Riviera: The Promised Land

Riviera: The Promised Land is one of the most original games ever released for the WonderSwan Color, and also proof that a Japanese RPG doesn't need to be built around walking across a world map. The player takes on the role of the angelic warrior Ecthelion, who together with his companions is meant to destroy the demons of the floating land of Riviera, only to soon discover that the orders from above aren't as clear-cut as they seemed. The story is told through scenes with large character portraits and dialogue, closer to a visual novel than to a classic journey.

Instead of free movement, the environment is explored screen by screen, where the player spends points to examine a specific spot, open a chest, or find a hidden path. Points are limited, so exploration is a puzzle in itself, and the game encourages replaying. Battles are just as untraditional: each encounter only allows the use of a limited set of items and weapons, each piece has a finite number of uses, and by wearing it down characters learn new attacks. Weapons thus become both a consumable resource and a source of progression at the same time, and deciding when to sacrifice something is among the most interesting choices in the entire game.

At the time, the game caught attention through its boldness and style: colorful hand-drawn art, a strong soundtrack, and a darker story about duty and free will earned it a devoted following. It was from the WonderSwan Color version that later releases on other handheld consoles grew, thanks to which Riviera reached players outside Japan and gained a reputation as a cult classic. Today it feels unusually fresh, since no one has really repeated its structure, and for Sting it marked the beginning of a line of games built around unorthodox gameplay systems. The original WonderSwan Color version today is mainly a collector's curiosity, since due to language and rarity of the cartridges most players reach it through later releases instead, but this is where it all began, and the core ideas are already fully in place.