Final thoughts on Riviera
I suppose I shouldn't blame the people over at Sting for trying something different with the RPG formula -- after all, where would gaming be right now if people didn't shake things up every once in a while? The problem is, after slogging through the latter half of Riviera: The Promised Land, I really can't help but think of how much better the game would have been had it been more standard.
Limited Inventory
The game allows you to carry a maximum of about twenty items, give or take. This includes weapons, recovery items, and status items -- basically everything that doesn't fall under the "story item" umbrella. You're forced to continually make decisions based on immediate need:
"Do I think I'm going to need those potions? What about this sword? I haven't used it in a while but I don't have any other lightning-element weapons..."
I suppose this sort of decision adds to the overall strategy of succeeding in the game, but is it really all that necessary? I've always bumped heads against the storage limitations in more traditional RPGs of the SNES era -- a fair comparison due to the GBA's SNES-like renaissance -- so having it whittled down to 20 or so made it a bigger issue for me. This by itself wouldn't have been a dealbreaker if it weren't paired with...
Limited Uses
Every item and weapon in the game has an attached max usage amount; I'll call it durability for simplicity's sake. I've encountered this sort of thing before, but never in a situation where it was impossible to replenish the durability of weapons. Half the fun in RPGs is getting a new weapon and going around killing enemies with it; Riviera denies you this, since the law of the land is conserve conserve conserve. You don't want to waste too much of a weapon in your regular fights only to run out in a boss fight. That problem of weapon conservation forces you into yet another area of tedium...
"Leveling Up"
Riviera sports no real experience system. You "level up" by mastering a weapon, thus gaining HP, MP, some other stats, and an Overdrive skill for that weapon. To master a weapon, you have to use it in battle a certain number of times, depending on the character's skill with that type of weapon. For example, the main character Ein is Lvl3 (of a max of 3) with swords, so you have to use a sword 8 or 9 times in a fight before he masters it and increases in level. Another character with Lvl1 sword expertise would only require 3 uses to master that same weapon, but would be given only a Lvl1 Overdrive to use.
This is not bad on paper (by itself), and is in fact a pretty decent system. Where Riviera runs afoul here is how this leveling method interacts with the aforementioned limited-use feature: were you to use the weapons in battle, you may not have enough durability to master it with every character that can use it. To address this, Sting put in a "Practice" feature where you enter into a battle outside of your normal battles that does not use up item durability. Sweet. By the end of the game, I'm fairly sure I fought more Practice battles than I did real battles, which thoroughly screwed up the game's...
Pacing
Riviera is not a long game, topping out around 15-20 hours. An RPG of this length has no reason to drag along like a snail in a tray of salt, which is how this game felt to me after awhile. Due to the excessive amounts of Practice battles and the constant worry over wasting weapons and/or healing items, the latter half of the game felt like a chore. Were this not a portable RPG, I can't imagine that I would have ever finished the game; being held captive on commuter trains does wonders for one's patience for playing a game through to the end.
In Closing
What Sting did with the graphics and presentation of this title was nothing short of amazing. I imagine seeing this game back in the SNES and I'd have been shocked stupid with the intricate battle animations, voice work, and interesting battle system. Unfortunately, that battle system was wrecked by item durability and storage limitations, and further compounded by a huge amount of battles (of the Practice variety) that should have been unnecessary.
Nice try, Sting, but not nice enough.
Limited Inventory
The game allows you to carry a maximum of about twenty items, give or take. This includes weapons, recovery items, and status items -- basically everything that doesn't fall under the "story item" umbrella. You're forced to continually make decisions based on immediate need:
"Do I think I'm going to need those potions? What about this sword? I haven't used it in a while but I don't have any other lightning-element weapons..."
I suppose this sort of decision adds to the overall strategy of succeeding in the game, but is it really all that necessary? I've always bumped heads against the storage limitations in more traditional RPGs of the SNES era -- a fair comparison due to the GBA's SNES-like renaissance -- so having it whittled down to 20 or so made it a bigger issue for me. This by itself wouldn't have been a dealbreaker if it weren't paired with...
Limited Uses
Every item and weapon in the game has an attached max usage amount; I'll call it durability for simplicity's sake. I've encountered this sort of thing before, but never in a situation where it was impossible to replenish the durability of weapons. Half the fun in RPGs is getting a new weapon and going around killing enemies with it; Riviera denies you this, since the law of the land is conserve conserve conserve. You don't want to waste too much of a weapon in your regular fights only to run out in a boss fight. That problem of weapon conservation forces you into yet another area of tedium...
"Leveling Up"
Riviera sports no real experience system. You "level up" by mastering a weapon, thus gaining HP, MP, some other stats, and an Overdrive skill for that weapon. To master a weapon, you have to use it in battle a certain number of times, depending on the character's skill with that type of weapon. For example, the main character Ein is Lvl3 (of a max of 3) with swords, so you have to use a sword 8 or 9 times in a fight before he masters it and increases in level. Another character with Lvl1 sword expertise would only require 3 uses to master that same weapon, but would be given only a Lvl1 Overdrive to use.
This is not bad on paper (by itself), and is in fact a pretty decent system. Where Riviera runs afoul here is how this leveling method interacts with the aforementioned limited-use feature: were you to use the weapons in battle, you may not have enough durability to master it with every character that can use it. To address this, Sting put in a "Practice" feature where you enter into a battle outside of your normal battles that does not use up item durability. Sweet. By the end of the game, I'm fairly sure I fought more Practice battles than I did real battles, which thoroughly screwed up the game's...
Pacing
Riviera is not a long game, topping out around 15-20 hours. An RPG of this length has no reason to drag along like a snail in a tray of salt, which is how this game felt to me after awhile. Due to the excessive amounts of Practice battles and the constant worry over wasting weapons and/or healing items, the latter half of the game felt like a chore. Were this not a portable RPG, I can't imagine that I would have ever finished the game; being held captive on commuter trains does wonders for one's patience for playing a game through to the end.
In Closing
What Sting did with the graphics and presentation of this title was nothing short of amazing. I imagine seeing this game back in the SNES and I'd have been shocked stupid with the intricate battle animations, voice work, and interesting battle system. Unfortunately, that battle system was wrecked by item durability and storage limitations, and further compounded by a huge amount of battles (of the Practice variety) that should have been unnecessary.
Nice try, Sting, but not nice enough.
posted by Paul at
10:00 AM
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