The next unique thing about Riviera is the battle system. I’m sure veterans of RPGs are always expecting to dive into the game, gain experience points and level up so that they can purchase the next piece of gear or spell to beat some more powerful enemies. Again, just like exploring in Riviera, things work differently here. Experience points still do exist but not in the same way you would probably be familiar with.


Choose your items wisely because you can only take 4 into battle!
Everything you use in the game are treated as “items” no matter if it’s a piece of equipment or not. That means, you can run out of weapons such as swords when you’re in battles the same way you would with potions! Thankfully, weapons are usually in great supply throughout the game. Another limitation is that you can only select four items to take into battle with you. Once you’ve chosen your items, you’re stuck with them for that battle so if you chose to bring weapons with you only and forgot any potions you need, you may find yourself in a pinch. By default, you have to pick items before every battle which is understandable since you’re likely to be changing tactics all the time but if you don’t like doing this, there is an option to skip this part and just use whatever picked before.

Characters can use whatever they wish to fight with but that doesn’t mean they’ll manage to inflict any damage. Every character has their own selection of items that they’re good at using and you can check this by looking at how big the XP gauge for the item is. Whenever a character uses such an item, they are rewarded with one XP and by filling up the gauge they also get a permanent boost in stats and something known as an “OverSkill”. OverSkills can be used once the necessary amount of energy has been saved up in the OverDrive bar along the top and what the skill does depends on whatever item it is. For example, the Long Bow grants you a powerful “Arrow Rain” attack while the Healing Rod allows you to heal the entire party.


Everything is treated as an item including what’s usually your gear.
Enemies in Riviera aren’t encountered randomly and appear only in set areas as part of the story. You can then select to run or fight them and once you’ve defeated them, they’re gone for good. You also get graded depending on the number of turns you used and get rewarded TP to use for exploring as mentioned earlier. Now you must be wondering, “How can I gain skills when there aren’t enough enemies?” Well, Riviera offers a “Training Battles” allowing you to fight a selection of enemies of your choice. You can still die but you don’t lose any items when you use them unlike in the real battles. Perfect for gaining those stat boosts and most of the time, they’re not as bad as slowly grinding your way to the next level although you may miss the old “one hit kill” battles.

It’s a fresh and entertaining approach to the old RPG system but the problem is item management. Throughout your adventure, you’ll find yourself gaining all sorts of items and due to the limited size of your inventory which can only hold up to fifteen items, you’re nearly always wondering what to throw out.