A Musical Interlude
All right, time to talk about something I've been meaning to discuss for a while, though I haven't found anywhere to talk about it before. Namely, I'd like to discuss this game's music.
Simply put, I honestly adore the soundtrack to Riviera. It's not the best I've heard, but it's more than good enough (though there are a few songs I'm not terribly fond of). So, without further adieu, I hereby present my thoughts on the soundtrack of Riviera: The Promised Land:
- Overture
is the music that plays during the opening sequence (when the game's talking about the backstory). I don't have much to say, except that it certainly does a fine job of setting the mood.
- Destiny plays during the sequence that starts up if you leave the game sitting on the title screen for long enough, and absolutely nowhere else. A shame, really, because it's quite awesome and the vast majority of players won't actually know it's there.
- The Promised Land plays on the title screen itself. Nothing much to say about this one, in all honesty. It's mostly just...there.
- To a Distant Land plays during the between-chapter scrolling text sequences. Again, not too much to say here.
- Elendia, as you might expect, plays in Elendia. It does a good job of sounding peaceful, though I personally would've chosen a slower song.
- Heaven's Gate plays during most of Chapter 1, and it's honestly one of my personal favourites. The bells are especially nice, though their part is small.
- Lacrima Castle gets a raher nifty song, though it's a bit short if you ask me given that you have to listen to it throughout the place.
- Sortie! is the preparation screen music, and it honestly gets old pretty quickly. I do, however, prefer ti to the monstrosity that plays on Yggdra Union's preparation screen...
- Self-Discipline plays during any and all practice battles, and it's perhaps good enough that it avoids the problems with being the single most heard battle theme. A definite winner, this one.
- Battle Against Demons plays in most of the game's regular battles. It's got a nice, heroic beat to it, I think.
- Inescapable! plays whenever you get into a fight that you aren't given the option to run from that doesn't use some other theme. I'd say that it's a bit faster than I'd like, but it does get the sense of desperation it's going for.
- Fierce Clash! is the game's mid-boss theme, and in all honesty, it's one of my personal favourites. Oddly enough, the first part reminded me of Final Fantasy VIII's boss theme when I first heard it...
- Dark Sphere is the oddly-named song that plays in the last area of each chapter (area X-8). It does its job well enough.
- Accursed Combat is the standard boss theme. It's a good, solid battle theme, though I have heard better.
- Triumph! is the game's victory theme, and I certainly applaud it on being one of the most incredibly cheerful victory theme's I've heard in any RPG I've played. Incidentally, it also plays when someone's joining the party, probably because Sting didn't feel it necessary to make a separate theme for something that only occurs four times over the course of the game.
- Picnic is the game's "happy" theme. I'd say it does a good job of getting the point across without being too incredibly obnoxious.
- Elegant Melody is the "serious" theme. It also tries to be the sad theme, but I don't think it does that good a job of it, in all honesty. It is a nice tune, though.
- Soft Prayer is Ursula's theme, and as such, it plays during any scenes where she appears. It's certainly nice theme, but I honestly forgot it was there after my first playthrough. I don't know how that happened, really.
- Hector's Ambition is, obviously enough, Hector's theme. Once again, I question how he thought anyone would be fooled when his theme music sounds like that.
- The Grim Angel is the last song I'm going to talk about here, and it's honestly my favourite out of all of them. It plays during anything Grim Angel-related, and manages to never get old. I should note that this was playing during the encounter with the mysterious blonde woman whose name I'm withholding until further notice. Make of that what you will.
And there you have it. My opinions on most of the songs that have played thus far, such as they are.
Also, I'd like to ask once again: how am I doing? Is there anything I should be doing differently? Any comments on that note would be appreciated.
