Riviera: The Promised Land for PSP Reviews by Gamers

The Good: A Charming cast of characters with beautiful settings and art. The game has already been out twice, once for the wonderswan color and another time for the gameboy advance. This version improves greatly with some additional art and FULL voice-overs, every bit of dialog is voiced over, and well. Also, for those that like it, it includes the full japanese audio as well.

The Bad: occasionally you will need to wait a second or two for the audio to play as it reads it off the disc. This rpg is very different in style from any other and some people just don't like it. They take some getting used to and include: very limited inventory, only being able to take 4 items into each battle, and items have a limited number of uses.

Overall the best rpg out there for the psp especially with the addition of full voice-overs. Great character interaction and story. 9/10

Riviera is better than 90% of the craptastic RPGs coming out of Japan these days. The game takes a familiar concept--saving the world and whatnot--and makes it feel fresh through some bold design.

Basically everything's been simplified and condensed into one neat package. You don't have to strain your thumbs or test your patience by going through the same old menus countless times, or wandering through towns examining every little object. Everything can be attained in a few button presses.

Also, no random battles. No. Random. Battles. It's so nice to say that about a Japanese RPG, because even in 2009 there are many Japanese developers that do not understand this is an archaic, no-fun concept.

Graphically the game is outstanding. Sprites are well done, the character art is nice and clean, and the backgrounds are all hand drawn and painted. None of that pre-rendered stuff! Great design through and through.

Lastly I should mention that the storyline is by no means original and the plot very transparent. I'm only a couple of hours into the game and can already tell who's going to turn out to be who, and how it will most likely play out in the end. That said, I'm still enjoying the ride because the developers throw some very cute girls and funny dialogue your way.

This one's a keeper!