Riviera: The Promised Land

dept heaven games are something i've kind of always wanted to play and so when i found out that some of them were remastered/republished/whatever the correct word is, i finally gave some of them a shot. riviera is fairly interesting and from what i've read online probably the least daunting game of the bunch to get into, so it felt like a decent starting point. as a whole? very charming game. not terribly exciting because if you've played any video game in your life, you'll quickly realize that in terms of story you've already seen what this game has to offer on that front. if you truly care, the game is fully voice acted, so it doesn't feel cheap. where the game sets itself apart though is its systems. you go through chapters completing events, picking up items, interacting with the scenery and progressing through the story through Look and Move commands. sometimes the events will be beneficial, sometimes they won't be, sometimes they'll hit you with a QTE to decide the outcome (strange, but funny, none of them is truly terrible) but it pushes you to at least interact with the system. on top of that the game uses unconventional leveling. if you can even call it leveling? events will sometimes give stats, but sometimes you'll acquire items through various means (exploration or battle). where it gets interesting is that you'll need to use said items with specific characters so they master them and unlock a special ability and a stats increase for the character. the catch is that items have limited uses, but that's circumvented by the game throwing you practice battles you can do that won't dry up your item usage as well replenish your stock of certain items as rewards. the graphical upscaling in this version isn't great (typical "blurred pixels" look) but the game does offer a decent slew of options to tweak stuff, including a grid filter for characters & backgrounds. i don't think it looks quite as good as the gba version from what little pictures and footage i can find, but it certainly looks better. you get tons of options for the soundtracks, color palette for characters and so on. i could be wrong but it doesn't feel like no consideration went into this. at the bare minimum, the speed up option is strongly appreciated, because the game is fairly slow, and coupled with the difficulty options you can pick, the game is fairly approachable. it's an interesting game, probably one of the most interesting ones released for the GBA (even if it was ported to PSP down the line) and at least worth considering if you care on any level about smaller companies and the RPGs that come out of them. the real kicker though is the price, which i assume is a deterrent for people considering most will not be familiar with Sting directly. a rather big ask for a smaller scope RPG if you do not know what you are getting into. i still think in spite of all that, especially the price tag, the game is worth giving a shot.

A somewhat dated but quintessential JRPG, all the way back from the GBA era. This version is based on the PSP release, now perfectly mobile for the Steam Deck. Maybe one day Sting will give us something in the same vein again, but for many people myself included, this is a childhood classic.

Fun game. Very linear. Basically like reading a book where you get to move the characters and attack. I play the game on the easiest settings because the story > the challenge although having both is just good stuff. OST is probably some of the best I'll ever hear in any video game including the original megaman series and I've been gaming since 94. Tetyth theme, Fierce Fight, "All you have to do is practice" (training theme), Grim Angel, and you get them in PSG which is in my opinion one of the greatest renditions of the OST. Default is good, Image is "perfect", 4/16 chords are decent, however PSG is just a different level of fire. Any theme instantly turns into something that sounds straight out of Capcom with PSG. You get extra chapters and all the bonus goodies. Definitely grab this game on sale if you can.