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Surprisingly different

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 98 / 98
Date: July 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Attractive magazine ads, Atlus, GBA RPG, I was sold. Upon first starting the game up, I could only think, "What the is this?". No movement, movement choices are selected from a menu. Exploration also menu driven (and requiring Trigger Points [more on this later]). Dispite my initial urge to simply pack it up and return it for a refund I decided to at least get past the initial tutorial stage before rendering my final judgement. I am certainly glad I did, because this game is a treasure. The more I started playing I realized that this game is much like the old adventure games (text driven or Kings Quest style) I grew up loving. You are even given points for everything you accomplish, as these older adventure games used to do. In fact it turns out to have many features I had always wished were included in RPG games:

Interesting choices, the game is filled with choices at every step, and your decisions affect how the story plays out and how your party members feel towards you, a party member with a good mood may perform better in battle. For instance at one point you find a power up item, who do you give it to? Your choice will affect not only who gets the power up, but the party members will react favorably or disfavorably to your decision.

Combat requiring thought. Most RPG games consist of simple random combat encounters where you can simply keep hitting a single button and get through in a couple seconds leading up to an interesting boss encounter where you expend all your special skills and equipment to get past. Not so in this game, every encounter is a potentially dangerous one which can end in defeat if you take it lightly. You have to constantly switch up your equipment and time your special abilities based on each enemy configuration. There is a bit less combat than is usual, and each keeps you on your toes. And it is not simply a matter of defeating an enemy, but you are graded on how well you actually perform (time wise and how powerful your ending move is). Good performances mean a larger amount of Trigger Points awarded and a chance at an item reward. But be careful not to save up for a single impressive finishing move, or you may find yourself defeated.

Story pacing. Many RPGs these days feature an incredible story but require endless screens of text to read, that sometimes I get a little bored by the whole thing and just want to get back to playing the game again. This game does something very interesting. The story plays out as you play the game, meaning that there is a constant dialoge between your characters as you play the game. Rather than the game being broken up into story scenes and game scenes, this game is constantly doing both. Makes it easy to play the game in small chunks. I remember a certain other game I would hesitate to play because it required at least an hour investment to get to the next save point. This game is very well suited as a portable game, featuring numerious save points as well as a suspend feature allowing a save anywhere. The story begins rather dull and derivitive but has been steadily become more interesting.

Holds your attention. The game also contains numerous timing sequences in a couple different flavors which require the player to enter in a sequence of buttons within a short time period. You get a second to see the required sequence and less than that to enter it in. And succeed or fail, the story continues, you rarely get the opportunity to retry, and you are not punished terribly for failing. In one sequence you must hide from a patroling guard. Succeed and he passes by, and your party has a short exchange of relief and becomes happy, fail and you must fight the guard.

Cannot do everything. Some RPGs I feel like I must explore every level to its fullest, and find every hidden chest before moving on. In this game, sometimes it is smarter to let a chest stay untouched. To interact with objects in the game, you are required to spend Trigger Points, which are earned by doing well in combat. There are a lot of red herrings that will give no reward if you are not careful. It is important to listen to your party members and other clues. In one case there is a unusual chest that everyone in the party is sure is a trap, and is very suspicious. I decided to leave it alone, my party was happy that I listened to them, and I saved a trigger point. I still do not know what is in that chest and I do not feel the need to start from a save file to find out, I am happy to continue the game with the choice I made because I feel my choices influence the ending (which are many I have heard). Some treasure is even randomized, which I have always liked.

These are the main reasons I have found myself loving this game, but it is certainly not for everyone. There are some artificial limitations put in place to make the above work that I can see many people having issue with. First is the menu driven movement and exploration system. I did not care for it much at all in the beginning, but recalling old PC adventure games I am at home with them, and they do speed up game play. A limit to the number of items you can carry to about 19. This is not a game for hording items for that big boss fight, you will need them in every fight, and you will always find something new to replace them once they run out. All items have limited uses except some key items. That sword is only good for 40 swings before it will break, for some this is intolerable, but it really works well here, as it makes for some interesting tactical decisions and there is a constant influx of new equipment coming in. You are forced to choose a grand total of 4 items to take into every battle (remember they are not as numerous as in other RPGs), rather than having access to all your equipment. This is a very artifical limit used to make you think on what you will need for a particular battle. Choosing poorly can make an encounter very hard, and the best equipment to take changes with every battle you fight. I was just defeated by an encounter with 2 skeletons and a mage. The skeletons poisoned my characters and I had nothing to remove the poison. After killing one of the skeletons the mage (safe in the back row) merely summoned another. If I had chosen to bring a ranged weapon into the combat, I would have eliminated the mage first, now that I know the capabilities of these creatures, I will be more prepared next time. And yes, you do get to see the creatures you are fighting before having to make any preparation decisions. Weapons are among those items you can bring into combat, but they can be shared by all party members. As some characters fight better with certain weapons, it can be a tough choice, and getting each character experience with multiple weapons is important.

This is not your typical RPG, and that will either endear it to you, or repulse you. This is definatly a "love it" or "hate it" sorta game.

Sucked the life out of my batteries...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: July 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I popped this GBA game into my DS earlier today and just stopped playing an hour or so ago because I ran my batteries dry. I even had other things to do, but I just couldn't put this game down. Take an old-school rpg and mash it up with a turn-based strategy game then add stunning hand-drawn graphics and you have Riviera: the Promised Land. The unique way of leveling up by mastering weapons and items is a great addition to the rpg scene. I found myself thinking over and over, "Ok, I'll just master this one other weapon/item then save the game for later..." I also enjoy the storyline, and a lot of the dialogue is pretty humorous.

I have heard that this game's production run is incredibly small, and I see it has already sold out on Amazon. I was lucky enough to pick this up on a whim yesterday not knowing anything about it, but I *highly* recommend actively searching for this title and snatching up a copy before they're gone.

An amusing RPG that sadly didn't get more recognition.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: July 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's different and somewhat simple, but it has an 8.7 rating from 10 from [...] and for good reason. It's one of those RPGs that stay interesting.

Storyline wise it's a little odd. Your Ein and Grim Angel from Asgard sent on a mission by a fortold revelation of the god's that left asgard in your care 1000 years ago after a war with Urgard, land of demons. The gods barly won the war with the help of the Grim Angels and sealed the demons way in a mysterious location in Urgard. However, soon after the gods also left, leaving asgard in the Grim Angel's care. For 1000 years everything was okay Grim Angels lived without the gods in Asgard and the remaining sprites freed from the demons in Urgard lived peacefully. Now, for some reason demons have started appearing from the boarders of Urgard and Ein's mission is to stop the demons from reaching asgard no matter what the cost...
It's one of those games where you make a choice that effects the storyline, basically. Anyway, Ein has moral conficts and somehow winds up in the company of four female spirts that are also dreading the return of the demons, these are your party members. Many decitions you make with decide what the other party members think of you so, of course, all of them being females there is some of that who will be Ein's future girl stuff going around, but if your like me and don't care about those type of choices, don't worry, it doesn't really distract from gameplay or storyline quality. In fact the storyline is surprizingly lighthearted and at times cartoony funny because of the girl's unique personalities and Ein's little troubles with leading a bunch of squabling previously untrained girls through a warzone.

Combat in the game can also be challenging, because you can only use up to four items at a time for all three members in the group and all of your items are disposable, including weapons. In practice mode you can train your party members to unleash super moves with these items without the risk of using them up, but in real combat the decition of which items could benefit the group the most is a difficult part of the game sence you usually have no little idea of what your decitions in the story will throw back at you. It might sound kind of annoying having to monitor your weapons and spells, but believe me in this game it's part of the fun.

Unique style and superb story

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: August 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Please note that as of this the date I am reviewing this, Riviera game may be extremely hard to find in stores. It was graciously released in the US by ATLUS (known for bringing Ogre Tactics to the US). I finally managed to locate a copy, though I had to hit 6 different gaming stores first. (Prior to getting a copy, I pretty much was told by all retailers that my best bet would be to try online because the production run for this game was EXTREMELY limited).

The graphics include nice anime-stylized characters, and the backgrounds are bright and colorful (but not overly so). Graphically, it reminds me of some of the SNES RPG's I've played in the past (think Chrono Trigger).
The character animations are typical in the scheme of things, and I say this because this game is more oriented towards battle animations (which are very simple, but none-the-less effective), and as far as the graphics of the characters moving on screen-- well, this is something I feel is hard to give a rating to due to the unique way you "move" your characters through environments. Character movement is something different than many other RPG's you may have played. It's best described as: let's say you are in a dungeon: You are not able to freely move around, but rather you are presented with different directions (shown on-screen by arrows, but don't confuse this movement with a 'turn based' strategy game!) for the next "step" or "direction" you can take. In my initial playing of the game I was somewhat put down by this style of movement. However, after playing upwards of 6 hours now, I can safely say that this is not a deterent by any means- it cuts to the chase (so to speak) as this way of moving simply allows you to progress a tiny bit quicker to the next battle.
The battles are where it's at (naturally so, as it's an RPG :D).
Your characters gain experience through battles (building up the stats), and you also gain increased skill with an individual weapon with repeated use of that weapon. Also, some characters are better wielding one weapon over another- which gives better play depth. Also, there is an "overdrive" meter which builds with each hit you or a party member takes- once these overdrive bars fill-up, certain charcters can use their breakout "special" power moves, in battle these are effective and you are greeted with a screen showing that character in profile before using said "special" power move- this screen after awhile will annoy you slightly as you can not skip it & have to wait for it to end before moving back into the battle-action (enemies have the same ability and you'll have to wait through their 'breakout' move also).
I'm only a little bit into the game, but you do fall in with the character storylines pretty quickly- and certain decisions will affect how the characters interact with you. (ie. deciding if you should pick that flower or open that chest).
I'm trying to think of another RPG that this is close to, but I'm at a loss at the moment. It's not filled with the deep turn based strategy like Fire Emblem, on the other end, it isn't overly simple in it's battle system (ala FF1&2 for GBA)- although Riviera does obviously share certain elements with each.
If you are an RPG fan there is no reason not to grab this game.

Best GBA RPG yet!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 19
Date: June 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was pleasantly surprised when I bought this game.

For starters, this game is BEAUTIFUL. Vivid, handdrawn graphics with thousands of full screen, anime stills. The attack animations are awesome, and there's immense amounts of voice, believe it or not. And it's good too!

The story is fantastic, easily the most in depth I've ever seen for a GBA game, and I'm loving the hell out of it. It reminds me somewhat of a Nippon Ichi game (the guys who did Disgea: Hour of Darkness) storywise, only with a more serious tone.

The RPG battles are fun, fast, smooth and challenging, and I'm loving every minute of it. This is a fantastic, unique RPG, and it's just what I've been looking for a long time. If you've got a GBA, do yourself a favor and get this game. Atlus, you rock!

Excellent game, you have to try this.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: March 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Okay first, I am a massive japanese culture fan, particularly when it comes to manga, so if I seem biased its cos I love this genre. Anyone who likes RPGs will at least like this. At first I found the lack of free movement restricting, but when I found the depth of exploration I was quickly hooked. Poeple who have played Zelda or Pokemon will probably have the most problem with the movement.
But it is the games depth that makes it so superb, I have played it three times, second and third times right through and I am still discovering secrets and working through the alternatve endings, the first time you will probably get the "unhappy ending" but do not be discouraged. The artwork is superb, it is the sort of thing that would normally cost as much as the game without the game. Oh and by the way, it is a "Teen" game for good reason, parents please be aware, this is not Pokemon.

Exceptionally Average

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: October 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

"Riviera: The Promised Land" is a fairly decent game worth playing if you have run out of other options. Though the game is not that bad, the gameplay is too repeditive and requires little to no strategy or skill. I found myself pitted in a similar battle over and over again using the same strategy, and winning. Furthermore if you do manage to lose a fight the game restarts the battle except the enemy starts with less hp. This aspect of the game allows you to win the game through sheer persistance as opposed to actual skill, cheapening the victory at the end.
The plot is by no means astounding, but it also won't make you cringe every time the characters speak. The game has you saving Riviera from demons as your character, Ein, travels across the land and meets four girls who assist him (all of which get naked at some point or another during the game). The game allows you to say and do different things but as opposed to actually affecting the plotline, these actions entice or repel the different female members of your group.
The game does have some good elements to it. Before you get sick of it, the fighting system isn't so horrible. You pick three characters and four items, line up in a basic formation as your characters and your enemies take turns as individuals. Your characters can master certain weapons in order to learn powerful moves. The game is also fairly addicting so that it gets hard put down at times. The graphics are good for gameboy game and as long as you play it in small doses you just might enjoy yourself.
Overall you might want to spend your money on a different game, but if you're looking for an easy game that never takes itself too seriously this is a good one.

Riviera: The Promised Land..........

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Riviera: The Promised Land was, originally, released on the Wonderswan Color and was one of that systems' best games and is now on the Gameboy Advance for RPG fans to experience. You play Ein, a Grim Angel, who's been sent to Riviera to start 'the Retribution' that will destroy Riviera, and all the demons that have taken over there, once and for all. That's where the story begins and, although it's alot like Valkyrie Profile(dealing with Norse Mythology and whatnot), it's definitely not your average RPG. Combat and navigation is played out alot differently than your normal RPG, that's the unique twist to this game. Since other reviewers have explained this in detail, I won't go into that but ask you to read thier reviews to understand alot better. What I will tell you is that Riviera is one of the deepest, most enjoyable RPGs to come along in quite some time. Character development is the most important element in RPGs and Riviera has that in spades. You can't help but love Ein & the women who accompany him on his adventure. With multiple endings, it's worth playing through again and again. There's even extra content to unlock in the game, like another chapter in the story to play, sound & voices tests, a CG collection and more.

While it may not have as much flash, as say Golden Sun or Final Fantasy(in terms of the guardian summons spells), it definitely has alot of it's own flash with its' overdrive gameplay element and all the vocal accompaniment that is in the game. Yet, like Golden Sun, it can hold it's own with RPGs on the consoles with it's 30 to 40 hour adventure(depending on how you play the game).

RPGs, like Riviera, only come along once in awhile. It's one that I highly recommend to RPG fans. It's a new take on classic RPGs that shouldn't be missed. I tip my hat to Atlus(for bringing the game stateside) and Sting(for developing such a great game), as Riviera: The Promised Land is one of my all-time favorite RPGs. I hope we see a Riviera 2 or another great RPG soon from these two.

Excellent.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: August 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

A unique battle style with nice graphics, it's a good RPG, even though the plot is pretty predicatable. Good character development and gorgeous art.

The only issue I really had with it was the limited inventory space. Heh.

One of my favorite games ever...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

No, seriously, I've had more fun playing this than most games on any platform. The graphics are hand-drawn and gorgeous- they really threw a lot of atmosphere into this game and it's endearing right from the start. The gameplay definitely takes some getting used to, but I count that as a bonus: unlike cookie-cutter RPGs, this game really strived to create something original and they succeeded by a mile. This RPG/Strategy hybrid has kept me coming back again and again, especially for the multiple endings- apparently there are over five.

I found the story to be not only entertaining, but refreshingly original. I don't really play RPGs for their award-winning plots. They are often cliche and predictable- even the greats. Riviera is above par, though, and I was genuinely surprised at some of the turns the story took along the way.

One of the greatest strengths of this game is how perfectly tailored it is for a handheld system, and not many people have commented on that. YOU CAN QUICK SAVE AT ANY TIME. Yes, at any point in the level. Yes, IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT. It's perfect because you can sit down on your lunch break and play a few screens, and then just quick save and come back later. Hey, you could sit down on a CIGARETTE break and still accomplish something.

I had a REALLY difficult time finding this game, but it was well worth the searching. There is just nothing else out there quite like Riviera. If you're tired of the same old RPG formula, give this a try. You'll probably end up hooked.

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