Despite a lukewarm reception in Japan, the Xbox 360 has been turning into the console of choice for Japanese-style RPGs. Square Enix has thrown its weight behind the console, announcing a number of much anticipated titles for the white box, including Star Ocean, The Last Remnant, and the big one, Final Fantasy XIII. Before the big ones hit, Square Enix is testing the waters with Infinite Undiscovery, the latest effort from Tri-Ace.

Infinite Undiscovery focuses on the exploits of a young man named Capell. Our hero is thrown in jail at the start of a game due to a case of mistaken identity. You see, Capell is identical in appearance to Sigmund, the leader of a resistance moment. Sigmund and his cronies are fighting against the Order of the Chain, a group of nasties who’ve chained the moon to the Earth, disrupting the natural order of things.

The moon is the key to everything in Infinite Undiscovery. It’s the home of a god who is the source of magical blessings – anyone born under a certain phase of the moon is tattooed with a Lunaglyph, granting them the power to cast spells. It is tough bikkies for you if you’re born under the new moon, however, as the lunar god gives you nothing. As you’d imagine, if you’re a new moon kid, all of the other little savages will tease you because of your lack of a Lunaglyph, and you’ll turn into a self absorbed knob like Capell. The Order of the Chain wants to crash the moon into the Earth, destroying the lunar god and putting an end to the Lunaglyphs.


From an artistic and technical perspective, Infinite Undiscovery’s visuals are a notch above average. Characters are well designed, with very high detail on their features – particularly armour and clothing. Enemy designs are distinct, even though they stick to common RPG archetypes; it’s just a pity there isn’t enough variety in their numbers. Every location in the game is vast with some pretty cool geometry, but there’s not really enough life in each area and the texture work can look a bit bland. The orchestral soundtrack is one of the game’s best features, but the voice acting is insufferable, due largely to appalling dialogue and scripting. To make matters worse, Tri-Ace has not bothered lip-synching any dialogue, so the whole thing comes off looking cheap.

Infinite Undiscovery breaks one of the cardinal rules of gaming by being outrageously dull for the first couple of hours, then having the audacity to get decent afterward. At the start of the game, you’ll have to endure Capell’s whinging and selfishness, overly cutesy child companions, and a number of really painfully boring cut-scenes that set up the game’s plot. A pivotal point about four or five hours into the game changes all of that, giving Capell the gift of a backbone. He turns into a somewhat likeable character, and the plot becomes a bit more palatable. In other words, the game goes from being a total chore to moderately enjoyable.

Sadly, it’s never more than that, as Infinite Undiscovery has some pretty big gameplay issues. The first major folly the game makes is providing you with next to no guidance when it comes to travelling between locations. Many of these areas are absolutely huge, yet the most guidance you ever will receive is “Location X is to the south”. To make matters worse, the game contains an extraordinarily large amount of winding paths with dead ends. Since the map is shrouded, you’ve got to basically explore every nook and cranny of the world before it’s an effective navigational tool, which just seems like pointless busy work. For such a large world, Infinite Undiscovery has an amazingly low number of towns to visit, which makes the game feel surprisingly empty. There is no quick travel option, so you’ll constantly be trudging back and forth through these barren locales, and it gets old really quickly.


Infinite Undiscovery’s battle system is a bit different from the usual RPG style. It’s a real-time system, focused on fast-paced action and getting big combo chains. Players only ever control Capell; simple orders can be issued to your associates to stay back, focus on MP attacks or get in close and get combos. Capell has basic weak and strong attack moves, though special moves, executed by a sustained press of each button at the cost of a few MP, can be bound to each of these buttons through the menu. Other members of the party can be powered up through use of Capell’s musical instruments, which will grant stat bonuses or protection from certain attacks, depending on what instrument is used. Capell can also link up to the other members of his party and command them to unleash one of two special attacks. Some attacks will result in you assuming control over that character, such as Aya’s bow attack. You can also request party healing with the Y button.

There are some serious issues with the combat system, however. Capell has an extremely annoying quirk in combat, where he will miss his opponent, but continue in his combo string, leaving him vulnerable to attack, and unresponsive to player commands. Teammate healing commands have an odd sense of priority, where they will ignore the person in the party who needs healing most – the order seems almost random. If your healing takes too long and you’re defeated, you basically get to sit around waiting for someone to use a revive potion on you, or watch the timer tick down to your inevitable death. Since your team aren’t smart enough to revive you in many instances, death becomes very frustrating. There are also some timed sequences, which by themselves aren’t that annoying, but they have a tendency to be placed a long way from any save points, which means a lengthy, redundant hike through familiar territory in the event of failure.

Infinite Undiscovery is very short for a modern RPG, as a half-decent RPG fan should be able to bust through the story and most of the side quests in about 18-20 hours. The game attempts to justify replays by heaping a bunch of difficulty levels on you, and locking away most of the content in the hardest level, which is a real pain for completionists and Achievement fans, as the infinite difficulty is absurd. Many of the achievements are tied to time sequences and one shot events, meaning you either need to keep multiple saves, or do multiple playthroughs.


Xbox 360 RPG fans have a lot of good games coming their way, but when time is a factor, one is best of just playing the cream of the crop, and that’s not a group that Infinite Undiscovery fits into. The game features a pretty solid story and an excellent soundtrack, and plays in a way that’s going to satisfy most RPG fans. The problem is that the game lacks that coat of polish that separates a good RPG from an average one – the boring introduction, low enemy variety, lack of direction, empty areas, poor teammate AI and control errors all work against the game. If you’re into RPGs and can spare 20 hours, Infinite Undiscovery is worth a look – just don’t expect brilliance, or you will be disappointed.