Infinite Undiscovery

Outside of its polished action formula, sharpened AI, and crafting system, the only thing that dungeon crawlers might discover is how finite the experience can unexpectedly feel in so many other ways.

Infinite Undiscovery is a decent game that has the potential to be more than what it is. This is a great weekend rental game, but nothing more than that.

Get used to its quirks and it'll make for a perfectly playable distraction until FF13. [Nov 2008, p.75]

This isn't a game marred with horrendous bugs or unplayable combat. And it's not boring. It's just misguided.

Taken as a whole, Infinite Undiscovery’s a game with a bit of an identity crisis. When it’s acting like a run-of-the-mill JRPG, it feels clichéd, but reasonably enjoyable. When it tries to be innovative, however, its unsatisfying combat, superfluous subsystems and wasted ensemble cast make the whole experience feel half-hearted.

Reasonably deep and enjoyable for fans, but it’s no looker. Not as accomplished as Lost Odyssey. Or Eternal Sonata. But fun... if you like that sort of thing.

It’s complex, yet boring. There is a lot here for JRPG hardcore fans to gush over, but the rest of you will likely tire of the game.

Infinite Undiscovery is your typically average JRPG and even if the flaws were fixed it would still remain average.

Infinite Undiscovery's greatest weakness is that it feels too much like other, better JRPGs, many of which were also developed by tri-Ace. However, in a strange way, that's also its greatest strength.

It might be a little on the short end when compared to Square’s other JRPGs, but there is more than enough content to extend the game significantly. That said, anyone who isn’t already a fan of the genre will likely grow tired of the cliché locales and repetitive gameplay, as well as not being as forgiving of the game’s many other missteps either.

Yes, it looks wonderful and, yes, it sounds pretty good too. But that’s about as far as the praise can be stretched.

Infinite Undiscovery is a great addition to the slowly-rising stock of Xbox 360 RPG titles, and a worthy inclusion to the library of Square Enix titles as well.

There’s nothing really outstanding or recommendable about the game. Just like the protagonist Capell, the game itself is nice and well intentioned, but a bit dull and hesitant at following things through.

Good for junkies, but for the less fanatical RPG players out there, or anyone who seeks a more complete and refined gameplay experience, there are most certainly better ways to spend your time and money.

A new JRPG for the Xbox 360, developed by Tri-Ace, nonetheless. You play as Capel, a musician that will end up fighting for the sake of the world, freeing the moon from those chains that bond it to the world. IU has fast real-time combats, a huge roster of characters, easy to play system, and a compelling story; but it can’t avoid the feeling that it’s just a test, a bit hurried and not completely finished.

Infinite Undiscovery treats us to an unusual title but a familiar concept. The world is bound to the moon which unleashed a torrent of monsters onto the world. You set out to save the world in the usual fashion but the story does get interesting after a while and the real time combat system works really well. Some technical issues mar this experience, and overall it's nothing spectacular, but it's a good adventure none the less.

Just about average overall but could have been so much better. The franchise overall is certainly worth another shot in the future however.

Square Enix brings us a long and epic RPG-Action videogame specially designed for pleasing Japanese gamers. Tri-Ace entitles their game as Infinite Undiscovery but it's really a finite discovery as a result of a lack of innovation. It makes an excellent approach but it's only a correct-finished product.

It's absolutely recommendable, but it ccould've been so much more. [Nov 2008, p.78]

Kudos to them for trying, but the action/RPG mix doesn't quite convince. [Dec 2008, p.84]

Infinite Undiscovery feeds your need for narrative, but it's ultimately a shallow, flawed experience.

We 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.

It is hard to place the exact point that Undiscovery got lost. You'll be wondering at times what went wrong to keep this good game be great.

Infinite Undiscovery is a flawed, frustrating but still strong game experience.

Then there's the slowdown: yes, in this age of high-powered processors and graphics hardware, Infinite Undiscovery suffers from slowdown. The game itself is gorgeous, with detailed character models to neat-o combat animations, but the action tends to slow to a crawl when too many enemies clutter the screen.

It's not every day that Square Enix releases a game for Xbox 360, so we expected Infinite Undiscovery to be an original and exciting action RPG. What we received is a boring, by-the-numbers adventure that once again casts us as a weak and at times clueless young boy that must destroy evil.

Untangling this new world's intrigues, both political and personally for characters, is unreasonably complex. New terminologies and faces are thrown at you at such rapid pace in the first few hours that you find yourself not caring.

Hopefully tri-Ace will revive these characters for a second game, which can fix the niggling flaws of this imperfect but enjoyable adventure. [Nov 2008, p.106]

The game’s ambition reaches further than perhaps its budget could reach, thus failing to either deliver or explore its ideas as they were no doubt envisioned. [Nov 2008, p.95]

It's got an unforgivable opening, it looks worse than Final Fantasy XII, and that was released a year and a half ago on the PS2 and 70 per cent of the characters may as well not exist. But it does get better.

So complicated is the combat system and character management, one may overlook the excellent story in this unusual JRPG. [Nov 2008]

While a serviceable action RPG, Infinite Undiscovery seems like a developer experiment before their main project is due to hit.

Although not quite stuck in the shallow depths of mediocrity, Infinite Undiscovery barely surpasses the mark of decent.

It really is a crying shame that Infinite Undiscovery turned out to be exactly the sum of so many disparate parts that don't even work on an individual level.

At its best Infinite Undiscovery is just another standard action JRPG following a strictly linear route through the same predictable story about another reluctant young hero overthrowing yet another evil empire. In its worst moments, it's an unwieldy collision of ill-conceived ideas and sloppy technical implementation that will test the patience of even the most hardened player.