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> Results: Riviera: The Promised Land
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The ESRB Says
Mild Fantasy Violence: GamerDad engaged various types of enemies in many bloodless turn-based battles. Partial Nudity: The 'bathing scenes' and more interesting with the new cutscenes ... but nothing really prurient. Sexual Themes: Mix teenage boys and pretty young girls ... and there are bound to be sexual overtones. Use of Drugs: Also from the unlockable cutscenes. Two years ago I looked at the GBA game called Riviera: The Promised Land, and my thoughts were that the storyline was captivating, the technical presentation superb and the unique gameplay twists made for a fresh role-playing experience unlike any other currently available. Fast forward to today and we get the exact same game updated slightly in terms of visual appearance and voiced dialogue but otherwise basically untouched. All of the strengths and weaknesses remain the same, only the strengths shine less and the weaknesses seem to have grown with time, resulting in a very average experience that isn't worth revisiting. Or rather, if you want to see this world again, save some money and do it on the GBA. The game is pretty much a linear march through a story, focused on two activities: moving along 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 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 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 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 taskmake 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 and very linear game, 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 practice' battles, which can be used to increase your skills without wearing out your items. Spending a good amount of time with practice battles (i.e. grinding) ensures that boss fights are always winnable. Another wonderful aspect of the game is that your actions decide many outcomes including alternate endings. This actually provides a bit of replay value to a game that otherwise feels like it would only a single play. There are a couple of things that I still didn't like, namely the mini-games and the scored combat system. In addition, while the voiced dialogue was a nice addition, the translation is not very good and having to both listen and read the terrible translations gets painful after a while. The same is true with the cutscenes and enhanced visuals - it is a nice update but you pay for it with longer load times. Overall, this is a decent game that hasn't aged well and feels like there is no reason for it to have been ported to the PSP.  
The game is rated T for occasional language and themes, predominantly due to the abundance of attractive young women surrounding the few male characters in the game. 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 and the developers of the PSP update further reinforced the T-rating with some partial nudity in the bath scenes and also further accentuating the minor drug use to the point that this game now gets a 14+ GamerDad Age Seal. If those couple of minor items don't trouble you, then you could allow younger kids to play since it is otherwise almost identical to the GBA version.
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