Mistakes Lack of Direction for Freedom
Infinite Space begins with a great enough concept: it's an RPG with star ships. This alone is enough to make it intriguing, seeing as how most RPGs place you squarely in the fantasy genre, but Infinite Space makes a series of tragic mis-steps on the road to greatness that ultimately derail it.
The spaceship combat is easily the most compelling part and is also the best part of the game. You are given three different commands: Dodge, Normal and Barrage. Dodge will completely evade a Barrage attack, but take extra damage from a Normal. Normal is basically one single attack while Barrage is three consecutive attacks (which takes only the same amount as two Normals). This sort of Rock-Paper-Scissors combat will permeate the entire game, even as you update and upgrade your ships and your fleet. There are also a few special commands that are outlined in the game itself.
This brings me to the first problem with this game: the game tells you almost nothing of what you're supposed to be doing. Whether it be exactly how special commands in combat work, or the next area to go to, Infinite Space often flat-out refuses to give you information. This is easily the game's biggest drawback. You are told what a given situation is, but not any kind of inclination as to how to proceed in the story. This leads to a great deal of fumbling around, going from planet to planet, or simply flying around aimlessly until the story triggers itself. This is especially prevalent in the second half of the game.
Speaking of which, there is another mechanic besides the ship-to-ship combat: the melee combat. The melee combat is entirely luck based. It operates under a few different commands. Those being Shoot, Leader, and Slash. This is almost literally a rock-paper-scissors as Shoot defeats Leader which defeats Slash which defeats Shoot. The problem is that the enemy can choose any option between your selection, so it becomes purely luck-based.
The graphics and the sound are both utilitarian, though neither are spectacular besides when the enemy ships are exploding, which is incredibly satisfying from both a sound and graphic perspective.
The plot is where the game truly falters. The first half is actually fairly interesting. You play as Yuri, a young boy on a planet that forbids space travel who, of course, wants nothing more than to travel to space. Yuri hires a "zero-G dog," a space traveler, named Nia to transport him off planet. It turns out, however, that he left his sister behind and she needs some rescuing. This sets off a weird "are they or aren't they?" relationship between the two that never quite becomes not creepy. The second half is dominated by Yuri trying to unite the galaxy against a common foe, but the problem becomes that the game leans so heavily on Deus Ex Machinas that it becomes completely uninteresting. Every time your character is in a dire situation, you can be assured that something will come from nowhere to save him. Unless the game didn't intend for you to go that way.
In the second half of the game, Infinite Space takes on a sort of Sierra Adventure Game feeling, because you can be instantly killed, no battle, no choice, nothing, for simply going to the wrong planet, or going in the wrong direction during a side-mission.
Infinite Space fails to capitalize on its strong premise and ultimately falls back on tired tropes to tell what should be an interesting story. By the time the sixth major character valiantly sacrifices himself, you won't care. You'll just want this luck-based game to finally be over with, and when it does finally end, it will still seem anti-climactic.
