Riviera: The Promised Land

[h2][i]Riviera: The Promised Land[/i] is an early 2000s J-RPG more akin to a visual novel that gave me lots of fond nostalgia, but ultimately did not impress me much with its story or characters.[/h2] An angel is tasked with bringing about the end of the world to purge it of the demons that plague it. This happened once before, a thousand years ago – which has been more than enough time for the current world to grow into a beautiful paradise filled with lively inhabitants called sprites. Can these beings and their world truly be sacrificed to rid of the demons? You play as Ein, the Grim Angel faced with this moral dilemma. Eventually, four young women – sprites from the village of Elendia – join you on your quest, and show you the beauty of Riviera. [u]A very meh 5 out of 10 for me that makes me wish for a neutral rating on Steam.[/u] This was kind of a nostalgia buy for me. It was fun to revisit something that I vaguely remembered playing when I was a young teen. Style, music, and graphics all evoke that perfect early 2000s handheld console feel. This particular release has the art quality and CGs from the PSP release (not the GBA release), as well as a bunch of new quality of life features that make the game experience a lot more pleasant. Though there is plenty of combat, most of the areas you navigate through are fairly limited and only contain set encounters. Combined with the lowkey dating sim aspect, [i]Riviera: The Promised Land[/i] feels like more of a visual novel than a J-RPG. There aren’t a lot of choices that matter from a story perspective; it’s mostly about which items you get access to and which girl ends up liking your responses enough to fall in love with you. Might be interesting to play if you remember it; skip it if you have no history with it. [h1][b]Pros[/b][/h1] + Tons of added quality of life features + Fully voiced (both in English & Japanese) + An endurance system for weapons that actually works + Lovely character art and story CGs + Great soundtrack [h1][b]Neutrals[/b][/h1] ~ Plays well on the Steam Deck ~ Fairly linear and takes about 15 hours to finish [h1][b]Cons[/b][/h1] - Flimsy story - Tropey characters - Extreme lack of diversity in locations and backgrounds - Screams to be replayed but lacks content to do so - AI-upscaled backgrounds The way [i]Riviera[/i] just haplessly cobbles together aspects of Norse mythology with seemingly biblical-esque angels and gods and powerful mages; it’s almost endearingly silly. It’s so far off from being original or even making sense in terms of worldbuilding that I can’t even get truly mad at it. (Hence my wish for a neutral option rather than a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.) The same goes for the game’s characters, who are all very, very tropey: a kindhearted hero with barely two brain cells to rub together, surrounded by his harem of potential love interests who all crush very badly on him. Think the mature and caring girl who takes care of everyone, the bubbly one who’s playful, the fighting tomboy, etc. It’s just so… cutesy and twee. It might be occasionally charming, but even the humor is mostly of the [i]“haha you’re so silly ~ ☆”[/i] variety. Or some version of the girls not-so-subtly fighting over Ein’s affections. There’s just not enough there to make me truly immersed in the story or feel like I’m rooting for these characters and their world. The combat does hold up, I feel. It’s one of the few combat systems that makes use of a set endurance per weapon / item that feels well-thought out. You can only take four items with you in combat and whatever you naturally use up will be supplemented by new (and better!) items you find along the way. Levelling up stats is done by getting experience with a certain item and learning an OverSkill with it, which is a special move you can use as you fill up your Overskill Meter during combat.You can gain this experience through practice battles which have zero effect on endurance, meaning you can grind a little in-between the game’s set encounters to level up. It’s a fun, turn-based combat system. Using the level 3 OverSkills gets you a special voiceline and attack name, as well as a CG to make it feel properly badass. Some of the Overskills also inject a bit of much-needed personality into the characters – bubbly girl Lina can often throw weird ♥♥♥♥ at enemies which OverSkill turns into full-blown grenades, for example. Anyway, the solid combat is not enough for me to make this a great gaming experience. You navigate through the world by moving from static scene to static scene, sometimes encountering branching paths or needing to pass a quick time event. As a result, you’re naturally locked out of certain outcomes, items or CGs for events. [i]Riviera[/i] wants you to replay it very badly, as is also evidenced by some of the quality of life features added in this version of the game. However, considering how paper-thin the story is, how dull the characters are, and how utterly repetitive the location backgrounds look – I don’t feel very incentivized to play again and again just to gather all there is. It’s a cute little turn-based RPG with heavy visual novel elements and a tiny dollop of romance, but it’s very empty and dated as well [spoiler](the bathhouse scenes too, god…)[/spoiler]. Again, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have any prior experience with it. Does that make it a bad game? I don’t think so. But having no neutral option, it’s going to be a no from me.