Hello, and welcome to my first attempt at a liveblog. Hopefully it will be at least mildly entertaining to someone.
Riviera is a very strange JRPG made by Sting Entertainment. Originally released in 2002 on the ill-fated Wonderswan Color, it was later given a Game Boy Advance port, and following that, a PSP port (which is what I'll be playing). It generally does a lot of things differently than pretty much every other JRPG ever, for better or worse (the only similar game I know of is Unlimited Saga).
The plot is, all things considered, probably the game's weak point. The protagonist, a wingless angel named Ein (and yes, there is a plot-relevant reason for his lack of wings), is sent by Asgard (get used to random mythological references in the names of things; there's a lot of 'em) to deal with the demon problem in the land of Riviera. Naturally, Asgard is corrupt (being the home of the local divine entities and the organization the main character works for, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion), and Ein ends up solving the problem in a completely different way than was intended. The plot doesn't take many surprising turns, but it has a certain charm to it.
Now, one thing about Riviera that I should mention is that it's a dating game in addition to being an RPG. Ein's entire party is made up of women (there is one other guy, but he's only around for the tutorial), and the game keeps track of what they think of him through a relatively simple system. The game has six different endings based on who likes Ein the most at the end. I will be accepting votes on which ending I should go for, though only between five of the endings (the last one is the generic "nobody" ending, and I'm sure you don't want that one).
On that note, here's who you can vote to pair Ein up with:
Fia, a kind and gentle woman with green hair. She fights with rapiers, which are basically the best weapon class in the game (though she doesn't have the best attack with them, oddly enough). She can also heal, but healing is useless in this game for reasons I'll cover when they're relevant.
Lina, the obligatory token loli (who is supposedly older than Fia). She has yellow hair and is generally cheerful. Her weapon of choice is the bow, but her other attacks are...odd (and frequently useless, sadly). She also starts with the lowest base affection.
Serene, the last survivor of a race called the Arcs. She has blue hair and is relatively more confrontational than the other characters. She uses scythes and is probably the second-best character in the game. That said, though, I'd prefer if you guys didn't make me do her ending (though I will if Serene wins), for two reasons. The first is that I did her ending my last time through the game. The second is that there's already a perfectly good Riviera LP that went for her ending
out there, and there's no way I can live up to it.
Cierra, the party mage. She has red hair and is the single nicest character in the game. Being a magic user, she's best with staves. She's also kind of the best character in the game, due to being incredibly focused on magic to the almost-complete exclusion of physical attacks.
Lastly, there's Rose, Ein's familiar. She's a flying cat-like creature (Lunar? Never heard of it, honest!) who spends the vast majority of the game mocking Ein. Her ending is a bit complicated to get, because you need to make sure not that Cierra has the highest affection out of everyone, but not high enough to trigger her ending. It's also supposedly the canon ending.
I'll accept any and all votes prior to my completion of the tutorial, because that's when the relationship choices actually start coming up. Please feel free to comment.
Next time: I actually start playing the game.
Edit: Current poll results:
Fia - 1 vote
Lina - 1 vote
Serene - 0 votes
Cierra - 2 votes
Rose: 1 vote
- Eat them on the spot; possibly dangerous without the book
- Identify them, take them back to Elendia, and get one batch of rocks per shroom
- Don't identify them, take them back, and trade all 3 at once for...well, something special
And the third of those options has always bugged me, mostly because it has to do with unlocking all of those Extra options in the main menu...