Infinite Undiscovery first impressions

So I took up the offer and bought a copy of Infinite Undiscovery for £19.99 from Gamestation. It arrived in the post yesterday.

I'm only a very little way into the game - probably not even out of receiving tutorials.

The options for sound in the menu are: Voice (deafult), Voice + subtitles, Subtitles only.

So I selected Voice + Subtitles because I'm like that.

I start the game and the first cutscene starts. Then I get a set of tutorial pages on how to do battle and it's bordering too much to take in. Battle starts, mash A and B buttons, battle ends. Then we're not in a cutscene but the girl says something. I can hear her but there are no subtitles!

So we run around, and then I walk forward - mini-cut scene - has subtitles but no voice!

I started wondering what was going on! The game continues this way as far as I've seen - some cutscenes are voiced, others aren't, and incidental spoken dialogue is not subtitled. It's realy uneven and feels really unnatural. I would switch to subtitle-only, but then I would probably miss the incidental dialogue.

The subtitles are a small white serif font which isn't really a good (comfortable, clear to read quickly) choice as a subtitling font, in my opinion.

The voice work isn't as bad as I'd been led to believe before playing the game, but the fact that it's so patchy is very annoying (BTW apparently it was like that in the Japanese version too). The protagonist has a move called "Diminuendo Dive" but every time he uses it and shouts his move it sounds like he's yelling "Innuendo Dive!", which I find amusing. (Sometimes I hear the "Dim" part, but mostly it sounds like he's advertising some dodgy nightclub!)

The battle system as I've seen so far is an action combat system - the guy you play as wields a short blade weapon, but you can connect with other party members and use their skills too (at the start you team up with a girl who uses a bow and arrow, so there's variety). There's also a sneaking system - exclamation marks appear over enemies' heads if they see you, and question marks if they hear you (and they go to investigate). A bit like what I've seen in some Metal Gear Solid games and Boktai...

The characters seem fairly likeable - the protagonist reminds me of Jack in Radiata Stories, if there was a super-wussy version, that is... and I can't make him power-walk hilariously or kick random things (aww)... I think that the strength of the characterisations will probably be what makes this game enjoyable. The story will probably be quite generic (something about someone ensaring the moon in chains and monsters springing up... a group of people are breaking the chains...), but will still remain entertaining thanks to the script. I hope. Well, it seems like that's how it will be from what I've seen.

The character designs aren't as cute as in Radiata Stories or Eternal Sonata, but at least they don't look as plastic as modern Final Fantasy characters.

So, those are my impressions so far.

My boyfriend sent me a message on Xbox live just before I stopped:

XD @ Your current XBL status. "Infinite Undiscovery: Ep. 1 - Hanging out in prison. (A great place to meet chicks!)"

So... that's as far as I got so far. That status message isn't really truly representative of what was happening in the game, but it's funny. XD

Infinite Undiscovery - under 1/2 price, 4 days after launch

Yesterday afternoon I noticed that Gamestation (large mainstream UK high-street videogame retailer) are selling the new Tri-Ace RPG "Infinite Undiscovery" for £19.99. It only came out last Friday! After 4 days, it had already dropped from £44.99 RRP to under 1/2 price!

I had predicted that the price would drop quickly, as every JRPG on the current-gen home consoles has up to this point... I just didn't think it would be so quick to happen.

BTW I don't know if it's any good - I ought to read some reviews really. I know that it contains bad voice acting (in English, Japanese is not an option). The product description in that shop makes it sound like the most generic game ever, too, ending in "Come on. It's time for a journey of epic proportions and...well, you know the rest."