In Riviera: The Promised Land, you'll follow two fierce warriors--each armed with godly weapons--in a mission to defeat demons once and for all. The adventure included lets you experience more than 30 hours of role-playing gameplay, complete with minigames, multiple endings, and secret paths and items. The game's unique item system allows items to function differently depending on which characters equip them.
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Riviera is really like no other game I can think of, which makes it very hard to recommend, or even describe to people. You progress through very linear dungeons trying to get to the end, but you don't really walk around. You can only shift from room to room, and in each room, toggle between a "move" and "look" mode. In Look-mode, you can observe your surroundings, and usually find cool stuff (either weapons, quest items, power-ups, and/or points).But, looking comes at a cost. You only have so many action points, and looking once (at a new thing) takes away an action point. However, by fighting monsters well, you can earn more action points (I almost never had a problem having enough of them). This consists of beating them as quickly, and with as flashy a finisher as possible in turn based battles.
To level up you don't really gain experience through battles, but by using items a certain number of times with each character, they'll get a permanent stat boost. As items can only be used so many times in story-battles, you'll be doing most of your stat boosting in practice battles, which can be done anywhere outside the main "town" area, but DAMN is there a lot of it. Out of the 18 hours I spent on this game, I easily spent at least 6+ hours just grinding out levels. You get progress quickly enough, and you can only do it for as many items you have to grind that you can hold in your tiny inventory, so by design it's fairly spread out, but just know what you're getting into: If you dont' grind, you gon' die.
Riviera is one of my favorite genres in terms of setting: Norse mythology written by Japanese devs. The world of Rivera that they make is so engaging and diverse, you just always want to see more of it! The setting totally won my heart, as well as all of the beautiful hand-drawn backgrounds (even if the same ones are reused a lot). The narrative is also fairly neat, although it is an Atlus game, so it's fairly anime-tastic, for better for worse, and it's also kiiiinda harem-anime-esque (1 main guy character travelling with 4 girl charactes), except without any love story, if that makes sense. Like I said before, it's not an easy game to describe Xp
Lastly I do have to mention the voice acting. There's a surprising amount of it for a GBA game, even if it is mostly just beginning and end of battle voice clips, but all 5 characters have quite a few of them, but they're REALLY grating and awful. It reminds me a lot of voice clips from Star Ocean: Second Story, if I had anything to compare it to, though frankly if there were more of it, it'd be more like the original YS 1 & 2 English translations on Turbografx. Damn I'm actually glad there's not more voice acting in this game XP
Despite all of my griping though, I really enjoyed this game. I'm really looking forward to when I go through Yggrda Union, and will also keep a firm lookout for the other games by these devs. The style of the game is just so unique, that it really surpassed feeling like a GBA game, unhindered by its medium, instead feeling more like a game that could've been of most any era, but happened to be on GBA. A full recommendation for anyone who wants an interesting spin on a JRPG-style.
To level up you don't really gain experience through battles, but by using items a certain number of times with each character, they'll get a permanent stat boost. As items can only be used so many times in story-battles, you'll be doing most of your stat boosting in practice battles, which can be done anywhere outside the main "town" area, but DAMN is there a lot of it. Out of the 18 hours I spent on this game, I easily spent at least 6+ hours just grinding out levels. You get progress quickly enough, and you can only do it for as many items you have to grind that you can hold in your tiny inventory, so by design it's fairly spread out, but just know what you're getting into: If you dont' grind, you gon' die.
Riviera is one of my favorite genres in terms of setting: Norse mythology written by Japanese devs. The world of Rivera that they make is so engaging and diverse, you just always want to see more of it! The setting totally won my heart, as well as all of the beautiful hand-drawn backgrounds (even if the same ones are reused a lot). The narrative is also fairly neat, although it is an Atlus game, so it's fairly anime-tastic, for better for worse, and it's also kiiiinda harem-anime-esque (1 main guy character travelling with 4 girl charactes), except without any love story, if that makes sense. Like I said before, it's not an easy game to describe Xp
Lastly I do have to mention the voice acting. There's a surprising amount of it for a GBA game, even if it is mostly just beginning and end of battle voice clips, but all 5 characters have quite a few of them, but they're REALLY grating and awful. It reminds me a lot of voice clips from Star Ocean: Second Story, if I had anything to compare it to, though frankly if there were more of it, it'd be more like the original YS 1 & 2 English translations on Turbografx. Damn I'm actually glad there's not more voice acting in this game XP
Despite all of my griping though, I really enjoyed this game. I'm really looking forward to when I go through Yggrda Union, and will also keep a firm lookout for the other games by these devs. The style of the game is just so unique, that it really surpassed feeling like a GBA game, unhindered by its medium, instead feeling more like a game that could've been of most any era, but happened to be on GBA. A full recommendation for anyone who wants an interesting spin on a JRPG-style.
Very unique little gem of an RPG. The combat wasn't fantastic, but it was fresh and didn't overstay its welcome because the game is pretty short. The art is quite nice, too, and the soundtrack is BANGER. Its take on exploration and overworld interaction is quite immersive, and made me feel like I was travelling with a D&D party. Some cringy "otaku" tropes here and there, but that's to be expected. Plot is mostly mediocre shounen slop, but it has some vague hints of brilliance.
I love this game! it is COLORFUL, it has WOMEN, it is COOL!!!!!
There are no other games that let me flirt with a winged scythe-wielding warrior-tomboy-gf during a dungeon delve, that's a big point in the game's favor.
Oh yeah, the music's great and the gameplay's fun and unique.
Oh yeah, the music's great and the gameplay's fun and unique.
Padded and awkward combat, but somehow still a nice enough RPG to want to still play.
You'll mostly be moving around the maps through dialog choices and trying to raise affection on any of the girls in your party. If you want good stats and weapon mastery, you need to do training mode for all items for all characters so they can master what they have affinity for. It makes things oddly grindy but in an accessible way. Not the best RPG out there but the writing and aesthetic alone make it interesting, while gameplay isn't too offensive
You'll mostly be moving around the maps through dialog choices and trying to raise affection on any of the girls in your party. If you want good stats and weapon mastery, you need to do training mode for all items for all characters so they can master what they have affinity for. It makes things oddly grindy but in an accessible way. Not the best RPG out there but the writing and aesthetic alone make it interesting, while gameplay isn't too offensive
A great game from my teen-years.
The Dept. Heaven series have never got the love it deserves, unfortunately. This first installation in the series is a light turn based RPG with dating sim and Visual Novel elements. Sting/Atlus have always tried different things, mixing up diverse and interesting game styles and game design elements to their games (as we see in one of my favorites, Baroque), and this one sets the tone for the rest of the series, which is even more experimental. This game reminds me of my high-school years, playing it in between classes, having a blast with an amazing portable gaming device, the most advanced back then.
Will be playing the other ones as well so I can revive the great experiences I had years ago on my soft-modded PSP when these games first came out.
If you like quirky Japanese games, give this a shot
The Dept. Heaven series have never got the love it deserves, unfortunately. This first installation in the series is a light turn based RPG with dating sim and Visual Novel elements. Sting/Atlus have always tried different things, mixing up diverse and interesting game styles and game design elements to their games (as we see in one of my favorites, Baroque), and this one sets the tone for the rest of the series, which is even more experimental. This game reminds me of my high-school years, playing it in between classes, having a blast with an amazing portable gaming device, the most advanced back then.
Will be playing the other ones as well so I can revive the great experiences I had years ago on my soft-modded PSP when these games first came out.
If you like quirky Japanese games, give this a shot