Riviera: The Promised Land for PSP Reviews by Gamers

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!

Riviera: The Promised Land is a port of a Gameboy Advance game by the same name. Very few things are added in the PSP version but still this game manages to be tons of fun and is one of the best RPG's on the PSP to date.
Hearing a description of the gameplay makes you think this will be one of the worst games ever but bear with me, alright? First of all, there is absolutely no open exploration, absolutely no moving around for yourself, and the entire game is essentially a glorified text adventure with a few repeated pictures. You move from screen to screen by choosing a direction to move and you can also look around in the same manner by pressing the O button to change to look mode. Every once in a while, you will fight demons in scripted battles (no random battles here). The battles have you choose a formation (2 in front, one in back or one in front, two in back) three of your five characters and then four items to use in battle. These items are obtained throughout the game are all limited use items, including weapons. You never equip any character with items, instead you use the items in battle to achieve the desired effect. You don't even get to choose which enemy you attack as this is decided by your item specs. This monotony is broken up by constant choices about what to do or what to say and random minigames that can have drastic effects on your game. Yet for some reason, all of this restriction still manages to be quite fun. Aided by a great storyline, mixing nordic and christian mythologies, and fun characters, you never seem to be able to put this game down.
All characters are voiced and while none are particularly good, none are particularly bad either. the music is quite fine too. The only really bad part about this game is the constant repeated graphics. Not only are the recycled scenes used way too much, but they aren't even that good to begin with. The few CG scenes are nice but they are few and far between. All in all, Riviera gets an 7.5/10 by me.