Leveling Down

Want that single gamer point? Be prepared to put in many hours for it…

Surprisingly, while the game got relatively negative reviews, I found Infinite Undiscovery to be pretty enjoyable and have already picked up tri-Ace’s next 360 RPG: Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Unfortunately for me, it looks to be even more crazy and hardcore than Infinite Undiscovery, but one game at a time I guess.

This list of tips and notes is what I put together as I was playing through the game for the third time – the Infinity difficulty mode. For those of you that are playing it on Normal difficulty or Hard difficulty, the tips that I give in this article will still generally be valid. I prefer to write guides for the hardest difficulty of a game since it can address every difficulty mode. Keep in mind though that I will be mentioning spoilers as well since I will assume you have already beaten the game once or twice and need help with a playthrough on a harder difficulty. Can you believe that the prison escape at the beginning of the game is perhaps the most difficult part of Infinity Mode?

1. Two guards in the beginning
The initial encounter outside your jail cell ends up being one of the most difficult encounters in Infinity Mode! Whereas on Normal and Hard difficulties, you could plow through the two guards with ease, on Infinity mode you will not be able to kill them by simply attacking. This is because each guard has about 200 HP while you have 400 HP and their attacks do about 30-40 damage a hit. How much do your attacks do? 3 damage. 4 if you get a lucky critical attack. That’s right – 4 damage. This means you have to hit each guard over 50 times before you can kill him. The most ideal way to fight them is to split the two guards up so one gets stuck somewhere, and you can easily take down the other by blocking when he attacks, then doing two combo strings and repeating this cycle until one is down and you can fully engage the other guard. What you want to do is run to the exit gate with the two guards chasing you, and then run back to where you started but hug the right wall as you run back, then quickly get behind the desk. Hopefully only one guard gets to you, while the other guard gets stuck behind that desk.

The trick to getting one of the guards stuck is illustrated in the below video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG9bPnuDWgw&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

2. Escaping Graad Prison and Graad Woods
Again, it can be very difficult in this first part of the game because your low level just has practically no damage. Things are a little easier with Aya, as her Peacock Plume special attack will knock down enemies, giving you chances to isolate one enemy or to hit both when they’re down for a Down combo. You have two options for escaping the tower: fight or run. I personally fought out of the tower, getting the initial pair of guards down to the bottom floor and circling around the pillar to kill them with Aya’s help but from what I understand, it’s possible to just run all the way up without fighting anyone either. Graad Woods is a definite run. You can fight at the beginning, but it’s super difficult when the four 1000 HP wolves attack you all at once when you’re just level 2 and doing maybe 20 damage a hit. As soon as you hear the wolves howling, just book it all the way to the bridge without stopping for anything.

3. Take Sigmund’s gear
When Sigmund, Edward, Eugene, and Balbagan join your party, make sure to swap out Sigmund’s gear for your own. His sword is much better than yours, and will make things easier for you especially this early on (and in the first dungeon) when you can’t craft yet and enemies on Infinity mode have that much more life.

4. Making infinite money as early as possible
After completing Castle Prevant and you have Sigmund, Eugene, Edward, and Balbagan back in your party, it’s time to make infinite money. Using both Edward’s and Eugene’s blacksmithing skills combined with the free A & B vouchers that are downloadable means you have access to high end equipment very early on in the game. While it’s not the best end game gear, lvl 6 IC crafted gear is still much better than what you’ll be able to buy in stores that early on in the game and often times, the highest level gear simply requires lower level gear and a high level metal/skin – which are now available in all stores due to the A & B vouchers.

First off, when you arrive in Burguss, you should have over 10,000 Fol. Buy a few Lizard Skins (250 Fol each) and Soft Leather Boots (550 Fol each). Have Eugene make Lizard Skin Boots from them, and continue making them until you get to level 5 IC (or whatever else that’s easy to make, like Smilie Charms or Horseshoes). Sell the Lizard skin boots as necessary but try to hold onto as many as possible. Once you hit level 5 IC with Eugene, he will be able to make Salamander boots. Buy as many Salamander Skins as you can from the shop (2500 Fol each) and you can make Salamander Boots from 1 Salamander Skin and 1 Lizard Skin Boots. Each pair of Salamander Boots you sell goes for about 26400 Fol, so when you sell 40 of them, that’s 1,000,000 Fol right there. Keep selling them, and make more as necessary. I dedicated about an hour or so to making about 200 Salamander boots and selling them for over 4,000,000 Fol.

You can either do this money-making either paying attention or not paying attention. Not paying attention means you just keep hitting A for Eugene so he makes boots one after another, but because you’re only hitting A, you can just do other stuff at the same time like browse the Internet or something. If you want to pay attention, you can have Eugene craft the boots, and at the same time have Edward make Bronze Plate Greaves, which sell for 4000 Fol each and only require Bronze Metal (100 Fol in shops) and Bronze Scale Greaves (craftable with Edward from the start for only 1 Bronze Metal). What I did was craft with both Edward and Eugene until they both hit level 6 IC, and then stopped with Edward since Eugene makes more money and I don’t have to watch the screen.

5. Making high level gear as early as possible
Once you have a ton of money early on in the game, it makes things a lot easier. With most craftable gear from materials that you can now buy in shops with the free DLC Voucher A and B, you can create some higher level weapons and armor for your characters. You don’t need to spend a ton of time making gear for everyone, but I’d recommend making the best weapon for Capell since he’s the one you control and therefore generally dictates how quickly you can defeat an enemy.

Have Edward make Capell the Crystallite Blade – a 750 ATK weapon with HIT+40 and +3% critical hit rate bonus using the following materials:

2x Crystallite Metal (15,000 Fol each in Burguss shop)
1x Hearthstone (2,000 Fol in Burguss shop)
2x Lunatite (5,000 Fol each in Burguss shop)
2x Holy Water (200 Fol at all Gemna shops – buy them at his first appearance in Castle Prevant or at the merchant in Fayel)
2x Lunatite (5000 Fol each in Burguss shop)
1x Mercurius Metal (7000 Fol in Burguss shop)
2x Silver Metal (900 Fol each in Burguss shop)
1x Marble (500 Fol in Burguss shop)
1x Longsword (800 Fol in Burguss shop)

6. Buy 99 of any raw materials you find at stores
Since you now have a way of making infinite money early on, it behooves you to buy as much of every item you see at every store you encounter, just to prevent yourself from a headache later. Stores in towns sometimes change their stock depending on how far you are in the game, so if you miss buying raw materials early on, you’ll have no easy way of getting them late game. You’ll often discover that you need early game raw materials late game because many end game items require you to craft the early game equipment into end game equipment, but if you don’t have the early game equipment you’re out of luck.

7. Max out crafting skills
At your first arrival in Port Zala on Disc 2, max out as much of the IC skills for everyone as possible once Faina appears. She conveniently sells materials that are difficult to come across, like yellow and green berries so when she stops selling later in the game, you will be hard pressed to find materials to raise your IC levels for certain characters. Raise all characters’ IC levels to 6 except Rico and Savio – those two can only get as high as level 4 at Port Zala (which should still be done at Port Zala). If you don’t care much for cooking, you can skip out on those characters but you will need the rest at level 6 to craft end game gear.

Enchanting: Capell
Blacksmithing: Edward, Eugene
Writing: Rico
Alchemy: Michelle
Cooking: Aya, Rucha, Dominica

Later on when you get the necessary materials, max out the IC of Rico and Savio, as well as Kiriya, Kristofer and Seraphina when they join. You should be able to find the necessary materials in Kolton.

8. Clearing the game as early as possible
On Infinity difficulty, the realistic level in which you can try to beat the Underwater Palace is 50+ for Capell. There’s no real point in trying to level up like crazy in the regular game when at least one of your party members practically levels up every time you kill an enemy in Seraphic Gate (optional post-game dungeon). My recommendation is to get to the optional end game dungeon as soon as possible because you level quickest there. The reason why you want to hit 50+ is at 50, Cappel learns Grin Velasti, which is the best attack move in the game. Once you learn it, you pretty much can use it to defeat anything.

The first boss, Iskan Du Bal, is one of the more difficult bosses in the game as he can output tons of damage. Keep calling out for healing while spamming Grim Velasti and you should be able to clear your way through the dungeon. The final boss can be tough with his spells and summoning of clones, so make sure you bring plenty of potions and buy tons of Sacrificial Dolls – especially if you’re trying to beat him at a minimal level like I did.

My party included Edward, Komachi, and Eugene. I brought Komachi along because I wasn’t sure if there were locked chests in the Underwater Palace, but there weren’t any so you can substitute her with anyone you’d like. My next choice would have been Aya since she’s ranged. Edward is perhaps the best damage dealer besides Capell and his Grim Velasti, so he should definitely be brought. I turn off all attacking spells with Eugene so he focuses on healing. Well, I leave the first attack spell on just so he stays at range when he’s not healing. If you turn them all off, he’ll run in and try to melee the bosses which is a big no no. I like Eugene because he has Salvus, a “Life 2″ spell that brings a party member back to life with full life.

9. Craft the Azureal Blade for Capell
Once you’ve completed the game and load the completed file, that’s when you can enter the Seraphic Gate. Make sure to talk to Kristofer in Kolton, who will ask you a question. Choose “I’ll try it.” and then pick “It’s B>A>C in that order”. This unlocks endgame blacksmithing options for Kristofer, Edward, and Eugene. Make your way into the Seraphic Gate, and come right back out. Once you do that, Edward will have the ability to make the Azureal Blade, which requires the following:

2x Amarlista (10000 Fol each in all shops)
1x Gram (construct from parts below)
1x Emblazoned Sword (given to you buy Sigmund at the beginning of the game)

Gram is made with the following:
3x Atlantis Metal (20000 Fol each in all shops)
1x Quartz (7000 Fol each in all shops)
1x Aqua Blade (25000 Fol in Port Zala shop)

10. Defeating Sigmund in Seraphic Gate as early as possible
Once you’ve cleared the game and can start playing the optional Seraphic Gate dungeon, you ideally want to get Sigmund asap because everyone levels like crazy but when you get Sigmund, he’s in his low 20s. Realistically, you can defeat Sigmund at 50+ if you have the Azureal Blade. I beat Sigmund on Infinity difficulty at level 57.

Walk into the gate, walk out, have Edward craft the blade, then proceed through the first level of the dungeon easily by spamming Grim Velasti equipped with the Azureal Blade. You should be doing area effect damage of 20,000-30,000 on each enemy. Once you’ve defeated the boss, don’t take the warp but run all the way back up and exit the gate. Save, then enter the dungeon again, and run all the way down to the gate at the bottom without fighting any enemies. All of your party members will probably die, but you’ll make it through alive and can just resurrect them once you enter the desert level. Get to the gate before Sigmund in the desert level, and do the following: enchant Capell with HP Regen 6%, Attack +1000, and equip him with the Ring of Life and Sacrificial Doll accessories.

You face Sigmund alone, and the big problem on Infinity difficulty is he can do about 10k damage to you per attack, so what you need to do is Grim Velasti him once, and if you don’t take any damage, do it again. Once you get hit even once and you are below 10k HP, run. Just run until you regen your life back to max. With the 6% regen enchant and the ring of life, you should be getting 1000 HP back every few seconds. Repeat until Sigmund is defeated. He has somewhere around 150k-200k life I think.

11. Choose your end-game party
Once you decide on the four characters you want to beat the game with, you can pretty much forget about the other characters. Of course, while they’re benched, make sure they’re equipped with Karathos Wristbands so that they still gain 100% experience should you want to use one of them again later.

Honestly, any party with anti-magic gear works fine. I personally went with Capell, Edward, Sigmund, and Eugene. Capell is required, but I picked Edward and Sigmund because creating the Hydra Armor is easier than the Lunar Pendant. For heavy characters, the Hydra Armor is anti-magic and for medium and light armored characters, there’s no anti-magic armor so you need to craft Lunar Pendants for them.

12. Construct anti-magic gear
Before you get to the first save point halfway through the Seraphic Gate, you will need to face off against Gabriel Celeste, who does tons of magic damage and a lot of health. You will need anti-magic gear if you want to defeat him (and definitely need it to beat the final boss, the Seraphic Queen).

Heavy armor characters only need to don a Hydra Armor, which requires the following to craft:
3x Atlantis Metal
2x Feeble Cloth
1x Eclipse Armor

Those components break down to:
3x Atlantis Metal (20000 Fol each in all shops)
2x Feeble Cloth (2000 Fol each in all shops)
3x Amarlista (10000 Fol each in all shops)
3x Lunatite (5000 Fol each in all shops)
3x Blaze Metal (3900 Fol each in all shops)
1x Assault Suit (45000 Fol at Halgita Armor shop after shop quest completed)

Medium & Light armor characters must wear a Lunar Necklace accessory, which requires the following to craft:
1x Lunatite
2x Giant Eye
1x Quartz Necklace

Those components break down to:
1x Lunatite (5000 Fol each in all shops)
2x Giant Eye (dropped off Inferno Glutton dragons on Seraphic Gate – Dragonbone Shrine level)
1x Quartz (7000 Fol each in all shops)
1x Glutton Hide (3000 Fol each in all shops)
1x Pius Wood (dropped off Hill Gigas on Seraphic Gate – Graad Woods level)
2x Monster Claw (dropped by Dune Harpies in the desert)
1x Blaze Metal (3900 Fol each in all shops)
2x Sunstone (50 Fol each in most shops)
1x Silver Metal (900 Fol each in all shops)
2x Snakeskin (dropped off snakes in Dragonbone Shine)
1x Ebony Wood (280 Fol each in halgita after shop quest completed)
2x Cactus Needle (dropped by various catcus enemies in the game)
1x Lauan Wood (150 Fol each in Sapran)
2x Thin Wing (generally dropped by various insect enemies in the game)
1x Cork Wood (15 Fol each in Sapran)
2x Insect Antenna (generally dropped by various insect enemies in the game)

The Lunar Pendant generally requires other necklaces to be forged to it, so if you find any of the following, it should make your life easier: Cork Pendant, Lauan Pendant, Ebony Pendant, Snake Pendant, Blaze Necklace, Pius Pendant, or a Quartz Necklace. I think the only necklace I was able to find was the Snake Pendant, so if you find that it should start things off a bit easier for you when making the Lunar Pendant. Just follow the requirements.

13. Making money in Seraphic Gate
How effectively you can make money in Seraphic Gate depends on how far you can get. Here are three money making spots.

The first is pretty much the first level in Seraphic Gate – Graad Prison. On this level are plenty of Blue Drogo Warriors, lizards that drop Crescent Blades that sell for a good chunk of change in stores. Simply fight your way down the level, take the warp to the next level, but then walk back into the warp and fight your way back up the Graad Prison level. Exit at the warp at the top and re-enter as necessary if you need to make money early on in Seraphic Gate.

If you can get a bit further in Seraphic Gate, the next good money farming spot is the fifth floor of Seraphic Gate – the Bihar Mines. As soon as you enter there are about a dozen or so Lumpers that you can dispatch quickly with Grin Velasti. These guys drop various weapons such as swords, staffs, and bows that can all be sold. Right after them though is a Gold Chest Mimic, that when killed drops about 60k Fol. If you want to make more though, prior to engaging him you can enchant Capelle with the Gold x3 / No EXP  enchant (3x Gold Metal, 3x Steel Metal and lasts 3 minutes)) to get 180k off the chest. After you kill him, take the warp back out at the start of the Bihar Mines and re-enter to farm the Lumpers and the chest as needed.

However, the best farming spot in the game (and recommended if you want to get the Filthy Rich Achievement of attaining 99,999,999 Fol) is the 3rd to last level (I think it’s like floor 15) of the Seraphic Gate – Castle Prevant. Here if you can make your way to the warp-point that takes you out of the level, you’ll notice a 60k Gold Chest Mimic right before the exit. Enchant yourself with the Gold x3 / No EXP enchant and kill it for 180k gold, take the warp out, and take the warp back and engage the Gold Chest Mimic again. You can kill him a total of about 7 or so times within the 3 minutes of the enchant, making you over a million Fol in under 3 minutes. Repeat for as much money as you need.

14. Good leveling spots in Seraphic Gate
If you’re just starting Seraphic Gate and need a good place to level up, the first level, Graad Prison, is ideal. Killing all of the spiders and lizard warriors will up your levels considerably, and equipped with the Azureal Blade and you can easily take them down at a very low level. It’s nice as well that this first level is also a good money making level, so however you may have rushed to get to Seraphic Gate, this first level helps you catch up if you’ve been skimping on leveling or making money.

Another good level spot I enjoy in Seraphic Gate is the Graad Woods level. This is the level after the middle of the Seraphic Gate where you are able to save your game. Graad Woods is very long but if you can make your way to the end warp, you will encounter 3 Hill Gigas walking around together. Kill them, take the warp exit out, but then take it right back and the 3 Hill Gigas will have respawned. Killing them over and over will get you a good amount of experience, and I ended up killing them until I was able to collect 99 Pius Wood (needed for crafting certain items).

The final leveling spot I like in the Seraphic Gate is Dragonbone Shrine – the level right after Graad Woods. If you can make your way to the end (it’s short), there are four Inferno Glutton dragons chilling right in front of the exit gate. Kill all four of them, take the exit gate, then come right back in and continue killing them for good exp. I was farming them for Giant Eyes and Dragon Meat but I leveled significantly because of it.

15. Create lots of Memoirs of a Mercenary books
Memoirs of a Mercenary books are the key to beating the final boss of the game. Why? Because each time it is used, it gives +20% HP boost on any character. So if your characters have 10,000 HP and you use it, that’s 2,000HP more. But think about how quickly it increases when you use several books. It’s not a linear growth at all because it’s compounding based on the HP you’ve gained so after 20 or so, you’ll be over a million HP. The display maxes out at 99,999 HP for every character, but I don’t think there’s an actual HP limit.

In order to create a Memoirs of a Mercenary book, you will need:
3x Halgitan Paper
1x Genius’s Quill

For the Hagitan Paper and Genius’s Quill, you’ll need:
3x Kenaf Cloth (20 Fol at any shop)
2x Lentesco Wood (900 Fol at Halgita shop)
1x Pius Wood (dropped off Hill Gigas on Seraphic Gate – Graad Woods level)
1x Dragon Fang (dropped off Swordtail Viper on Seraphic Gate – Luce Plains level)

The hardest two items to get are the Pius Wood and the Dragon Fang, with the Dragon Fang being by far the most difficult and time-consuming. Pius Wood isn’t too hard – get to the end of the Graad Woods level of the Seraphic Gate, and you will encounter three Hill Gigas at the same time. Kill them, pick up any Pius Wood they drop, and then take the exit gate to go to the next stage. Then take the warp back to Graad Woods, and those three giants will spawn again. Kill, collect wood, and use exit gate. You can easily do this until you get enough Pius Wood – and on top of that, you will level considerably.

For the Dragon Fang, you will have to try to acquire one from the four Swordtail Vipers on the Luce Plains stage of Seraphic Gate. What I recommend is taking Vic along and instead of just trying to kill all four Swordtail Vipers hoping for a drop before exiting and re-entering the level, have Vic successfully steal from each of the four Swordtail Vipers. I had never had Vic stolen from any other creature or enemy in the game prior to this. It may take a while before Vic gets something, but that ups your percentage considerably for acquiring Dragon Fangs since now there’s always an item from the Swordtail Viper and I probably farmed 50 or so Dragon Fangs in a few hours.

Depending on your level, I’d recommend 30-40 Memoirs of a Mercenary books. I would say use most, if not all of the books on Capell. If you get Capell to something like 1.5 million HP (the display caps out at 99,999, but the HP keeps increasing), and have regen, he gains more than 99,999 HP every few seconds, which easily offsets any damage the Ethereal Queen may do. Of course, the rest of your party will probably die, but they’re not a big deal anyway since Capell does most of the damage.

15. Defeating the Ethereal Queen
If you’ve upped Capell’s HP to over a million, the Ethereal Queen should pose no problems. Still, make sure that your entire party is wearing their anti-magic gear, and that you have tons of potions available. If you’re impatient and don’t want to farm dragon fangs for increasing HP, just make sure you have enough Sacrificial Dolls, as you can buy them at Genma in Seraphic Gate and equip them in battle any time one of them breaks.

Once that’s done – congratulations! You’ve completely conquered Infinity Mode in Infinite Undiscovery!