Riviera: The Promised Land

Developer/Publisher: Sting; Atlus U.S.A.

ESRB Rating: T for Teen

Review by: bard

Riviera: The Promised Land Overview:

+ Innovative and fresh gameplay.

+ Retro feel tugs at heart strings.

+ GORGEOUS visuals and amazing audio.

+ Deep strategy and good mix of RPG/strategy elements.

+ Multiple endings bring strong replay value.

- Pattern of explore, battle, repeat can get tiresome.

An ancient war against demons forced the gods to take drastic measures. Sacrificing their powers they created Grim Angels, supreme warriors that defeated the demons. With their adversaries gone and their powers weakened, the gods feared lowing their own lives. Their only hope for retribution lies in the sacred land of Riviera...

You control Ein, one of the Grim Angels. It’s one thousand years after the war and the demons are attacking the peaceful land of Riviera. Will the gods be reborn to defeat evil? Will the Grim Angels play a different role this time around? It's up to you...

Dark and Dangerous

Riviera is best described as a cross between a turn-based strategy game, a role playing game and a tactics game. What sets it apart from other titles is its unique system of exploration, battle and discovery. Rather than control characters who wander around a world, Riviera gives you an intuitive menu-based system that is surprisingly agile and rewarding. In essence it strips the game of wandering and gives you a distilled game with all the good bits intact.

Riviera: The Promised Land has two main menu-modes outside of battle: Move and Look. Move is the default and gives you arrows on the edge of the screen where you can travel. Each screen is a part of a small grid, each grid a part of a larger area which constitutes a Chapter. New paths can be uncovered and moving isn't always clean-cut. Many things can get in your way as you explore, including demon attacks.

Switching to Look mode allows you to examine highlighted points on the screen. Anything could happen once you do so, and I mean anything. Whether or not you check certain points is where the exploration really lies. If you look at a rock, maybe you'll be able to move it. Maybe you can pick it up. Maybe you'll be able to choose one of your party members to do something to it. Your choices are always interesting and it's fun to see the outcomes.

But be warned. You can’t just run around and look at everything. Each time you examine something it costs one Treasure Point. TP are limited and earned only through the pre-determined battles. If you perform poorly in a fight (taking too much time, sustaining a lot of damage), you earn few TP. Perform well and you rake in the points.

Oftentimes when you open a treasure chest or perform other Look commands, a quick-thinking mini-game pops onto the screen. Anything from "Press A as fast as you can!" to "Press the buttons in order." will appear. If you succeed, your characters succeed. If you fail, well, they fail. Sometimes failing isn't all that bad. In order to explore all paths you'll need to throw a few games once and a while.

The choices you make in Riviera have a long-lasting affect on the rest of the game. The smallest conversations, a missed mini-game, speaking to townsfolk in a different order; all of these can cause some profound differences. How you interact with your party members helps determine which ending you get. You'll have many opportunities to speak with or answer your companions' questions, each time you can upset or please them. It's sort of a crude dating sim (your character, Ein, is the only male). You'll want to see all five endings, meaning you'll want to replay the game once you beat it. The game really has enough content for multiple play-throughs. You'll want to do it again. No, you’ll NEED to do it.

Battle Me This

Battles are the other unique feature of Riviera. Rather than collecting millions of items and lugging them to fight a weak monster, you're only allowed four weapons. That's right, four. And you choose them BEFORE you go into battle and there's no going back. Fortunately Riviera gives you ample opportunity to check your enemies' stats, weaknesses and so forth. You can plan as much as you want; battles are never random. Each weapon has a number next to it that indicated how many times you can use it. Even swords have numbers. No hack and slash, no finding the best weapon and just using it. You have to use your noggin' in this game.

Gaining experience points is also handled quite differently. Your characters can learn Over Drive skills by using weapons a certain amount of times. Your Over Drive bar increases as your party takes/inflicts damage. When it's full, unleash your rage. Be careful, though, as your foes have an Over Drive bar as well. Learning these skills increases your characters' stats permanently. Picking up every item and getting everyone to learn their Over Drive skill is essential for your success in this dark world.

Something Completely Different...

Now that we've got this unique title explained, is it any fun? Without a doubt my answer is a hearty 'yes'. In fact, I'll put it in bold, it deserves that: yes.

Riviera gives so many new elements to an often tired genre. Exploration, equipment management, character development and epic battles are all there. They're just better. The game cuts out the unnecessary bits of role playing and gives you just what you crave. Riviera is a new experience for the Game Boy Advance.

Did You See That?

And finally, the visuals. Riviera has the best looking graphics on this system. Period. The sprites look a little clunky and aren't animated very fluidly, but everything else is hand drawn beauty at its finest. Anime artists were brought in to create dozens of cinema cut-scenes. Character portraits convey emotions during the frequent conversations. You'll be blown away when you first fire this game up.

The music isn't about to be left out either. Some of the background tunes are very atmospheric for this dark game. The battle music is nothing short of catchy. Get ready for some OC Remix tracks in the near future.

Finally

Riviera: The Promised Land: An innovative RPG/strategy game that will drop your jaw and never slap it shut. Simple decision: Get it.