Square Enix's first Xbox 360 exclusive had a lot of high hopes, but it fell flat for a lot of hardcore role-playing gamers. While the game has an intriguing story centering around the typical JRPG reluctant hero, Cappell, the gameplay itself has a lot that many gamers will definitely "undiscover."
While that is one of the appeals of the game, a gamer mom with limited time to play would most likely rather a play a more straight forward RPG. This is just one of the reasons why gamer moms should forego adding this title to their extensive role-playing video game libraries.
Quick Overview of Infinite Undiscovery Gameplay
Infinite Undiscovery has the typical party system found in a JRPG, but the combat is hack n' slash instead of typical turn-based battles. Everything happens in real time, including inventory searching, which can pose a potential problem since Cappell sits on the ground (in the middle of combat) while the gamer flips through Cappell's weapons, armor, food, and the like.
However, even though it's not a party system, Cappell and the player can access the other party members' abilities by connecting with them. In this way, the player can use the others to cast magic, fire ranged weapons, and even talk to non-playing characters. Connecting to other party members is the only way to defeat specific enemies and perform certain tasks such as cooking and forging weapons.
Infinite Undiscovery does have one really unique aspect to the gameplay: Cappell's flute. Cappell can play his flute to uncover hidden items or rooms, cheer on his party, earn money, or help in combat.
What's Good for Gaming Moms
Sad to say, this game really only has a couple of things that are good for a gamer mom, the first being the at hand tutorials. From the menu screen, the gaming mom can access tutorials for every possible subject matter in Infinite Undiscovery. She can review the combat system, the party controls, how to connect to other party members, how to set flute music, and how to set spells for the magic users. However, it's best for mom to review all this when she's not in the middle of combat, as the menu screen is not a pause feature.
The controls for the game are fairly simple for all of the elements it encompasses. Combat, special attacks, spells, and playing Cappell's flute are all activated by the touch of one button. The most buttons that ever need to be pushed at once is two, and that's if Cappell needs to connect with another party member. There are no lengthy combos to remember, so it's fairly simple to refresh one's memory.
What's Bad for Gaming Moms
Unfortuantely, there is more bad than good.The menu screen allows a player to do practically everything except saving the game. The game can only be saved at designated save points, which is not exactly helpful for the busy mom. She can't stop what she is doing at any given moment to save, but only pause and let her Xbox run until she can get back to her game.
There may not be any combos to remember how to execute, but there are so many things for a player to do, a busy mom who can't play the game every day may not remember them all. For instance, she may not remember for a few seconds that she has to physically unsheath Cappell's sword for Cappell and his party to start fighting. She also may not remember to connect with other party members and use them to talk to other non-playing characters, forge weapons, cook food, or create potions.
The gaming mom may also be deterred by the length of the game. Infinite Undiscovery has two discs containing dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay, and if a gamer mom only has a few hours a week to devote to gaming, it may take her close to a year to complete it. She may shelve Infinite Undiscovery just because she's tired of playing it.
Not Recommended for the Gamer Mom
There are too many other good RPGs in existence that are far more conducive to the limited game times a gamer mom has. While Infinite Undiscovery has a very enriching RPG experience, the length of the game, restricted ability to save, and the amount of available tasks are not appealing to a gaming mother who may only have thirty minutes to get some game time squeezed in. Moms should definitely leave this RPG on the shelf and look elsewhere to satisfy her role-playing needs.
Keri Honea - Keri Honea is all over the place. She's involved with video games, animation, strategy guides, and fantasy books, and not just on Suite ...
