LRavenwolf
CAGiversary!
What if you looked like a war hero, and found yourself being hauled off to prison because you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? This doppelganger scenario is where you start off in tri-Ace and Sqeenix’s (Square-Enix) latest party-oriented action-RPG. I had no real expectations outside of that. I thoroughly enjoyed Tales of Symphonia and wanted more of the same. What I got was something similar for sure, however differed in some key areas. Tri-Ace certainly has guts, and tried some new mechanics that sometimes worked, and other times proved to be an exercise in frustration. The game played at times more like an interactive movie, with FMV being extremely prevalent. It is well done and fun to watch, but sometimes you wish you could be a little more part of the action outside of the battles.
The game does come together to present a very entertaining story and definitely worth playing now that its dropped in price significantly
The game begins with a beautifully crafted FMV depicting an epic battle between three heroes (Lord Sigmund, Aya, and Edward) and a spiky chain using villain (Leonid). Its not completely clear, but after a stout fight it is implied that the heroes were defeated. Thus, it makes sense when you begin the story in the previously mentioned prison, meekly sitting in your cell begging for something to eat. From the first scene, it is obvious that you are not Sigmund, but a look-alike. Shortly after the scene begins, Aya drops in and takes out the guards and comes to your rescue. However, you quickly inform her that you have no idea who this Sigmund is and that your name is Capell and you don’t like fighting. The voice acting at this point is fair – it improves significantly later, but at this point Capell can’t say two words without stammering or getting tongue-tied. It doesn’t help that Arya is beautiful and trying to rescue him, I imagine.
The game then really begins – you take control through a fighting tutorial that gives you the basics of fighting. The blocking mechanism, however is abysmal. It takes an amazing sense of timing to block anything, and the benefit is minimal at best that I played the entire game and only really incorporated blocking occasionally because it only works about 20% of the time. I was able to stay mobile enough that avoiding attacks was easy. The tutorial gives you way too much information without enough context to back it up. A better way would be an interactive tutorial that showed you rather than told you what to do. I had been playing the game for about 2-3 hours before I actually realized how to air-juggle an enemy or drop an enemy and hit them on the ground. The benefits of air-juggling are that you receive extra Action Points, or AP, which let you begin another air-juggle on another enemy. Hitting them on the ground recovers your HP and MP. These are both interesting mechanics and can be very beneficial but sometimes its just easier to not worry about the technique and just hack the enemy to pieces.
It is also in this first scene that you learn about Connect Actions. You can connect with any in your party and use two abilities of theirs. Most primary characters have a special connect ability that allows them and Capell to do a combo attack or even let the player control the character. Aya’s connect ability allows the player to direct her shooting her bow and arrow, blowing up red barrels (surprised?) to injure enemies before they see you. This is a good method to incorporate combos and special moves, however the real-time environment does not really lend itself well to the two menus and 3 button presses to execute the action. You essentially have to memorize the connect actions and as you try to figure out who you want in your party later on, this becomes difficult to do. I essentially had the same 4 characters in my party for the last 1/3 of the game and was able to use them semi-effectively by the end.
As you progress, you escape the castle and meet up with the real Sigmund and the Liberation Force. Unfortunately, Aya falls ill and you are tasked with rescuing her. The game is very linear with some potential side-quests that aren’t really that interesting. One of the cool things that I really liked was that I didn’t feel like I had to “grind” levels to be able to beat the bosses. The difficultly was fair for doing a moderate amount of combat going from location to location. The variety of enemies was decent, and each enemy had different patterns that you had to learn if you were going to make it through without much issue.
One issue I had through most of the early game is that there is no map system that helps you find where exactly it is that you are going. I probably gained half my levels in the early game by being lost. There was a point where I almost quit playing because I had no idea where I had to go. I started messing around, and talked to my party members and they finally told me where it was I needed to go and roughly which direction it was in. Adding waypoints or Fable’s glowy pathway would go a long way towards helping the average player.
In the process of saving Aya, you gain team members and venture into your first dungeon. The puzzle aspects of Infinite Undiscovery are pretty easy and a good change of pace from time to time. It is here that you get a magical flute and your first song (that actually is useful). You can dispel illusions and make things visible. They make good use of this tactic as later on in the game there are many uses for this ability. After saving Aya, your group grows to 4, which is the max you can have for single-party combat. As you progress during the game I eventually had between 12-16 people at any given time. There are situations in which you have multi-group battles and sequences, where you must pick your group of 4 and up to two other groups of 4 to complete separate tasks. I tried to make sure that each group had the basics – tank, healer, and magic users. Each time you go into a multi-party situation, at the end you are graded based on your choices. I apparently made bad ones because the highest I got was two C’s and the rest were D’s. I don’t know if a side party can actually fail, but I never encountered a situation where they did.
With so many party choices I was troubled with the age-old question of “who do I use?” because unused characters don’t level if you don’t use them. I typically always used Capell (always have to) and Michelle (best healer in the game, but spare no expense with her armor). In the early game I used Edward and Aya in my party, but later in the game I stuck with Komachi and Touma because of their powerful attacks and Komachi’s ability to disarm traps and pull treasure from out-of-reach chests.
Another thing that some games just don’t seem to get right is the camera – anything flying above my head was out of sight and it was a coin toss on whether or not I would hit it. Trees and foliage got in the way more often than not, and the lack of a targeting system meant that moving the camera was a full time part of the game. I felt like a frustrated film director most of the time.
The sound and music were fantastic – many times I complain about games not using music to its full effect, but IU does a good job. I definitely felt the same chills I did during Final Fantasy VIII’s first cut-scene at least twice during the game.
The pace of the game revs up as you play through and if you can get over the bumpy beginning, you will be hooked into the story by the end that really has some twists and turns that I did not expect and a reveal near the end that dropped my jaw.
All said, it was definitely a good adventure, but it has its flaws. It could have been something so much more to so many. It really had the potential to say something powerful and relevant, but like so many other J-RPG’s, it is a little too full of itself and its archetypal jargon to really do so. I was reminded of the recently ended Battlestar Galactica in that the “hero,” does what he has to do to stay alive, slowly embracing his role and always trying to find alternatives to fighting. That kind of storytelling worked for BSG, but I don’t know if gamers are mature enough yet to realize that a reluctant protagonist is much more interesting and real than most game heroes. Many of the reviews I’ve read have shown me that the games media is split about 50/50. I hope that more developers will go the “anti-hero” route and take what tri-Ace has trail blazed here and expand upon it.
If you found this review useful, please comment here or on my website, www.kennedynewmedia.com. Also, any constructive comments to help me better my writing are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!
The game does come together to present a very entertaining story and definitely worth playing now that its dropped in price significantly
The game begins with a beautifully crafted FMV depicting an epic battle between three heroes (Lord Sigmund, Aya, and Edward) and a spiky chain using villain (Leonid). Its not completely clear, but after a stout fight it is implied that the heroes were defeated. Thus, it makes sense when you begin the story in the previously mentioned prison, meekly sitting in your cell begging for something to eat. From the first scene, it is obvious that you are not Sigmund, but a look-alike. Shortly after the scene begins, Aya drops in and takes out the guards and comes to your rescue. However, you quickly inform her that you have no idea who this Sigmund is and that your name is Capell and you don’t like fighting. The voice acting at this point is fair – it improves significantly later, but at this point Capell can’t say two words without stammering or getting tongue-tied. It doesn’t help that Arya is beautiful and trying to rescue him, I imagine.
The game then really begins – you take control through a fighting tutorial that gives you the basics of fighting. The blocking mechanism, however is abysmal. It takes an amazing sense of timing to block anything, and the benefit is minimal at best that I played the entire game and only really incorporated blocking occasionally because it only works about 20% of the time. I was able to stay mobile enough that avoiding attacks was easy. The tutorial gives you way too much information without enough context to back it up. A better way would be an interactive tutorial that showed you rather than told you what to do. I had been playing the game for about 2-3 hours before I actually realized how to air-juggle an enemy or drop an enemy and hit them on the ground. The benefits of air-juggling are that you receive extra Action Points, or AP, which let you begin another air-juggle on another enemy. Hitting them on the ground recovers your HP and MP. These are both interesting mechanics and can be very beneficial but sometimes its just easier to not worry about the technique and just hack the enemy to pieces.
It is also in this first scene that you learn about Connect Actions. You can connect with any in your party and use two abilities of theirs. Most primary characters have a special connect ability that allows them and Capell to do a combo attack or even let the player control the character. Aya’s connect ability allows the player to direct her shooting her bow and arrow, blowing up red barrels (surprised?) to injure enemies before they see you. This is a good method to incorporate combos and special moves, however the real-time environment does not really lend itself well to the two menus and 3 button presses to execute the action. You essentially have to memorize the connect actions and as you try to figure out who you want in your party later on, this becomes difficult to do. I essentially had the same 4 characters in my party for the last 1/3 of the game and was able to use them semi-effectively by the end.
As you progress, you escape the castle and meet up with the real Sigmund and the Liberation Force. Unfortunately, Aya falls ill and you are tasked with rescuing her. The game is very linear with some potential side-quests that aren’t really that interesting. One of the cool things that I really liked was that I didn’t feel like I had to “grind” levels to be able to beat the bosses. The difficultly was fair for doing a moderate amount of combat going from location to location. The variety of enemies was decent, and each enemy had different patterns that you had to learn if you were going to make it through without much issue.
One issue I had through most of the early game is that there is no map system that helps you find where exactly it is that you are going. I probably gained half my levels in the early game by being lost. There was a point where I almost quit playing because I had no idea where I had to go. I started messing around, and talked to my party members and they finally told me where it was I needed to go and roughly which direction it was in. Adding waypoints or Fable’s glowy pathway would go a long way towards helping the average player.
In the process of saving Aya, you gain team members and venture into your first dungeon. The puzzle aspects of Infinite Undiscovery are pretty easy and a good change of pace from time to time. It is here that you get a magical flute and your first song (that actually is useful). You can dispel illusions and make things visible. They make good use of this tactic as later on in the game there are many uses for this ability. After saving Aya, your group grows to 4, which is the max you can have for single-party combat. As you progress during the game I eventually had between 12-16 people at any given time. There are situations in which you have multi-group battles and sequences, where you must pick your group of 4 and up to two other groups of 4 to complete separate tasks. I tried to make sure that each group had the basics – tank, healer, and magic users. Each time you go into a multi-party situation, at the end you are graded based on your choices. I apparently made bad ones because the highest I got was two C’s and the rest were D’s. I don’t know if a side party can actually fail, but I never encountered a situation where they did.
With so many party choices I was troubled with the age-old question of “who do I use?” because unused characters don’t level if you don’t use them. I typically always used Capell (always have to) and Michelle (best healer in the game, but spare no expense with her armor). In the early game I used Edward and Aya in my party, but later in the game I stuck with Komachi and Touma because of their powerful attacks and Komachi’s ability to disarm traps and pull treasure from out-of-reach chests.
Another thing that some games just don’t seem to get right is the camera – anything flying above my head was out of sight and it was a coin toss on whether or not I would hit it. Trees and foliage got in the way more often than not, and the lack of a targeting system meant that moving the camera was a full time part of the game. I felt like a frustrated film director most of the time.
The sound and music were fantastic – many times I complain about games not using music to its full effect, but IU does a good job. I definitely felt the same chills I did during Final Fantasy VIII’s first cut-scene at least twice during the game.
The pace of the game revs up as you play through and if you can get over the bumpy beginning, you will be hooked into the story by the end that really has some twists and turns that I did not expect and a reveal near the end that dropped my jaw.
All said, it was definitely a good adventure, but it has its flaws. It could have been something so much more to so many. It really had the potential to say something powerful and relevant, but like so many other J-RPG’s, it is a little too full of itself and its archetypal jargon to really do so. I was reminded of the recently ended Battlestar Galactica in that the “hero,” does what he has to do to stay alive, slowly embracing his role and always trying to find alternatives to fighting. That kind of storytelling worked for BSG, but I don’t know if gamers are mature enough yet to realize that a reluctant protagonist is much more interesting and real than most game heroes. Many of the reviews I’ve read have shown me that the games media is split about 50/50. I hope that more developers will go the “anti-hero” route and take what tri-Ace has trail blazed here and expand upon it.
If you found this review useful, please comment here or on my website, www.kennedynewmedia.com. Also, any constructive comments to help me better my writing are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!
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