Infinite Undiscovery was developed by tri-Ace games (mostly know for their Star Ocean series of RPG’s), and published by Square-Enix (of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest fame).  It was released during the first two weeks of September in all major markets, and has the unusual distinction of hitting North American shelves before the Japanese release.  Microsoft Corporation was the original publisher, but still holds the intellectual property rights to the game.

Story:  A group known as “The Order of Chains” has done the unthinkable — they’ve chained the moon to the world, hoping to harness the immense power that radiates from the celestial body.  A small group of rebels (isn’t it, always?) lead by a courageous youth called Sigmund the Liberator, hopes to destroy these chains and set the moon free.  While trying to break one of the chains, he and his small group run into the Dreadknight Leonid, and are defeated.

The story proper begins inside of a jail cell, where somebody who looks exactly like Sigmund is being kept.  One of Sigmund’s closest confidants, the lovely Aya, sneaks in and breaks the young man out, believing him to be the Liberator.  However, after witnessing his relectance and cowardice, she realizes its not him, but rather a flautist named Capell.  WIth the damage done, Aya and Capell escape and meet up with the rest of the resistance force.  Stepping into the boots of Capell, you must make your way with this merry band of rebels, while experiencing the typical themes of self-discovery and inner strength.

While the plot is certainly unique, it’s very carelessly handled.  There will be many times during the game’s course where you can’t do anything but to scratch your head and wonder, “why did they do that?”.  The ideas are there, and there’s a ton of potential to be mined from the world created, but everything falls flat.  For example, it’s a well know fact that you’re going around destroying these chains, so why doesn’t the big bad Order of the Chains try to stop you unless you invade their turf?  Instead, most of your enemies tend to be the wild beasts that roam the land.

On the other hand, though, you have your characters.  While the vast majority are walking cliches (the dumb, strong guy, the girl that loves the main character but doesn’t admit it, the annoying kids, the womanizer, and so on), they’re written quite well and given good personalities.  Capell is a very likable protagonist, and is a breath of fresh air from the brooding emoboys that Cloud and his ilk have popularized.  He’ll keep you laughing, you’ll feel for him, and you’ll want to keep playing just to see what will happen to him next.   His journey from hapless loser to reknowned hero isn’t the smoothest, but it scores points for trying something different.

Graphics:  Capell and the rest of the characters are designed really well, thankfully escaping the Final Fantasy Useless Wardrobe System.  A few of the characters wear some zany outfits, but they at least look somewhat practical.  Some of the places you’ll visit are very visually intricate and appealing, whereas others are downright bland and boring.  Sandy barren desert?  Check.  Castle full of long, boring hallways?  Check.  Overall, the visuals remind me quite a bit of Final Fatasy XII, but not as good.  I should remind you that Final Fantasy XII was made nearly three years ago and runs on a lesser system.

Gameplay:  Infinite Undiscovery is an action RPG.  All battles are real-time, and you have a multitude of attacks at your disposal.  You only need to worry about Capell, as your other party members are controlled by the most-of-the-time competent AI.  You can perform combos by jamming on the A and B buttons, while holding either of the buttons down for a couple of seconds will execute an MP-draining special attack.  Combat is fast and frantic, and lacks much of the planning and strategy of other RPG’s.  Capell can also “connect” to other party members to take advantage of their special powers, but this is unweildy and often doesn’t work too well in combat.  This ability is best served for gathering loot — for example, Capell can link to the ninja girl Komachi and use her special ability to snag otherwise impossible to reach treasure chests.

With a simple press of the Y button in combat, Capell can ask for healing help.  One of your characters will then either use a healing spell or potion to take care of your wounds or status effects.  This works out most of the time, but often your healers will act far too slow when going up against to particularly nasty bosses.  If the rest of your party dies and you’re all alone in combat, you’re really at a disadvantage — going into the menu does not pause the action.  I really would’ve liked having the option to assign potions or whatnot to an unused button in situations like this.

Other than that, expect your typical RPG conventions of buying and making weapons and armors, talking to random townsfolk, and beating random monsters to level up.  Thankfully, leveling up is a fairly easy process, and doesn’t require very much grinding at all.  There are a number of side quests as well, but it’s easy to miss quite a number of them.

Sound:  The score is handled by Motoi Sakuraba, and is a definite high point in this game.  I first took note of this composer’s work in Eternal Sonata.  In that game, the score wasn’t a grand masterpiece (and it didn’t have to be, since it was complimented by the music of Frederic Chopin), but had really good potential.  In Infinite Undiscovery, I was reminded at several points of the great music in other RPG’s, such as Final Fantasy VI (the best game soundtrack ever) and Kingdom Hearts.  According to Wikipedia, Mr. Sakuraba has had quite an extensive career (though mostly in games I’ve not played).

Then we come to the voice acting, which is exactly what you’d expect from a JRPG — overly dramatic, hamfisted, and at times downright painful.  Thankfully, the two characters you hear the most, Capell and Aya, are acted fairly well.  But what makes the voice acting even worse is the non-existent lip synching.  The shoddiness of the lip synching in Infinite Undiscovery would be embarassing ten years ago — these days, it’s downright unacceptable.

Multiplayer:  Zip, zilch, nada.  If you want a multiplayer RPG, check out World of Warcraft instead.  I heard it’s kind of popular.

Achievements:  If you’re looking to quickly pad your Gamerscore, you might want to skip Infinite Undiscovery.  A minimum of three playtroughs is required to get every achievement, so you’ll be working long hours to get them.  Due to the nature of RPG’s, certain Achievements can be missed, so it’s wise to keep multiple save files just in case you mess something up.  For a full list of Infinite Undiscovery’s Achievements, check out XBox360Achievements.org.

Intangibles:  As I played through the game, I admit that I developed a bit of a crush on Aya.  I know, it’s kind of sad, but she’s a very charming and cute character.  But it’s probably just a passing fancy — she’ll never take Yuna’s place in my heart.

- The game comes on two discs, but it seems like I’ve played single-disc games with much more content.

- If you sit through the cutscenes (which aren’t too gratuitous), you can expect to complete the game, with the majority of sidequests that you find, in 30-40 hours.  After your first completion, you unluck a harder difficulty and a bonus dungeon.  This dungeon is filled with much tougher enemies than the normal game, but is a good place to gain levels and your best equipment.  Just be careful, there’s only one save point in the whole dungeon, and hours of work can be wiped out if you don’t manage the battles properly.

The Bottom Line:  Maybe I’m an elitist, but I expect more out of my RPG’s.  Maybe Final Fantasy and Mass Effect have spoiled me, but I’ve come to expect a certain level of innovation in RPG’s, especially in a game this new.  Infinite Undiscovery seems like a ten year old game, and ten years ago it would have certainly astounded me.  Instead, it’s utterly average in every way, content to go through the motions without any effort made to be memorable.

Despite the mediocrity, though, what’s there isn’t bad.  Just don’t expect to really remember Infinite Undiscovery long after you’ve taken it out of your XBox and replaced it with another game.  If you’re looking for a JRPG fix, there’s much worse you could play.  But if you’re looking for memorable experiences, I would suggest hooking up your Playstation 2 and playing through some of the outstanding titles to be had there.  Until then, just keep telling yourself that every day gone is one day closer to Final Fantasy XIII being released.

Final Score:  6/10, for being a somewhat-entertaining and easy to play JRPG that lacks any innovation, cohesive narrative, and polish.

If you liked that, try...

1. Microsoft Unleashes JRPG Tsunami
2. The Eternal Sonata Review
3. Square-Enix Loves the DS: PSP Still Alone in its Room, Listening to Linkin Park
4. Infinite Combo found (almost) in Street Fighter IV?
5. Final Fantasy XII - A Review

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