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> Results: Riviera: The Promised Land
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The Game Boy Advance may be in the waning part of its life, but with games like Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and now Riviera being released, you'd never know.
Riviera is an interesting twist on many conventional RPG and adventure game practices, which all come together to form a unique game experience. It is visually very pleasing, with well-done graphics and effects, and the sound is nicely done as well. The controls are separated into movement and looking, meaning you need to specifically look around similar to old role-playing or adventure games. The movement system initially reminded me of the adventure game Broken Sword, as you move screen to screen and then look at various items before moving to the next screen. You spend the majority of time on two activities: moving through the story and fighting scored battles. Instead of wandering around a large map, Riviera has a grid that you progress through as you uncover the good-versus-evil plot and battle demons. The frequent battles are flashy and exciting while still being turn-based. Before each battle you can choose who from your party members will battle, as well as selecting items to carry into battle. At the end of each battle, you are ﾑscored' with an S, A, B or C. The score is based on the difficulty of the opponents, the time the battle took and the level of the final killing strike. The better score you get, the more points you receive and the more Trigger Points you get. Trigger Points are the basis of the ﾑlook' system. You cannot simply look around whenever you want to. If you want to inspect a chest or area, you generally have to spend a Trigger Point. Instead of typical leveling up, you get better skills with given weapons, including an ﾑover skill', which gains you special strikes with certain weapons. Items wear out as well so managing your weapons and inventory, as well as controlled sequencing of battles, is a must. Occasionally you are confronted with a mini-game to accomplish a taskﾗmake a jump, remove something from the ground, escape a trapped chest. These give you instructions to follow quickly to succeed.  Most of the game works well and is a lot of fun. The interactive storytelling is engaging, the graphical presentation is richly colored and stylized, and the battle system is solid. It is a fairly easy game, especially since you are not forced into the endless world wandering of RPG's like Golden Sun, and even the more challenging battles can be handled in a few different ways. First, after failing once or twice, you should know your opponents' strengths and weaknesses and be able to use them to your advantage. Second, you can restart a battle with the enemy weakened, which makes it easier, but also kills your score. Finally, after a certain point in the game you unlock ﾑpractice' battles, which can be used to increase your skills without wearing out your items. Spending a good amount of time with practice battles ensures that boss fights are always winnable. Another wonderful aspect of the game is that your actions decide many outcomes including alternate endings. This makes replaying the game feel fresh as you can explore different areas and choose a different path. There are a couple of things that I don't like, namely the mini-games and the scored combat system. I didn't like the mini-games as they start too quickly, and I often found that by the time I read the instructions I had already failed, requiring me to reload my last save to get past the puzzle. I felt that the combat scoring penalized less skilled players who would need more help getting through the battles, and also made you unnecessarily repeat battles to get a better score and more points. Neither of these were much fun.  I had no idea what to expect from Riviera as a handheld RPG with very little buzz or hype. But it delivers a compelling and entertaining gaming experience that takes you through an intricate story in a wonderful way. It's a solid and enjoyable release, and long enough to occupy a bunch of handheld gaming time. 
The game is rated T for occasional language and themes, but they are presented in a way that will seem tame compared to what your child will hear on the elementary school bus. The game is a great mix of styles that will be fresh and also familiar to kids brought up with modern gaming consoles. Nonetheless, be warned that this game is aimed at an older audience.
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