nakedsushi
CAGiversary!
Playing Riviera is like having a bulk, Costco-sized 1 gallon jar of olives. It tastes kind of funny in the beginning before you acquire a taste for it. Once you're used to it, you kind of like it. But after a while, it just tastes kind of stale and you're wishing it were over already.
The game, an rpg with a cliched plot, has a slightly different style of delivery. Instead of wandering around, players have to walk through a grid system in each map with pre-determined paths. Instead of random encounters, enemies are scripted in each area of the map. This gets rid of the hassle of running into an enemy over and over again whenever the player enters the same area of the map. Instead of the traditional leveling up system, players gain stat boosts by mastering certain weapons (which can be found from monster drops and treasure chests). Since each weapon (except for the Diviners) has a durability rating and each regular use of the weapon decrements the rating, players have to be careful which weapons they want to bring with them to battle. This may make raising stats and learning special attacks difficult, but there is also a practice mode where players can practice on enemies without item durability going down.
All that took some getting used to. The introduction maps seemed a bit long and I wanted to put the game down, but I forced myself to play more and was pleasantly rewarded. Battle seems simple enough, but take into account, elemental relationships between enemies, weapons, and team members, and which weapons to use during battle, and realize there was actually room for strategy. Using each weapon in practice mode for each team member who can gain stat increases and special attacks for them made most of the real battles easy and the first 3/4 of the game went by quickly. Unfortunately, the end of the game, the last chapter in particular was more of a chore than enjoyable. The regular enemies were significantly stronger than any I had encountered before, and there was the cheap feeling that the developers were trying to stretch the game out longer than it should be by giving the enemies a lot of health.
When I met one of the ending bosses, I thought I would be through as soon as I defeated it. Unfortunately, after I beat him, he ran away, and I had to go look for him, which took about another chapter. These bosses were so incredibly strong, I think the developers wanted everyone to die the first time they fought it. Luckily, having the whole team die during battle was only a minor hassle because players could choose to retry the battle and the boss becomes significantly weaker the next time. The last chapter made me dislike Riviera a lot more than I would have if I had just quit playing in the middle of the game. The battles seemed like a pointless way to stretch out overall playthrough time. The other thing that made the last chapter a chore was the corny cliched dialog from each character in the team. It almost made me want to stop playing altogether.
The graphics are crisp and colorful for the handheld, but I got tired of looking at the recycled animation and special attack screens. Luckily, the game gives the option of turning off the special attack cut scene of enemies, but unfortunately, there was no way to turn off the cut scenes of team members. The background was also incredibly repetitive, in the way backgrounds are repetitive in old cartoons where a character was running and the same building was shown over and over again.
The music, like the background and animations, were repeptive to the point where I just had the sound turned off. Unfortunately, there was no option to mute the music and keep sound effects turned on, because the voice acting (yes, there's voice acting in a GBA game) was actually pretty decent.
Overall, Riviera is a good rpg to pick up for GBA rpg enthusiasts. Don't worry if you get tired at the last chapter and don't want to play the game anymore. You're not missing much and you can probably guess the ending.
The game, an rpg with a cliched plot, has a slightly different style of delivery. Instead of wandering around, players have to walk through a grid system in each map with pre-determined paths. Instead of random encounters, enemies are scripted in each area of the map. This gets rid of the hassle of running into an enemy over and over again whenever the player enters the same area of the map. Instead of the traditional leveling up system, players gain stat boosts by mastering certain weapons (which can be found from monster drops and treasure chests). Since each weapon (except for the Diviners) has a durability rating and each regular use of the weapon decrements the rating, players have to be careful which weapons they want to bring with them to battle. This may make raising stats and learning special attacks difficult, but there is also a practice mode where players can practice on enemies without item durability going down.
All that took some getting used to. The introduction maps seemed a bit long and I wanted to put the game down, but I forced myself to play more and was pleasantly rewarded. Battle seems simple enough, but take into account, elemental relationships between enemies, weapons, and team members, and which weapons to use during battle, and realize there was actually room for strategy. Using each weapon in practice mode for each team member who can gain stat increases and special attacks for them made most of the real battles easy and the first 3/4 of the game went by quickly. Unfortunately, the end of the game, the last chapter in particular was more of a chore than enjoyable. The regular enemies were significantly stronger than any I had encountered before, and there was the cheap feeling that the developers were trying to stretch the game out longer than it should be by giving the enemies a lot of health.
When I met one of the ending bosses, I thought I would be through as soon as I defeated it. Unfortunately, after I beat him, he ran away, and I had to go look for him, which took about another chapter. These bosses were so incredibly strong, I think the developers wanted everyone to die the first time they fought it. Luckily, having the whole team die during battle was only a minor hassle because players could choose to retry the battle and the boss becomes significantly weaker the next time. The last chapter made me dislike Riviera a lot more than I would have if I had just quit playing in the middle of the game. The battles seemed like a pointless way to stretch out overall playthrough time. The other thing that made the last chapter a chore was the corny cliched dialog from each character in the team. It almost made me want to stop playing altogether.
The graphics are crisp and colorful for the handheld, but I got tired of looking at the recycled animation and special attack screens. Luckily, the game gives the option of turning off the special attack cut scene of enemies, but unfortunately, there was no way to turn off the cut scenes of team members. The background was also incredibly repetitive, in the way backgrounds are repetitive in old cartoons where a character was running and the same building was shown over and over again.
The music, like the background and animations, were repeptive to the point where I just had the sound turned off. Unfortunately, there was no option to mute the music and keep sound effects turned on, because the voice acting (yes, there's voice acting in a GBA game) was actually pretty decent.
Overall, Riviera is a good rpg to pick up for GBA rpg enthusiasts. Don't worry if you get tired at the last chapter and don't want to play the game anymore. You're not missing much and you can probably guess the ending.