There's a lot to love about Infinite Undiscovery.
An hour into Infinite Undiscovery I find myself fleeing a dungeon guarded by a ridiculously overpowered troll, with only a slightly nonsensical cut-scene to explain me why I'm here in the first place. As I struggle with the controls and suppress annoyance about the lead character Chapel's whimsical antics, I am wondering how this ever got past Square-Enx' quality control. Five hours later, I'm still playing. By this time I have been outrunning wolves in the dark, met my party (a group of rogues known as The Liberation Force), seen a talking dragon, besieged a fortress and discovered a world on a fatal collision-course with the moon – something obviously only my party is able to prevent. My initial annoyances over Chapel quickly change as he grows into his role as the hero he is destined to become.
Infinite Undiscovery combines freshness with a fairytale-like charm. The battle-system is disguised as a pale imitation of Phantasy Star Online, yet quickly unfolds itself as rich and challenging. Walking the battlefield with a group of 12 characters while vividly giving attack/heal-orders to your fellow partymembers really does justice to the 10+ years of ideas the makers of the game tried to incorporate. Gameplay-quirks include having to unsheathe your blade for combat, dividing the cast of characters in multiple parties who fight with you in realtime, using your allies' capabilities to solve puzzles and segments where you have to perform specific tasks (such as getting a group of refugees across a dessert full of baddies) before the timer runs out. It's clever ideas that help the game shine.
Granted: not all of these ideas are equally well implemented. Issues involve an unresponsive camera, a lack of savepoints, too much backtracking and your characters being tossed around on the battlefield without the chance to fight back. The answer to these? Persistence, perseverance, patience and the occasional grinding near a save-point. It's the tactic that kept us alive during the early Final Fantasies, and it's the right tactic for Infinite Undiscovery as well.
Like those early Final Fantasies, this games true appeal is discovering a world which feels like something you remember from a dream. The game is carried by it's characters. There are about twenty in total, each with their own personality-traits and many of them quite lovable. Excellent voice-acting brings them to live as they venture forth on their journey. These are characters you'll laugh with, cry with and actually care for by the time the final boss crumbles before your feet. The world of Infinite Undiscovery isn't the largest one or the most compelling one, but it does have a its own mythology and a number of interesting locations. Both prove an excellent foundation for a storyline that stays interesting for the full 20+ hours.
Infinite Undiscovery is certainly not a game for everyone. In fact, those who got introduced to RPG's by FF13 and are looking for more of the same, should probably look elsewhere. For those, however, who like their journeys memorable and consider their characters part of their family, this is an experience I can recommend wholeheartedly. Once you get past its shortcomings, there's a lot to love about Infinite Undiscovery.