As mentioned earlier, there are lots of little events that occur throughout the game and sometimes you’ll find yourself faced with choices. Underneath the main RPG element is a little dating sim, something which is very common over in Japan where you try and capture the hearts of the heroines. With Riviera, there are multiple endings to the game and which one you get will depend on the choices you make.


Which girl’s heart will you try to gain?
The first thing you’ll notice about this PSP remake is the full voice acting. Every line of text you see including the introduction are delivered enthusiastically by voice actors such as Rie Kugimiya as Ein (Ikuto Noguchi from “Digimon Savers”, Louise from “Zero no Tsukaima”) and, Natsumi Yanase as Fia (Reiko Katsui from “You’re Under Arrest”, Nanami from “Soul Link”). The voices do help to flesh out the characters but because the text appears too quickly, I found myself skipping a few lines because I’ve already read what they’re supposed to be saying before they could finish. You can also clearly hear some demon voices being poorly performed by human voice actors too which kind of ruins the mood a little. This is usually only the case for the non-talking demons, though. The ones that talk such as the Lilims sound as tempting as they should be. On the other hand, music remains very well suited to scenarios and catchy.


Around 50 new event illustrations for you to enjoy and collect.
With Riviera being brought over to the PSP, the developers obviously have a larger resolution to work with but, it looks as if none of the graphics have been reworked apart from maybe the event scenes. Right from the beginning of the game, you’re greeted by many of the beautiful illustrations and both old and new look much sharper on the large PSP screen. These remain viewable in the “Extra Contents” option which provides a whole bundle of other extras that you can spend time unlocking. Apart from this, the developers have also taken advantage of the console’s 3D graphics capabilities to display spell effects.

On the other hand, the environments still look great full of vibrant shades of colours as with previous versions but, the character sprites don’t look as good. It seems the developers just ran a filter to interpolate the original graphics, i.e., enlarge them and then let the computer fill in the missing parts of the images to try and make them look better. Their faces look slightly out of posture, especially when they’re animated. Fortunately, the well-drawn larger portraits next to the lines of dialogue and event scenes make up for this.

On the whole, “Riviera: Yakusoku no Chi” remains a classic refreshment to the way RPGs are played and anyone who has yet to play this should give it a shot. If you already own a previous version of this game, I don’t think the full voice acting and fifty extra illustrations are really enough to justify another copy unless you’re a hardcore fan of Riviera. No matter which version you have, it’s a great replayable RPG to add to your proud collection of games.


You should be able to play through this fine, especially if you’ve already played a previous version.

• Fresh new approach to the traditional RPG system.
  
• Multiple endings.
  
• Lots of entertaining little events to find.
  
• Dialogue choices make the experience different for everyone.
  
• Fully voiced dialogue helps flesh out characters.
  
• Save file icon changes.
  
• Beautiful illustrations.

• Item management.
  
• Interpolated character sprites look a little average.