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[Y2Kev]

I am incredibly frustrated with the early game right now. This has got to be one of the worst "first few hours" of any RPG I can remember. Whether you're constantly running away, being paired with annoying characters, watching unvoiced cutscenes, or just generally being confused and lost between an area with way too few save points (just lost an hour of gameplay that I think I can make up in about 10 minutes due to my wandering around confused!), this is just a complete mess right now.

I have to say I really like it still. I don't know why, but it's strangely compelling. It's pretty, the music is nice, and the combat is fun, but I am so upset with the product right now that I can't understand why it isn't back in the mail yet.

As for the music, yikes that's Sakuraba. The Nolaan music has a few samples lifted directly out of Valkyrie Profile 2 ("Neighboring Infinity") and the battle music starts with so much reverb that you can barely hear anything other than the echo of cellos for the first few measures of the piece.

I think the lock-on situation is absolutely dire-- in manual, it is kind of difficult to tell when the game deems you close enough to lock on, and while in auto the camera will absolutely go batshit crazy when it tracks any flying enemies. The worst thing about it is that there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to actually toggle targets, which is almost inexcusable given that you're often faced with eight hundred billion enemies on screen at once.

The early set up of the game is just so completely bizarre. It's not that the pacing is off, as that is pretty good. You're already on the run a few minutes into the game, even if it does start with the oldest JRPG cliche in the book. But it's like they found something exciting and stretched it out over the course of two or three hours. You're just running for the first hour to two hours of the game. Running and running. Running in the prison for what seems like 4 miles while you watch unvoiced cutscenes. Running in the dark in the forest where it's just too, too dark. Running away from a dragon firing fireballs at you. Running running running.

And yet I just...I am enjoying it. I think Infinite Undiscovery just has this incredible promise to be such an amazing title that has me sticking to it. It has to get better than this-- it just has to.

 

[BeEatNU]

I thought this game had online play

 

[rollingstart]

And yet I just...I am enjoying it. I think Infinite Undiscovery just has this incredible promise to be such an amazing title that has me sticking to it. It has to get better than this-- it just has to.

It does slowly pick up, and you start to see these bits of brilliance come out. I think the peak of the game is Velplume Tower. Even after finishing the game I still have fond memories of it...if only the entire game was based around that type of idea I would have enjoyed it so much more. IU has so much potential, and there are a lot of good aspects, but others are just questionable or even borderline bad game design.

 

[Android18a]

Some of the boss battles are insane.

On disc two, the place north of the Timberlands...

Spoiler

You've got a dungeon full of little annoying spiders which can do a surprising amount of damage, mushrooms that cause confusion, webs to cut which can paralyse you... and after that, a boss which would be easy were it not constantly surrounded by hundreds of smaller spiders. After THAT, you get a save point, but no way to actually obtain any healing or MP-restoring items other than backtracking or cooking (assuming you have ingredients). And the next boss after that, which comes IMMEDIATELY? It's not technically too hard, but when the stupid AI runs into his blatant spinning wheel of death and you're out of medicines, it's frustrating. I think it took me about 10 attempts.

I can't stress this enough: buy a HELL of a lot of healing and reviving items. More than you think you'll ever need.

 

[Error]

Do any of you use enchanting? the game is super easy, wtf. One of tri-Ace easiest games, at least on normal. I never had any problems with the AI either. My party is pretty balanced, though. A dedicated healer in this game is a MUST, either Eugene or Michelle.

Anyway enchanting, use it people.

Spoiler

For instance in the dungeon with the spiders, I used the Anti-Confusion enchant for all my party members. So I didn't have to worry about those mushrooms, for the web traps... send one of you teammates to take the trap for you etc... etc... The spider boss was also very easy, whenever it came forward to drop peons I switched the AI setting from Spread to Focus, so my teammates concentrated on the big spider. When it retreated to the hole, I put it on spread so they killed the spiders quickly.

Enchanting!! ATK +500 and Attack +30% bonuses can make a difference, just saying.

edit: Holy shit for any of you that finished the game

Spoiler

did you guys notice how Capell's ATK drops by 50% for a couple of minutes after that spending that night with Aya?

:lol, that is a nice touch. He was drained!

 

[rollingstart]

Yeah, the game has a lot of neat touches like that. My favorite was

Spoiler

after the big event in disk 2 where Capell gets really angry at glyphs, it gets reflected in all the titles he gives everyone (Edward has 'pawn' in his, he hates on Touma for being a Risto, etc) as well as his voice tone and commands changing in bttle (from "can somebody help them" to "Heal them").

And the bonus dungeon is pretty hard. I tried last night and died half way through the first level (I didn't have a problem with finishing the game). I am wondering if I should go back or not.

 

[Error]

I noticed that, titles in IU basically tells you what Capell thinks of the other party members. pretty damn sweet.

 

[Jim Sterling]

Glad I'm not the only one disappointed in this. I was so looking forward to it, but the flashes of brilliance are being overshadowed by endless cliche's, a boring story and some of the worst voice acting I've heard in the past year.

 

[alanias]

Something just doesn't seem right to me when playing TriAce's 3d games. Both this and SO3 suffer from the "check out all this empty space" syndrome, and somehow they've made this game even more clunky to play. I guess I'll stick with the two star oceans for PSP and avoid full 3d TriAce games for a bit... I might give SO4 a try though...

 

[BobM]

i was really worried in the first hour or 2 in the game (which i think is UNexcusable) However around 3 hours in or so, I started enjoying the game . I am a big Radiata fan so that might have a little to do with it.
I am glad i stuck with it so far. Everything feel so expansive and big. It is so nice to see all of my party members walking along with me. They dont somehow dissapear in my backpack when i am walking in an overworld section.

I will comment on the story once I am farther in the game. So far i am not willign to commit either way.

Oh, and can someone tell me how to turn the battle voices off?

 

[Y2Kev]

Gets way better as soon as you hit Luce plains. Should just lop the first hour or so off the game.

 

[Nemesis_]

Up to my sixth hour now, been taking my time and exploring. Just severed the Orange Chain, and it was the first boss battle I was ALMOST getting Game Over with. It was just me and Sigmund battling it out towards the end.:lol

Brilliant game. I cannot stress how awesome it is, and how great the party (and sub-party) system works. It makes so much sense compared to other party systems in an RPG - what are the other characters doing? Well, in IU, they are following you and are visible on screen.

Hardly any load times, a very intriguing and unique story and it's just brilliant. Very pleased - fuck the reviews. =P

Love the little details, like seeing the chains in the field as they move up to the moon. It didn't have to be done, but it has been, and it looks so nice.

 

[polyh3dron]

I just started this game last night and at the beginning HOLY INFORMATION OVERLOAD BATMAN!

I had to read up on all of the intricacies of the game in rapid succession without being able to try one thing before I move on to the next like in most games' opening acts. That's a lot of shit to remember at one time.

 

[Ricker]

Gets way better as soon as you hit Luce plains. Should just lop the first hour or so off the game.

Yep i love this area,this would be so awesome with 3 others online...this game screams online co-op,hopefully,if it does well,the sequel will have it.Some of the voice acting is pretty good(Aya,Capell)but some like Michelle make my ears bleed

 

[Hachimaki]

Rucha and Rico = Cooke and Mack?

I hate being a babysitter having to take these kids on this journey. Did anyone else find it odd that their mother was so intent on letting them go?

 

[mjc]

Rucha and Rico = Cooke and Mack?

I hate being a babysitter having to take these kids on this journey. Did anyone else find it odd that their mother was so intent on letting them go?

To be fair though, Cooke and Mack's

Spoiler

mother died.

 

[duckroll]

I want to play this....

 

[intheinbetween]

help, still disc one:

Spoiler

i just left Fayel and headed to the mountains, reached the save point and watched the Sigmund/Capel cutscene, but i'm stuck, i don't know where to go!!

nvm, i finally reached Vesplume Tower, heh, i just needed to head to the north-west side of the map

 

[Hunahan]

Wow. The whole desert sequence was mind-numbingly bad.

It's like they really try to do something new, but end up retreading a checklist of common, well-worn design flaws instead. An escort mission? Seriously?

The constant lack of proper direction is also frustrating. I spend way too much time trying to figure out what the game wants me to do.

I really hope it gets better soon. So far, I'm very disappointed in this one.

For everything it does right, there's at least 10 things it does completely wrong.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

I really enjoy how Capell considers people "useless" when they haven't been in the active party for a long time. Sums up my opinion of the kids, Eugene, etc etc rather well. :lol

Decided to pick up on this again and enter *SPOILERS*

Spoiler

The Seraphic Gate

*SPOILERS*.

MEGA SPOILERS***********

First fight is with

Spoiler

The Troll from the beginning of the game, insane amount of HP

Second fight is with

Spoiler

Sigmund...you gotta fight him solo though. Parry is insanely useful for this battle since it's easy to parry him when he does that aerial move. Not only do you unlock Sigmund after beating him but you can also take his stuff if you want to(I took his sword which has like 2000 ATP and left his sweet armor alone)

*****************SPOILERS END

Seriously folks once you get parry down it's an incredible tool. Best part is you don't even have to be facing the attack to parry it. Just get the timing down and you can keep enemies coming from behind off your back with no trouble.

I keep forgetting to enchant. =/
It's so much easier than casting buff spells(since you can easily do it before big battles and as long as your characters don't die it lasts for a long time) yet it keeps slipping my mind.

EDIT: Escort mission is easy really. The townspeople are pretty slow so you can just run ahead and take out all of the monsters. Only reason I had to re-do it was because I accidentally got back-attacked by a mage and got wasted.

Hell all of the minigames are easy, getting the achievements for them on the other hand...ughhh.

 

[Error]

the escort mission was super easy, I didn't have any problems with it. but yeah I think the situation battles for the most part are pretty meh. the game is awesome when you are dungeon crawling with the multiparty mechanic.

 

[Hunahan]

The escort mission was definitely easy, but also super-dull.

I'm not finding it too difficult to get through from a challenge standpoint, just from one of forcing myself to keep playing. There's just so many sections of this game that are flat out boring.

 

[Blimblim]

Wow. The whole desert sequence was mind-numbingly bad.

It's like they really try to do something new, but end up retreading a checklist of common, well-worn design flaws instead. An escort mission? Seriously?

The constant lack of proper direction is also frustrating. I spend way too much time trying to figure out what the game wants me to do.

I really hope it gets better soon. So far, I'm very disappointed in this one.

For everything it does right, there's at least 10 things it does completely wrong.

The worst thing about the desert sequence is that mini boss fight where you have to protect the kid and what happens afterwards. It's not very difficult, but it still takes some time to get the bear to go away, and then you get a countdown to save the kid again. I went too close to the "bird" and could have aya aim at him (why the limitation in the first place?), so I failed.
And of course since there is no retry option, back to the bear.
That's bad design. There is no excuse for this type of things anymore. Never put a 15 seconds countdown after a boss fight if there is no retry option.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Considering nearly every game these days has a checkpoint every 2 minutes I fail to see why IU should be bashed for having a checkpoint every 15 minutes.

Through the main campaign I can count the number of times I died/failed a mission on one hand and I suck at everything Tri-Ace.

 

[BobM]

Considering nearly every game these days has a checkpoint every 2 minutes I fail to see why IU should be bashed for having a checkpoint every 15 minutes.

Through the main campaign I can count the number of times I died/failed a mission on one hand and I suck at everything Tri-Ace.

every 15 minutes? that seems a bit of an exxageration. I have played for at least a 45 min stretch without seeing a checkpoint. Maybe even longer.

I am surprised to hear a few people say the game is easy and how they hardly die. I play alot of games in almost all genres and also play alot of RPGS. However i feel like i have been dying alot. I don't mind the game kicks my ass a little since it brings some realy intensity to the missions.

Hell, I must have died at least 3 or 4 times before defeating that damn blue ogre in the beginning of the game. (i am ashamed to admit it)

Its wierd because i was pretty good at Radiata Stories which had a somehwat similar combat system.

 

[Hawk269]

How do you get past the cracked rocks?

So far I'm really enjoying the game.


Big points off for not being able to save whenever you want to. What a serious disappointment.

Hard to enjoy the game that way.

I am sure there are other ways, but the only way I have done it is when I obtained a new character in my party. I used the connect feature and a special move he had that did it. I am fairly early, so I am sure there are other ways, but for being early (after breaking the first chain) I got the character that could break them.

Love the game....worst part is the first hour...so I can see how some may play it and discount the game due to this first hour. After that, or pretty much when it turns daylight is when the game really starts to shine.

 

[mjc]

Just so everyone knows, I've got an extra copy of Tales of Vesperia. It's opened, but otherwise in pristine condition. I'm looking to straight up trade it for a copy of Infinite Undiscovery, so if you beat it and you want to get rid of it keep me in mind.

 

[robot]

I was right before the orange chain, where you have 3 parties hacking away at the crystals...and one of my parties vanished.

I lost sight of them and never saw them again. Pretty small town too - so they definetly weren't hiding. Anyne else have this problem?

I also purchased a sword once and it never showed up in my inventory. Strange stuff.

 

[Quazar]

I was right before the orange chain, where you have 3 parties hacking away at the crystals...and one of my parties vanished.

I lost sight of them and never saw them again. Pretty small town too - so they definetly weren't hiding. Anyne else have this problem?

I also purchased a sword once and it never showed up in my inventory. Strange stuff.

Happened to me as well. I took it that party died.

So I got done with tower and I accepted a quest from Aya's little servant to find Aya's bow. While looking for bow I stumbled into some Mine area. Went there unprepared and died. Is it a side dungeon or an area I'll go to eventually?

 

[Error]

Happened to me as well. I took it that party died.

So I got done with tower and I accepted a quest from Aya's little servant to find Aya's bow. While looking for bow I stumbled into some Mine area. Went there unprepared and died. Is it a side dungeon or an area I'll go to eventually?

it has some stuff, could be used as a shortcut to get to fayel quickly too.

 

[Quazar]

it has some stuff, could be used as a shortcut to get to fayel quickly too.

Thanks for quick response. I'll go through it tomorrow. I just forgot I had very little items due to just finishing tower.

 

[rollingstart]

Yeah, the mine area is actually pretty tough. Watch out for mine carts that KO your members in one hit.

 

[ixix]

I was right before the orange chain, where you have 3 parties hacking away at the crystals...and one of my parties vanished.

I lost sight of them and never saw them again. Pretty small town too - so they definetly weren't hiding. Anyne else have this problem?

I also purchased a sword once and it never showed up in my inventory. Strange stuff.

I just did that part, and I don't think my third team ever even spawned. Capell's team showed up, then Sigmund's team showed up, then nothing. That team was just the twins and what's-his-name that you can't use in your main party, so it's not like I even gave a damn that they weren't around.

 

[Hunahan]

I don't know why, but I had assumed that the third party was holding back the army outside the gates for some reason.

Maybe that was my imagination, but I think they might have referenced it....

 

[Combine]

Oh man, the voice acting has NOT improved as I've gone on. In fact, it seems to get worse with every new character I encounter. First I meet Michelle and her godawful "swooning" chatter of Sigmund, and then in Fayel, the devil itself, ****ing GINA!#$Q*@&!

Whoever directed the acting of that character needs to be shot. I wanted her dead after the first utterance of syllabols from her mouth. But no, I had to listen to her and she kept on going. Why couldn't they have made her cinemas the silent ones?

And yeah, the whole desert sequence really was tedious. Not hard, but just annoying. One thing I don't like is how Capell just agrees to go along with everything and never really questions why he's doing something.

 

[JoeFenix]

Just finished it an hour ago. What a mixed bag!

This game has so much potential and you can see the ambition every now and then. They tried lots of new concepts but most of it is just isn't well integrated and polished enough.

There is a distinct lack of ennemy types and bosses and the game just felt rushed as hell to me. Watching the credits and seeing all the sub-contractors like feelplus+ modelers in there makes me sad. Now I know where those horrible NPC models come from, fucking Lost Odyssey rejects.

Nothing seemed to gel in the end although the story got entertaining at the very end it just wasn't enough to remove the sour taste in my mouth. I really hope Star Ocean 4 is better than this.

 

[Sallokin]

I'm at the

Spoiler

Underwater Palace

and could not be more frustrated with the lack of save points. Two boss fights in a row then I walk into a room with two ogres, a half dozen archers and a bunch of guards and my group wipes after about 20 seconds. Hopefully I'll have better luck in the morning.

 

[Error]

:lol :lol Feel+ modelers, I can't wait to see these credits.

I'm starting to understand why SO4 looks so much better.

 

[JoeFenix]

:lol :lol Feel+ modelers, I can't wait to see these credits.

I'm starting to understand why SO4 looks so much better.

Yep, this was another one of MS Japan's failures in terms of direction and support. It just feels cheap as hell to me. I can see a clear distinction between what the tri-Ace staff modeled and what the contractors did. It's such a huge quality gap.

This game deserved more time and money put into it, it really is a shame it came out in this state and I think it will easily be remembered as tri-Ace's worst game.

Oh well, still had some fun with it!

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

This game deserved more time and money put into it, it really is a shame it came out in this state and I think it will easily be remembered as tri-Ace's worst game.

Until you can go back in time and erase Radiata Stories from existence I can't bring myself to agree.

 

[SlaughterX]

I just beat the first disc (in under 9 hours) and the game just feels rushed and incomplete to me. I don't understand why they would do that either considering there's still a few months before the Christmas rush, I guess they didn't want to cannibalize Last Remnant sales or something... So far I have to say that I am quite a bit disappointed with this game, perhaps I was expecting too much.

 

[Error]

Yeah, Radiata is definitely tri-Ace worst game. this is much better, I give radiata a 6/10, btw.

but I think this game is unpolished as hell, clearly needed at least another year in development. I'm disappointed with some of the stuff they greenlighted for this.

I had a shitload of fun with this game despite the flaws, which says a lot of the concept. the combat is fun. when you are actually dungeon crawling the game is fuck amazing. it's these tacked-on mini-games that drag the game. It's shame because I don't think we'll ever see another IU2, this is like Radiata Stories all over again, a highly experimental, half assed game. I'm going to hold off until I actually beat it, plus do the bonus dungeon. So far I give it an 8/10, just wished it was more polished all around.

 

[SlaughterX]

Also I think this game would have been much better as an online game.

 

[Uncle Dukey]

I haven't gotten too far but it's making me feel dumb

First, I die at the first boss because my party had really low health so I had to go through the dungeon again. I guess I should have expected the boss due to the puzzle door, but anyways..

Second, it takes me around 15 minutes to realize I can use the catapults to destroy the gate if I put my sword away.

Then I get stuck in Castle Pravent for a while after you meet up with Edmond. I keep walking back and forth through the level finally finding out you have to use the flute to proceed.

Now I'm walking around the map aimlessly looking for the next area because nobody in the game bothered to tell me where it was.

As far as the game goes, the combat is fairly entertaining, the story is questionable, and some stuff seems overly complicated or clunky. To be honest, I think the biggest thing that bothers me is that there isn't any co-op. The game feels like it was made to be played in a group like Phantasy Star Online. As is, I find the game to be disappointing, but still entertaining.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Anyway some bulletpoints to mull over before I can really give some final thoughts.

-Not nearly as deep as their other games. Really you can totally get by with a certain handful of specials/spells. Granted the same could be said of say SO3 but with that game when you strayed off the beaten path you could find some truly impressive options. With IU on the other hand you stray off the beaten path and well...you tend to get beaten.
-Too easy. Granted the option to avoid getting exp is readily available and I've yet to really dig into Hard/Bonus dungeon but most encounters are piss-easy.
-Minigames. Nothing truly terrible or game-breaking but really it just seemed to me like Tri-Ace was looking for something to kill time with between dungeons(the dungeons are fantastic btw, easily some of the best so far this gen...not saying much but dammit whatever)
-Framerate. I'd be perfectly satisfied with 30 fps throughout(especially considering the scope of this title, it's really unlike anything Tri-Ace has done before). Unfortunately the framerate tends to dip when everyone is doing specials and such. I think Tri-Ace was aware of this as battles where framerate becomes less important are easier than battles where you really need it to be perfect(like this one battle I just fought).
-Poor story. Oh wait this is a Tri-Ace game so that doesn't count.
-Disappointing lack of enemy variety. Towards the end of the game I was expecting to find some really crazy stuff but instead I got different-colored birds....whoo.
-Secondary party-members really don't make any sense. Why do they have to be secondary exactly?
-Gustav takes up two slots....making him very useless.
-Some of the bigger bosses are absolutely pathetic.

Spoiler

The Kraken and that giant thing the Dreadknight summons, I beat both of them without getting hit. I didn't use any special tactics or anything, I just ran behind them the entire battle and they were too busy turning to get a hit in.

-Unless all of your best gear comes from crafting(which it should considering how long it takes to level) I'm going to be really disappointed if this entire sub-system turns out to be rather useless in the end.

I'm not sure if I would prefer this game to be online either. The nice thing about Tri-Ace games is that when you're good at them you can do more with what you have. You can take on greater challenges with weaker characters and see your skills/knowledge of the game put to work. The closest I've seen an online game try to do this was the original Phantasy Star Online...and Sega killed that with subsequent releases and PSU. Online games force you onto a track and expect you to stay on it. If you figure out a clever way to kill a great monster at a low level expect the developers to patch that in less than a week.

 

[Android18a]

I'm at the

Spoiler

Underwater Palace

and could not be more frustrated with the lack of save points. Two boss fights in a row then I walk into a room with two ogres, a half dozen archers and a bunch of guards and my group wipes after about 20 seconds. Hopefully I'll have better luck in the morning.

=) You've got a couple more boss fights before the save point, matey

I was here last night, I think there were 4 boss battles and 3 regular floors before the save point (luckily, Genma is there to heal and let you shop!). I'm pretty sure there's gonna be more bosses before the main ones, too...

Tri-Ace are barsterds!

 

[Sallokin]

=) You've got a couple more boss fights before the save point, matey

I was here last night, I think there were 4 boss battles and 3 regular floors before the save point (luckily, Genma is there to heal and let you shop!). I'm pretty sure there's gonna be more bosses before the main ones, too...

Tri-Ace are barsterds!

Thanks for the heads up. That particular instance was probably the most frustrated I've been with the game so far. I had been playing for about 6 hours straight though so I think I may have just needed a break.

 

[Datschge]

:lol :lol Feel+ modelers, I can't wait to see these credits.

Here you go. (Focussed on what interests me as usual, may end up adding the Microsoft Unit. Definitely won't add the three worthless but still insanely huge SE QA & PR etc. units...)

Ray Nakazato didn't joke when he said: "Microsoft is doing Infinite Undiscovery with Tri-Ace, and I talk to Tri-Ace a lot. We even talk about sharing technologies, tools, and even resources because it's a big project." But to be fair the feelplus staff involved by itself is rather small. The real surprise is the huge amount of external companies involved.

 

[Ricker]

After the whole Rite in the Castle(Burghuss something ;P ) everyone is saying to go to Fayel...I ended up in the desert place with the sandstorms and all and the destroy glyph type sequence with a meter,kinda like the catapult thing,and the subsequent fight to destroy the second chain but i got killed pretty fast...am I suppose to go there to reach Fayel or did i miss Fayel alltogether? considering how poorly i did on the Boss fight(first time i have a problem with a fight) I'm guessing i missed Fayel.

 

[angelfly]

Any tips for Port Zala?

Spoiler

I'm using Michelle, Aya, and Rucha. Capell is LV24 and everyone else is 23. I keep getting my ass kicked by the the Order Knight. I can surivive for a while to maybe get 3 shots at attacking the orb but at a certain point Michelle gets low on MP and I can't get a spare moment to restore it since the enemies just keep constantly respawning so then my main healing source is gone.

@Ricker: You're on the right path.