Infinite Undiscovery is enjoyable...if you can make it through the first hours without quitting.
The story revolves around Capell, the flute playing protagonist of IU, gets thrown in prison at the beginning of the game. Predictably, someone comes to save poor old Capell. Aya, another main character, drops in and saves him, mistaking Capell for the people's hero, Lord Sigmund.
We soon find out the two look identical, and then the story goes on from there. It is original, and, one of the games redeeming qualities, the story never disappoints. There are plenty of twists, turns, surprises, betrayals, alliances and more. Infinite Undiscovery is very well written game, and that will please those looking for a good story.
Although, if you don't have the subtitles on, you would never know. The Voice Acting in this game is absolutely horrible, beyond any game. You hear words, characters mouth does not move. And vice versa. I almost had to close my eyes it was that bad. It looks like the characters are mumbling instead of talking, and their mouths stop moving after two seconds! Dang that was irritating.
Speaking of characters, the animation and graphics in the game are pretty average. Nothing will amaze you like Bioshock, but they won't scare you away. The characters themselves look fine, and the environments are pretty decent, but I found that, in some places, the designers just said "Hey, let's take a break!" and then never came back. You have to look closely for these parts, but they're there.
Now, to gameplay. As soon as you escape, you're thrown into a tutorial. The combat system revolves around pressing the A and B buttons to do combos while attacking your enemies. Sound simple? It is. Capell has certain skills that he performs when he does a certain combo, all musically named. One beef with this system is that the skills that Capell learns by levelling up are used in an extremely frustrating way. Capell learns many skills, but you can only equip two at a time. You have to hold either button down to perform a skill, and it's hard to know what works with only two skill slots!
As many have said before, the first hour of Infinite Undiscovery is a killer, as is the gameplay that you learn outside of the decent combat system. Not twenty minutes in, Capell is thrown into an ogre chase with a horrible mechanic. The ogre is invincible, so you must run away from it. Thing is, there's too many enemies, so you have to run past them all without getting killed, and you've only just put in the disc. Kudos to you that stayed with the game. Mix this with the ancient, press a button to seahte/unseathe your weapon, the horrible camera, and a clunky targeting system, and you're probably surprised that this game got anything higher than a 5!
The gameplay does have some good qualities. Other than the okay combat, the item creation/enchanting system is great. Since you have three other members in your party, some of these characters can create items out of raw material. Rucha can cook meals that heal your party, while Edward can forge weapons. It's a great system, with a reward every time. The enchantment (learned by Capell later in the game) has mixed results. Yes, you can enchant your weapons so they do more damage or do a specific elemental damage, but there's a time limit! This bonus is placed on you for 5 minutes and then it's gone! When I learned that, I almost threw my controller at the screen for a second time after finding I just wasted my precious materials for a five minute attack boost!
That's only on the battle field. There are also towns (as per usual RPG) that you can explore, each filled with hidden goodies to find. Every town has shops that sell weapons, armour and items. One EXTREMELY frustrating thing was the lack of an "equip now" command, so you have to buy a weapon, then exit out of the shop and equip it to your character. Like, come on! That's a standard these days!
Another complaint, the Connect system is horrible. While Capell is exploring a town, your party characters will be scattered around. Hold RB and you can connect with them. Certain characters have different skills. Rico can talk to animals, Vic can open locked chests, and Michelle can woo dudes and so on. Thing is, in some of the larger towns, the character you need is so far away from what you need, and then you finally reach the object with the right character, and find it was a piece of junk! ARGGGHHH! (Controller throwing moment)
Overall, Infinite Undiscovery couldn't live up to the hype. The combat is decent, and the story is enticing, but everything else goes down from there. The camera, annoying game mechanics and bad Voice Acting killed what could've been a half-decent game.