Infinite Undiscovery



Oh boy. With a title like that, how are you supposed to describe this?

Infinite Undiscovery is an RPG for the Xbox 360 developed by Tri-Ace and published by Square Enix.

The moon has been chained to the earth by the Order of Chains. Each chain causes the earth to wither around it, and unleashes monsters and natural disasters. Only a hero can break these chains.

The main character, Capell, is not that hero. He just looks like him.

Gameplay is similar to tri-Ace's Star Ocean series. The player has direct control over the main character, Capell, while the AI controls the other characters. The player can "connect" Capell to any character in his active party in order to use their skills, and must do so in order to deal with certain puzzles, destroy certain obstacles, or perform item crafting in towns.

It's also incredibly pretty.

Tropes:

 * All Men Are Perverts: Inverted with Capell. To thank Capell for saving Leif, Faina offers to do anything for him. Turns out that Capell just wants a future meal from her and it's Faina who's ready to do anything.
 * The Archer: Aya.
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit: With so many characters, it's pretty much inevitable.
 * Battle Butler: Genma.
 * Big Bad: Leonid.
 * Bigger Bad:.
 * Bonus Boss: Several in the Seraphic Gate, but the biggest are tri-Ace regulars Gabriel Celeste and Iseria Queen. Strangely,.
 * Bonus Dungeon: It's tri-Ace, so of course it has some variant of the Seraphic Gate, Gabriel Celeste and Iseria Queen included.
 * Calling Your Attacks: By the bucketloads.
 * The Corruption: Late in the game, the party encounters a phenomenon called "Lunar Rain". While beautiful to look at, lunaglyph-bearing meages exposed to Lunar Rain find their bodies inundated with more lunar power than they can safely handle. If the condition is left unchecked, they become invisible, superpowerful monsters called Vermiforms, who kill everything they can, including you and the rest of your party. Only the unblessed can see them. Aristos, however, are immune to Lunar Rain's effects. This figures in the plot, and also becomes a gameplay element.
 * Cursed With Awesome: Unblesseds, who are immune to Lunar Rain and the only ones who can spot Vermiforms.
 * Day Old Legend: Upgraded weapons have different backstories.
 * Disc One Nuke: With proper abuse of the crafting system and some farming in the right areas for materials, you can end up with some endgame equipment before you get to the third chain.
 * The Dragon:.
 * Dude Looks Like a Lady: Kiriya.
 * Dull Surprise: Caitlyn Glass and Laura Bailey are the only actors worth noting here. The rest of the cast have a bad tendency to either be completely flat-toned, or enunciate in really weird ways. The aristos take the cake, however. They aimed for reserved and wise, instead they sound more wooden and uninterested than the most incredibly dull puppet show.
 * Though to be fair, it's stated in the game itself that becoming an aristo changes a person's personality, making them more analytical and emotionless than they previously were. This doesn't excuse some of the other voice acting, though.
 * Everythings Worse With Bears: Gustav the bear, for Capell's enemies. Capell can ride on his back and the bear in question can kick a lot of ass. And he breathes fire.
 * Failure Is the Only Option: It doesn't matter how quickly you
 * Fantastic Racism: Comes in two flavors:
 * First, there's the distinction between "meages" and "aristos". Meages look like ordinary people, and are ruled and protected by aristos. Aristos are meages that have been transformed through a lunar rite. They are distinguished by a crescent moon halo that's centered on their shoulders.
 * There are also the "unblessed". In this world, people normally receive a "lunaglyph" at birth. The "lunaglyphs" grant their bearers magical powers. However, those born under a new moon, or during a lunar eclipse, do not receive a lunaglyph. They are the "unblessed", and are basically pariahs. No government will protect them, and they are frequently exiled from their hometowns.
 * Femme Fatale: Saranda.
 * Five Man Band:
 * The Hero: Lord Sigmund
 * The Lancer: Edward (Subverted. Played straight when Capell takes over as The Hero.)
 * The Smart Guy: Eugene, Savio and Kiriya
 * The Big Guy: Balbagan
 * Action Girl: Aya/Dominica
 * Tagalong Kid: Capell (Later The Hero), Rico and Rucha, Vic
 * The Medic: Michelle, who has a healing Lunaglyph
 * Team Pet: Gustav
 * Guide Dang It: The locations of the "Secret of" Item Creation quests. The official guide says you need them to make certain items but it doesn't say a single word about where they are and how to accomplish them.
 * Heroic BSOD: Capell goes through this  Capell then starts to   He gets better,
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Also,.
 * Ho Yay: Edward's hero worship of Sigmund seems to cross this line a lot.
 * Idle Animation: Rico and Rucha never hold still. At all.
 * Improbable Hairstyle: Komachi's hair is tied by a bow...which also happens to be her hair.
 * Actually, if you look, there's a hairclip keeping it in place. Doesn't explain how she maintains that style through dungeon after dungeon, though...
 * Interface Screw: When you're confused, the controls get really wonky.
 * Jerkass: Edward, who initially treats Capell like The Load, and later as Lord Sigmund's Replacement Scrappy, to the point of simply referring to him as "Impostor."
 * Jerkass Gods:
 * Large Ham: Leonid's acting is... interesting, but the real winner here is Edward. He is always yelling and overreacting to everything,  Weirdly enough, he gets less hammy after his Character Development kicks in.
 * But honestly, do you expect a character voiced by David Vincent to be anything but a ham?
 * Leaked Experience
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: To the point where some dungeons require up to three parties to complete.
 * Luke I Am Your Father: Near the end of the game it is revealed that
 * The Man Behind the Man:
 * The Masquerade: After.
 * Mistaken Identity: Everybody thinks that Capell looks just like Lord Sigmund, the Liberator. It gets old after a while, as Capell himself acknowledges.
 * Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Subverted. Upon killing the final boss,
 * Noob Cave: Graad Prison.
 * Not So Different: Aya realizes this between her and Saranda.
 * Obvious Beta: Most of the game feels like a tech demo of stuff that would later show up in Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and has a very unpolished feeling.
 * On the other hand, the game doesn't suffer from the myriad problems that most betas tend to have. It does feel pretty rushed, though.
 * Only Sane Man: Capell, at the start of the game, wants to know exactly why he's being dragged along to save the world, and why are these kids following him around?
 * Playing With Fire: Aya.
 * Rebellious Princess: Aya, the first member of the Liberation Force Capell meets, is revealed to be the princess of the emirate of Fayel.
 * Relationship Upgrade: Aya and Capell, just before the final dungeon. In a nice touch, Aya's status page actually reflects this.
 * The Stoic: Aristos in general, most notably Savio, Touma, and Seraphina. Seraphina especially, who speaks as though she were a robot (i.e. always putting logic first, and using percentages and probability to describe things).
 * Take Up My Sword: Lord Sigmund finds himself unable to break chains, so he has Capell do it. At the next chain,
 * Theme Naming: For special attacks. For example, all of Aya's battle skills are named after birds (Sparrowrain, Peacock Plume, Cardinal Cloak, etc.), most of Edward's are water-related (Turbulent Swing, Twinstream, Rising Current, etc.), Komachi's are named after trees (Ash, Hornbeam, Crowfoot), Vic's are insect-related (Sliding Stinger, Dragon Flyer, Mantiscissors) and Capell's are music-related (Slashing Canon, Symphonic Blade, Eternal Refrain). The only person who really doesn't seem to follow this is Touma.
 * Ungrateful Bastard: No matter what  as soon as he finds out that  the Emir   The fact that   doesn't help.
 * Edward gets like this a bit as well, refusing to accept Capell in any way after, at least until his Break the Haughty moment.
 * Well Excuse Me Princess: Capell and Aya's relationship starts off as this.
 * Word Salad Title: What, exactly, is an undiscovery?
 * Why Did It Have to Be Snakes: To the point where characters have their stats decrease if they encounter certain enemy types. For example, Aya, who hates bugs/reptiles, will go through a stat reduction if she encounters them.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Aya.