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The Together Retro game club at
http://Racketboy.com spent January playing through
Riviera: The Promised Land, which gave me an excuse to finally put some serious time into the GBA version which had been sitting on my shelf collecting dust for far too long. First: a bit of history.
Riviera is the first title in a five-game series collectively referred to as
Dept. Heaven. So far only the second (
Yggdra Union) and fourth (
Knights In The Nightmare) entries in the series have been released alongside this one.
Riviera was developed by Sting Entertainment, who are well-known for creating interesting mash-ups of genres, especially within the
Dept. Heaven games. Although it's easiest to refer to
Riviera as an RPG, there's actually a lot of other elements that are also present from other genres. The game also plays against the confines of the stereotypical RPG conventions. The biggest difference is that there is very little flexibility to the progression of the story. The plot is extremely linear, and feels a bit closer to a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure than a
Final Fantasy. Though in a sense there's a certain simplicity to
Riviera that's akin to the infamous SNES release
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. Though whereas
Mystic Quest's goal in being basic was to act as a gateway to more complicated RPG's,
Riviera tends to use restrictions to focus on really thinking ahead. For instance you can bring three characters into battle, but you can only bring four items including weapons. If you want to bring a healing item or something other than a weapon, then an option may be to have two characters learn to use the same weapon, though all items including weapons have a limited number of uses. These sort of gameplay restrictions can be either awesomely challenging or extremely frustrating, depending on which camp you're in.
(Note: some content after the jump may be considered slightly NSFW. You've been warned.)[img width=300 height=200]http://i.imgur.com/wV0iF.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=200]http://i.imgur.com/evSPq.jpg[/img]
And you better believe that there are two camps on this game. Like most Sting Entertainment games, players tend to either love or hate the unique approaches to these releases. Not only is the ultra-simplicity of
Riviera a factor, but another oft-discussed factor is the so-called "Dating Sim" element, which I personally feel is over-exaggerated. Your main character is a male named Ein, and as it happens all of your other party members that you recruit end up being females. Now throughout the game you may have to side with one over another in a decision. This will make one happy with you and the other unhappy with you. Ultimately, these decisions will determine your ending. However, that's pretty much the extent of the "Dating Sim" element, and honestly I don't see what the big deal is. It's the equivalent of answering one way or the other to a conversation, similar to
should we go left or right? and in all honesty I didn't find it all that different from the trust-building that needed to be monitored in
The Thing for PS2. Certainly nobody was bothered with the "Dating Sim" element of
The Thing.
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Another issue that gamers tend to have with
Riviera is the sexuality. And really that's something that you can decide on your own. Certainly there's plenty of it within the game, as there are some cutscenes that feature partial nudity and there's a lot of innuendo as well. Though the game is rated Teen, it actually seems a bit more mature than that at times.
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One thing that's for certain with the GBA version is that it's visually and audibly very impressive. The sprites look great up against the extremely detailed backgrounds and the cutscenes are amazingly crafted. In fact, the PSP re-releases is built off the GBA port, though obviously the PSP has a higher resolution. The music here is subtle yet appropriate. Furthermore the cartridge features almost two hundred voice clips, which is an incredible feat for such a tiny cartridge.
[img width=200 height=200]http://i.imgur.com/J4CPQ.jpg[/img] [img width=200 height=200]http://i.imgur.com/3iIM6.jpg[/img]
(Above: two soundtrack releases.)On a personal note, I enjoyed this game immensely. Although I could certainly see certain elements that could turn people off, I was also a bit overwhelmed with the impressive graphics and the sheer uniqueness of the game. Maybe it wasn't perfect to me, but at the same time I can't help but give my hat off to Sting Entertainment who had the courage to make something so different. In fact, it was just strange enough to make me want to keep a closer eye on whatever they do next.
If you're wondering, I never did beat the game this month. Mainly because I became terribly distracted with other games I received for Christmas and afterward.I also got caught up in a bit of maze-like area involving some gravestones that started to frustrate me in my attempt to play the game FAQ-less. But I am now curious enough to seek out a cheap copy of the PSP port just to see how it stands up in contrast.
