Review: 'Vesperia' is a better RPG than 'Infinite Undiscovery'

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BY AIMEE GREEN / Lincoln Journal Star

In role-playing games, characters are everything.

Let me clarify: Interesting characters are everything.

Two recent games for the Xbox 360 are both RPGs, but I liked one much more than the other, and characters have a lot to do with it.

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Four characters can be in battle at a time in "Tales of Vesperia." (Namco Bandai)

“Tales of Vesperia” has a collection of fun characters, each of whom I quickly grew to care about. Their dialogue is believable, and it gives each person a distinct personality. I had many laugh-out-loud moments.

“Infinite Undiscovery,” on the other hand, doesn’t perform quite so well. The main character, Capell, is OK but whiny. I struggled to care about the other characters. The lead female character, Aya, often seems as if she has a split personality, which makes her inconsistent and confusing. And nearly all of the characters have such similar facial features that they all look related.

There’s also a matter of numbers: “Infinite Undiscovery” has too many characters (something like 18). It simply can’t flesh out the personalities of all of them, and it becomes tedious to keep track of so many.

Also, what’s with the awkward name?

Tied closely to characters is story, and “Tales of Vesperia” once again wins.

In “Tales,” the lead character, Yuri, sets out with a couple of others to seek a mage who has stolen his neighborhood’s blastia, a device that harnesses magical power. Along the way, he picks up other characters who each have their own agendas.

The story is fleshed out through anime-style cutscenes and scenes called skits that simply use portraits of the characters and text. Even the skits, however, sparkle with personality, and they’re worth reading even though they’re optional.

“Infinite Undiscovery” doesn’t have a bad story; it’s just not as interesting, and it’s dragged down by shallower characterization and poorer dialogue.

The main character, Capell, is a boy who would rather play his flute than face conflict. Unfortunately, conflict is aplenty, as the bad guys have chained up the moon (literally). This, no surprise, has bad effects on the world. Capell happens to look like the leader of the resistance, so of course a series of mistakes leads to him joining the resistance.

Both “Infinite” and “Tales” are action RPGs, meaning battles consist of hitting buttons that correspond to attacks instead of selecting options from menus.

The fights in “Tales” aren’t too difficult, but its battle system is also more fluid and easier to use. You only control one character during battles, but three other computer characters help out. Pressing a button brings up a menu in which you can change the computer characters’ strategies or direct them to do something specific. It works well, and most of the time you don’t have to worry about the others.

If you have friends, they can pop into the game and control some of the other characters in a co-operative mode.

“Infinite” has a similar system in that you control one character while the others do their own thing. However, to order the other characters to do something, you must “connect” with them, essentially taking control of them. Then you can make them do what you want.

Unfortunately, while you’re doing this, the action is still going on, and often I found myself either too flustered to be effective or getting myself killed while trying to find what I needed. The same goes for using items during battle, which involves scrolling through a menu while the battle rages.

Luckily, the artificial intelligence left to its own devices does pretty well, though I found it best to set it to preserving the mana used for magic spells. Otherwise, the characters burned right through it.

Both games have useful item synthesis systems. “Tales” uses cooking to heal party members and item-shop synthesis to create gear and weapons with materials you’ve gathered.

“Infinite” attaches specific synthesizing abilities to each character. One may be able to create potions for healing, while another may be a blacksmith. Each of these is accessed by connecting to that character outside of battle.

“Tales” and “Infinite” balance out their characters’ abilities well, with some focused on melee fighting and others using magic.

I can’t argue about the visuals in either. “Infinite Undiscovery” goes for realism and does it well, and, cheesy as it sounds, it’s cool seeing the moon in chains. “Tales of Vesperia,” meanwhile, uses a colorful, cel-shaded approach. Both games are lush and beautiful.

“Infinite Undiscovery” isn’t bad, just rather average. Lacking other options, it’s worth a play.

But “Tales of Vesperia” sparkles in every category you can think of, and the characters’ interactions alone make it worth playing. “Infinite Undiscovery” seems pedestrian by comparison.

Reach Aimee Green at 473-7326 or Aimee.Green@lee.net.