss once. Finally, there’s the Down combo, which allows you a brief opportunity to attack foes when they’ve been knocked down onto the ground. Hitting them with a quick string once they hit the floor will net you a Down combo.
Party Management
Infinite Undiscovery is the first Japanese RPG game I’ve played that makes use of a raid system. In older Final Fantasy games, the end-game bosses would sometimes be battles where you could choose several groups from your entire roster and have them take on each part of the boss in a lengthy turn-based final battle. Infinite Undiscovery goes one step further, allowing you to actually create two or three 4-man parties for specific dungeons. These “raids”, which allow 8-12 of your party members to go through the dungeon at once, are an awesome sight to behold since so many of your party members are fighting together. The AI controls the other groups, but keeps them close to you so you still control the direction that you want the raid to progress. Some of the dungeons have the parties splitting up at various times, but then they culminate at the boss so everyone is fighting the boss at once.
One negative aspect of the Party Management system though is that although you can eventually have a roster of 18 characters, 5 of those characters are not selectable during regular gameplay. They can only be used for AI controlled groups in dungeon raids. I don’t understand why this limitation was put in but I was still already pretty happy with a core group of characters I used for non-raid portion of the game.
Characters level up with automatically allocated stats (pretty much how it is in all Japanese RPGs, unlike Western RPGs), but members that are on the bench only gain 50% Experience as the four that are out in the field. Since the player always controls Capell, he can never be switched out so he often ends up being the highest level character in the group. There are accessories that can be found/crafted later that when equipped on characters on the bench, they also gain 100% experience that is generated in the field.
Items & Crafting
Infinite Undiscovery makes use of a traditional Japanese RPG item system, with specific weapon types for each character, a cloth armor for casters, leather armor for ranged/agility characters, and heavy armor for melee characters. Each character is able to equip a weapon, a headpiece, an armorpiece, and leggings, as well as two accessories. Accessories can range in various benefits, from +3% critical attack to nullifying all magic. There are also a plethora of raw materials you can find in the game, which are used for crafting.
The crafting in the game is very well done: mostly every character has the ability to make something. Some characters can cook, others can forge weapons and armor, some can write books, and others can use alchemy to make potions and related items. The main character, Capell, is able to enchant items with temporary buffs. All of these crafting abilities require materials and resources, such as metals, animal parts, linens, herbs, etc. These items are often found in the field, dropped from enemies, or sold in stores.
Crafting levels for each character can go up to level 6, and every time a character crafts an item it gives them a little bit of “crafting experience”. As the character levels up in crafting ability, more crafting options are available and more difficult crafting options yield higher crafting experience. By end game, especially in the harder difficulties, many of the party members will need gear that is only craftable at the highest levels. It’s enjoyable and very intuitive.
In towns, the party members all hang out at their own spots and Capell can go see what each of them is up to.
Achievement System
The Achievements for this game are for the most part typical Japanese RPG style. Most are easy to obtain, as there are some that are unlocked from making progress through the game and many rely on maxing out various abilities. This is all quite manageable and there’s Achievements for beating the optional dungeon on the Hard and Infinity mode difficulties – giving me more of a reason to keep playing long after I beat it originally. However, there is one very pesky Achievement: Compulsive. This Achievement relies on getting every single item in the game. Without some sort of spreadsheet to keep track of everything you picked up, you may be in for a very frustrating time if you want the Achievement. Otherwise, the Achievements are quite doable if you are a Japanese RPG fan and you will accomplish them simply trying to max out in the game. This is pretty much how the Achievements for a Japanese RPG game should be assigned: maxing out, finding all the best items in the game, and defeating the most difficult bosses in the game. What else more is there to achieve?
What other Japanese RPG allows you to raid with a dozen characters at once?
Final Thoughts
Infinite Undiscovery is not a game for everyone. Yet at the same time, it scratches many of the right spots for the classic Japanese RPG fan – a large party of characters to choose from, an abundance of weapons and gear, the ability to max out your characters, and an optional end game dungeon withawesome loot, more bosses, and very challenging optional boss. Yet at the same time, it’s not a game that has undergone revolutionary changes for a Japanese RPG. Part of me feels like the original scope of the game was so much bigger, but the developers ended up with how it is now because they didn’t have the resources to make what they fully wanted.
The thing I have to tell myself here is that I’m not writing a review on a Japanese role-playing game for Japanese role-playing game fans. I’m writing to the general 360 gamer audience, so I have to sort of standardize my score for this game. I give it a B-. It does more things right than wrong, but the game is perhaps a bit on the short side even with the extra difficulty levels. It also is a Japanese RPG straight up through and through – not being apologetic in its somewhat archaic J-RPG design (far away save points, villagers that say the same single line, next set of gear upgrades in the next town you travel to, etc.). For Japanese RPG fans though, this may be enough as this is all they really need to be satisfied with the game. And I’ll say that – I was satisfied with the game. Unfortunately, I was not impressed, which would have had me bumping up the score a bit more.
For non J-RPG fans, I can’t recommend this game. It’s difficult to get into if you’re used to the Western gameplay design mechanics of freedom, non-linearity, and exploration. While other 360 Japanese RPGs also have some similarities to it, Lost Odyssey is perhaps the best Japanese RPG currently out on the 360 that should be experienced if you are curious if Japanese RPGs are for you. Infinite Undiscovery tends to be less “Western-friendly” than Lost Odyssey, so I would check out Infinite Undiscovery if you’ve already completed Lost Odyssey and are looking for your next J-RPG fix. If you go into Infinite Undiscovery knowing what to expect, you may very well enjoy it.
