Riviera is a cute and simple game that's more about having fun then trying to be serious and complex.
• Simple game play and combat for a more casual experience.
• Characters and game world have a very nice aesthetic feel, this give's the game an innocent atmosphere.
• Interesting game flow system that makes the game different from other RPG's.
• No experience system for levelling up your characters, making your characters stronger is done by using and mastering weapons through combat.
• A good game for younger players or people just getting into RPG's.
Cons:
• Parts of the game progress hinges on short button mashing tests. If your not good at them your ability to explore the game world is hampered and can be frustrating.
• Game play is a little to restrictive at times, exploring is limited.
• Dungeons graphics get reused a little to much, this can make things a little tedious if you play for to long at a time.
The story and characters are centered around innocents and light hearted fun. Even though the world of Riviera and it's people are being threatened with extinction, from both the supposed good guys the angels and invading demons. Riviera still feels like a cute and positive place, this can make the storyline feel a bit phony but is really meant to keep the experience light. You play as Ein a kind hearted angel that is given the job of destroying Riviera to stop the invading hoard of demons from reaching heaven. You and a higher ranking angel are on your way to fulfill this task when you encounter the guardian of Riviera, she gives Ein amnesia and casts him down to Riviera. There he befriends 4 girls (Fia, Lina, Serene and Cierra) and after regaining his memory decides to help save Riviera instead of destroy it. Ein didn't really want to destroy Riviera in the first place and wondered why his angel boss had given him and his fellow angels the task to begin with.
Game play is very much like other rpg's but it also has a few differences as well. The biggest difference is the movement and exploration of the world and dungeons areas. It's set up into stages and blocks, an area will consist of smaller areas all linked together. There are 2 modes to these areas, move and look mode. In move mode you move your characters from one section to another and this is how you progress through the dungeons. In Look mode you use TP (Trigger Points) to investigate the sections of the dungeon and find allsorts of items and events. You earn TP through combat and the faster you can defeat your enemies the more TP you get. During some of the exploration you will be tested with short challenges of button mashing or timed button pushing. If you win you can receive items or bonuses to your statistics, if you fail negative events will occur like taking HP damage or weapon duration damage. Combat in Riviera is turn based and you can only have 3 characters at a time on your combat team. The weapons that you use have a limited amount of uses and then they will break, don't worry to much about this it's easy to find weapons in this game. Weapon use is the way you strengthen your characters in Riviera since there is no level system. After a set amount of times using a weapon that character will receive bonuses to their statistics, this makes your character stronger. Not all weapons give all characters bonuses but its easy to tell if they do or don't. There is also a over drive gauge in combat, whenever you attack or get hit it fills with power. Once the gauge is at a certain level of charges it can be used to perform special attacks, the enemy also has a gauge to. Each weapon has it's own set of skills that can be used in combat and you only get to take 4 items/weapons into combat. So basically you travel to the end of each dungeon and defeat the boss, once that's done the story continues and before you know it your on to the next dungeon.
The graphics are sharp and nice like most PSP games, but sections of the dungeons look very repetitive. This can make playing for long periods of time a little tedious.
Riviera really only needs to be played once, that's not to say it's not fun to play but once your finished there really isn't much else to do. The game lasts for about 36 hours so it's not really long but it's not short either.
Final thoughts:
Riviera is a fun little game that is worth trying out, it focuses on charm and innocence rather then depth and grit. Depending on what you feel like playing will be the deciding factor if your interested or not, it's a good game but it might not appeal to everyone's tastes.
Story & Characters: 7
Game Play: 8
Graphics: 7
Value: 6
Score: 7/10