Review by: Dave Kozicki
Being the studious little scamp that I am, I decided to have a little looksee into what the developers thought of their creation, Infinite Undiscovery, so I could get on board and ready for it when the disc came in for review. I “discovered” that tri-Ace were throwing out lines like “RPGs will undergo a true evolution” and that this project had been worked on for ten years to utilise the true power of next generation consoles. I’ve gotta say, I beg to differ. Maybe that’s true in opposite world, but in the really real world, I just didn’t see it.
This is not to say that it’s necessarily a bad game, far from it. There are some intriguing ideas thrown out there, it’s just seriously flawed, and to be frank, looks like it was rushed out and could have easily been produced for last gen. I found the whole experience just a little bland and stale, lacking the impact of juggernauts like Final Fantasy; it was significantly smaller in scale than the superb Oblivion and missing the quirkiness of a DragonQuest adventure or even the unique style of Odin Sphere or Rogue Galaxy. Most of these were spectacular performers on the ol’ PS2 and unfortunately, Infinite Undiscovery doesn’t hold up well in their esteemed company, and here's why…
This outing is almost cut straight from the classic JRPG mould. The archetypal reluctant hero drawn into a larger than life quest where the whole world’s fate hangs precariously in the balance, scantily clad sidekicks mill about in miniskirts and every lead character has a slight effeminate edge to them. We’d give our left nut to see a JRPG with a loud, boisterous and lecherous champion who didn’t look like a male model and whine incessantly like a little bitch.
No such luck here…moving on…in a case of mistaken identity (in the tradition of A Better Tomorrow II, Maximum Risk and Twin Dragons), a young hottie Aya, liberates young captive Capell (a flute playing nobody) from a dungeon, confusing him with the awesome, outrageous and sex-tacular Sigmund, liberator of the realm who makes the ladies swoon and his enemies empty their bowels in terror. After escaping some wimpy guards and an ogre you all meet up with the living legend himself, cue to a lot of wide eyes wiped in disbelief and double takes. After meeting with Sigmund and his stereotypical crew of back ups (a dumb brawler, smarmy right hand man, glasses wearing mage, grizzly old veteran and token chick) you set out to save the world.
The back-story is decidedly different and gets points for sheer insanity. An extreme cult amazingly called the Order of the Chains has “chained” the Moon to the Earth. Each of these humongous chains can be seen wavering in the background of almost every shot. With each chain comes a horde of monsters, demons, and pestilence ravaging the land and generally makes it a bad day for anything in the vicinity. It is up to your ragtag group of misfits to smash the chains and liberate the world from evil. You know, the usual scenario.
So lets get to the combat and party system aye? In a departure from the norm you only have complete control over your main character, Capell. It is very much action RPG with Capell not even being able to use magic, though he can do some nifty things with his flute like dispel magic and break enchanted barriers. It comes off as Dynasty Warriors lite, with a handful of combinations at your disposal. There is a parry manoeuvre as well, but you’ll rarely, if ever, need to use it as most enemies can be smoked without it.
You can connect with other party members rather than actually control them, and use their magic abilities. This can be done using a pop up menu which operates in real time, leading to a lot of nimble finger shuffling as you need to control the other character as well as keep an eye on Capell, as AI doesn’t kick in and take care of him. It’s a fresh take, that doesn’t really work all that well. Though it does bring a certain level of intensity to boss battles, it’s more from having to look after several characters at once than any real difficulty, and that’s the whole problem.
The concept itself is decent enough, but the execution of it and the menu system is flawed. You have a map, yet can only access the section you are on, which reveals itself as you plod through every corner. A larger overall map would have been extremely useful as there are no indicators to show you where you need to go. Most directional clues or plot advances are put into the conversations you have with allies or random villagers, so you really need to pay attention to every bit of dialogue, so that you don’t miss you cue to the next set piece.
After healing Aya from a mysterious illness you march on to a castle and infiltrate said castle to meet up with your merry band of crusaders. The castle was to the east of the Lucia Plains. That’s all you’re told. You end up finding a hidden passage and then are lead to a T-junction. You’re supposed to go left. We went right and ended up at another castle, but could not get past the front gates, had to turn around and head to the other castle. There is no open world here to speak of. The whole thing is anally linear. Sure, you can go back and explore after you’ve finished the plot points in that area, but why would you want to? It was all a little iffy, and I expected just a little more freedom from such a “revolutionary” next-gen title.
There were other annoying niggles like the whole “having to re-sheath your weapon to pick up an item” mechanic. Seriously…WTF? And some items would be dropped by fallen monsters, that you could grab, and then others would require the re-sheath. It was all a little unbalanced. The capper was that that some cut scenes were completely devoid of vocal tracks. It was strange. There was no rhyme nor reason as to when or where the vocals would drop out, but they did, and it irked me. It reeks of a rush job to just get the title out as quickly as possible, and I don’t like that. Spend a little more time getting it right and make it a truly memorable experience, rather than a generic, by the numbers job that is forgotten the moment you power down your console.
I really wanted to like Infinite Undiscovery, but it was too much of a case of been there, done that (or more the case of been there, done that, and done it better). It has some cool concepts, yet they never really felt fully hashed out. The visuals and voice tracks were a distinct let down and it really didn’t feel all that next-genny. Maybe they’ll hit the nail on the head if they crank out a sequel…
Verdict:
Knocks every RPG cliché out the park, but doesn’t bring anything earth shattering to the party either and ends up coming off decidedly mundane.
No comments:
Post a Comment