According to my dictionary, there actually is no such word as "undiscovery", which makes the title of this tri-Ace/Square-Enix RPG a mystery to all. However, since I'm a firm believer in the act of thinking deeply, I have confidence that I'll puzzle it out by the time I've completed the game. My mind does tend to wander wildly when I'm gaming, which leads me to make surprisingly accurate leaps of faith about things like this. You know, like when I was playing Dragon Age: Origins and suddenly realized that not only did my character have an origin story, but there were dragons to be fought! A great mystery had been solved by pure deductive genius!
Hmmm...it really didn't take long at all for the first disc to get installed to my 360's hard drive. Enough of this thinking deal — it's time to start gaming! As a bit o' a disclaimer. I'm finishing up Dragon Age-related stuff at the time and also playing a bit of Call of Duty 3 when the opportunity arises. However, Monday tends to be a real bear of a day at work and I came home last night with my soul feeling crushed to the point where I wanted to just chug a bottle of Ny-Quil and see how long that would zonk me out. The Awakening expansion to Dragon Age just hasn't been exciting me and I didn't feel up to mustering the intensity necessary to blast through grumpy Nazis, so I decided that sampling one of the many RPGs I've bought over the past couple of months would be a fun way to salvage a crappy day.
You (un)discover yourself in the role of Capell, a youth locked up in the depths of a dungeon. An unpleasant dungeon, as his whiny attempts to request something to eat lead to a surly guard committing various acts of police brutality. Why is he imprisoned? Apparently due to a case of mistaken identity, as cute chick Aya (FUNFACT: in a review of Parasite Eve from a few years back, I referred to that game's Aya as a "cute chick", proving that I'm at least consistent with my casual chauvinistic comments) quickly pops into the scene to dispatch the guard and release Capell from his cell while referring to him as "Lord Sigmund".
And now, the tutorials begin. Two guards come down to give you an old-fashioned pounding, so you get a tutorial on how to fight. As this is an action-oriented RPG, you can run around the screen alternating weak slashes with strong ones to create combo attacks. After that's taken care of, Capell eventually decides it'd be in his best effort to escape the prison with Aya and you set off to (un)discover a way out of the place.
More tutorials abound concerning such things as opening treasure chests and camping. The latter neatly illustrates the whole ACTION-oriented RPG thing. "Camping" is essentially the act of going to your menu to do things like use items, change equipment, etc., but time doesn't magically freeze to let you do this. Instead, you'll want to be in a safe spot where no enemies are patrolling, or they'll run up and start stabbing and hacking away while you're blundering through your stuff. Little touches like that are nice.
Shortly after finding your first save point (and yes, there is a tutorial for that, as well), you'll get introduced to connections. From what I've gathered so far, you're in control of a specific character (Capell) and that's that. Other characters, such as Aya, do their own thing. Fortunately, the A.I. seems pretty competent, as she did a good job of keeping Capell healthy, but sometimes, you might want to take control of the situation. Here lies one such case. There are guards patrolling. There also are exploding barrels in the vicinity. By hitting the right button and selecting Aya, you can take utilize a skill to blow up a barrel, which possibly does something about those guards. Or you can be like me and screw the whole thing up and have to fight off a pack of soldiers (this "screw the whole thing up" deal extended to me wondering why Capell wasn't attacking until I realized I hadn't hit the right trigger to get him to draw his sword — like I said, it was a long day at work).
Soon after all this, you encounter a massive ogre-dude called something like Vembert. He's the master of the jail and, as your characters exclaim, is unbeatable at this time. Therefore, you get to run away. This leads to a chase scene up several flights of stairs which was pretty tense — particularly since I wasn't used to the controls, which made tactics such as connecting with Aya and using her bow to blow up barrels a bit on the tricky side. Sometimes when I'm playing a game, I do something that I wish the whole world could have seen. Other times, I'm really, really happy that no one was around to witness my blundering ineptitude. Fleeing from Vembert neatly fit into the latter category. This was the part of the game where I (un)discovered that Aya was smart enough to cast timely healing spells. I also (un)discovered that it's not a good idea to wildly swing a sword when in close proximity to an exploding barrel. Those two tidbits are directly connected...
Eventually, you'll temporarily dispose of Vembert and exit the prison to a dark forest, which is best described as a long and winding linear path. The game's A.I. impressed me here, as well. Early on, you're instructed that by attacking an enemy with a long-range attack (ie: connecting to Aya and using a bow skill), you can take the advantage. As I progressed through the forest, I noticed that she would, on her own, take the initiative and shoot a distant soldier — oftentimes leading to a quick kill. This was a pretty easy region, with only one tough fight against a good number of dog-like creatures.
The end of the forest features another meeting with Vembert who resumes the chase until a group of strangers (to Capell, not Aya) perform a rescue. Aya's ever-so-precious Lord Sigmund leads this party and he is the spitting image of Capell — a (un)discovery that everyone notices before you set up camp. This is the point where I "set up camp" myself and called it a night!
IN SUMMARY: For the most part, this is a pretty typical intro that spends as much time offering tutorial segments as anything else. However, there are some neat touches thrown into the mix. I particularly like the emphasis on action in this action-RPG. No random encounters, accessing menus in the heat of battle is a bad idea, etc. At the very least, I'm intrigued, as from what I've read, there are a LOT of characters with each having their own specific uses as far as connecting with them goes. Some can pick locks on treasure chests, some can break rocks, Aya can attack from a distance and shoot fruit out of trees.
