Riviera: The Promised Land

Aeth · Post by **Aeth** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:14 am

Please tell me I'm not the only person on this forum who has played this game (I know Moogle has a copy on the way to him).

A friend of mine played it when it came out for the GBA in 2005 and recommended it highly. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I was able to play it, and it's probably in the top 5 GBA games I've ever played. It offers a lot of strategy in the battles and incentive to actually do well in the battles (you're given a grade from C to S for each battle, and S-ranking a battle typically gets you a good item, not to mention boosts your score a lot - yes, this game keeps track of a score, which actually has gameplay value besides just being a number).

I can't recommend it enough. I don't think it'll overtake Golden Sun as the best GBA RPG I've played, but it sure is close.

Post by **Mogri** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:49 am

Everyone always tells me how great Golden Sun is! Maybe I should finish it sometime. I'm in the Venus Tower or some crap and it's got a puzzle that makes no sense.

I haven't played this game, obviously, but I am curious how you failed the textual confirmation, Aeth.

Aeth · Post by **Aeth** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:50 am

I put in something stupid, not realizing it wanted a *real* answer.

Golden Sun is good, but the sequel is much, much better. Playing both games is a necessity to get the full experience, though.

JSH357 · Post by **JSH357** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:13 am

Golden Sun is only good for its aesthetics.

Seriously, I replayed it just to see those graphics again. Worst equip/spell system eva.

Hachi · Post by **Hachi** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:50 am

I played Riviera...but didn't beat it, 'cause someone stole my DS with Riviera in it.

I did like how you could train with an item without it losing durability, which kind of inspired me to use the more powerful items (which I'd usually save) more often. Otherwise I might have gone mad, ya' know...OCD and whatnot.

Still, I haven't replaced Riviera yet, but I'll probably do so when I'm done tooling around on other games I'm beating...

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:37 am

Mogri wrote:Everyone always tells me how great Golden Sun is! Maybe I should finish it sometime. I'm in the Venus Tower or some crap and it's got a puzzle that makes no sense.

I personally think it's the worst JRPG I've played in a long, long time, but that's a subject for another thread.

Post by **Fortis** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:12 pm

Surlaw wrote:
Mogri wrote:Everyone always tells me how great Golden Sun is! Maybe I should finish it sometime. I'm in the Venus Tower or some crap and it's got a puzzle that makes no sense.
I personally think it's the worst JRPG I've played in a long, long time, but that's a subject for another thread.

I feel very similarly.

Hachi · Post by **Hachi** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:23 pm

Fortis wrote:
Surlaw wrote:
Mogri wrote:Everyone always tells me how great Golden Sun is! Maybe I should finish it sometime. I'm in the Venus Tower or some crap and it's got a puzzle that makes no sense.
I personally think it's the worst JRPG I've played in a long, long time, but that's a subject for another thread.
I feel very similarly.

Gonna have to third this.

Aeth · Post by **Aeth** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:21 pm

My beef with Golden Sun is the dialogue, as there's way, way, way too much of it. The story itself is pretty good, but is bogged horribly by the dialogue. I enjoyed the battle system and especially the dungeons a lot, though, particularly in the sequel (where the dungeons are even better than the first game's).

I still haven't beaten Riviera yet, so I can't say for sure whether it's the best GBA RPG I've played, but it sure is good. I don't think it's for everyone though.

ChaosNyte · Post by **ChaosNyte** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:17 pm

4thing it. I ended up beating the game at the back of one of my auditorium style classes, but I found it to be awful all the way through. Certainly better then paying attention in class, but I'm baffled when I hear people praising it as one of GBA's best RPGs. I know the system is severely lacking in original traditional style RPGs but just ugh. Play some Summon Night or Mario and Luigi instead.

Uncommon · Post by **Uncommon** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:42 pm

Fifthing. Lost interest like I did with Xenogears (worst PS1 RPG) because every single new attack I got seemed exactly like the last one. I found the spells out of battle vaguely interesting, but don't think I stuck around long enough to see where they really went with it.

I dunno, it was a few years ago I played it. When I actually liked RPGs even.

Post by **Mogri** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:43 pm

Back on topic--

I just got my copy of this in the mail yesterday. I'm a little overwhelmed~

Being a bit of a perfectionist in games like this, I don't think it will be possible for me to play this game just once. Already I've played the first chapter twice. To my credit, I got S-rank on all of the battles the second time around, but only A-rank on items at the end of the chapter. Is this good enough? Who even knows

The visuals are nice and the voice clips are pretty much DS-quality, even though it's a GBA game. I can tell that we will have a love-hate relationship, this game and I...

Aeth · Post by **Aeth** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:20 pm

Yeah, that's fine. I'm trying to be a perfectionist with the battles too, but as long as you pay attention to enemy weaknesses and know your characters' strengths and weaknesses well, it's not THAT hard to S-rank most of the regular battles.

I'm in Chapter 5 right now...I haven't had much time to play it in the past week.

Aeth · Post by **Aeth** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:30 pm

Finally finished the game. I'm glad the difficulty level picked up in the last chapter. Overall a truly awesome game and maybe the best GBA RPG I've ever played.

Also re: Moogle -- make sure before you finish Chapter 5 that you get a "Key to Hell". It unlocks a special feature later in the game that you'll want.

Post by **Mogri** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:05 pm

Since I got it used, that feature might be unlocked already. I checked the extras menu and something like six out of eight were pre-unlocked.