So I picked up this gem during my little *ahem* vacation from GAF. I noted a thread or two that briefly discussed the game, but didn't see an official thread or anything. Figured I'd post some impressions in the form of a review, of sorts, for those that are still on the fence about it.
From the early shots, it looked like a very colorful and graphically stunning (by GBA standards) SRPG, vaguely similar in combat to Tactics Ogre or Ogre Battle. Of course, that's how it may have looked, but the game really is a much more straight up RPG, only it turns a lot of the traditional RPG conventions on their heads... and is a more memorable game for it. There's actually nothing of Ogre Battle or FF Tactics here...
I'm haven't completed the game, yet it seems to be a Norse-mythology inspired tale of Angels, Demons, and the poor spirits, sprites, and fools caught in between. It seems to eschew the polar black/white trend rather early, as it doesn't seem that all of the "Grim Angels" are good, nor do all of the "Demons" seem really evil. We're 1000 years beyond the war known as Ragnarok, during which the Grim Angels defeated the Demons of Ungart (sp?), ending the war, and the reign of the G-ds as well. The land of Riviera in some way contains the power and secret used to end the war the first time, and a pair of Grim Angels (of which you take the role of one of them, named Ein) are summoned by the Seven Magi to find and access this power, in order to undermine the re-emerging demon "threat". This, however, seems to entail the destruction of Riviera, something that Ein doesn't seem to keen on allowing, though Ledah, his companion and the other Grim Angel, has no compunctions about.
The gameplay applies some twist to most of the traditional RPG conventions you'd expect from the genre. Those conventions include an arsenal of weapons (which degrade and shatter), experience (tied to weapon mastery, not experience points earned from defeated foes), character statistics (but no levels!), and of course, turn based combat (but no random battles!)
The game is divided into Chapters, which seem to encompass one or more major locations that you have to meticulously explore. In that sence, the game will likely play out quite linearly, with a minimum of fuss or backtracking allowed. In fact, you can't actually navigate the maps yourself, and instead choose which direction to travel, and thus navigate from screen to screen with one button press. Sounds odd? Consider the classic text adventure structure, whereby you enter a room, are provided details for you to explore, and possible "exits" to navigate through. Riviera plays out similarly, though the "details" and "exits" are presented graphically. With a flick of the A or B buttons, you can choose between "Move" and "Look" modes. When you toggle Move mode, the overlay changes to show you possible exits. Hit that direction on the D-Pad, and voila, you'll find yourself in the next room. Alternately, by toggling Look mode, the overlay will change to flag points of interest (in either red or white text), and map a direction to each point for you to investigate. White points of interest can be investigated freely, whereas red ones require "Trigger Points" which are earned in combat. I'll go in more detail later.
Thus, a Riviera Chapter may contain one or more location (town, dungeon, forest), each one broken up into rooms (screens.). 3-10 rooms form an Area, and it is in between these Areas that you can truly save your game, not within them. You can only temporarily suspend your game (either in combat or out), but once you reload the file, it'll delete, so make sure you save your progress everytime you get to an area break. Generally speaking, you can freely travel from Room to Room, but NOT from Area to Area (so make sure you're fully done exploring before moving on.) The main story arc for that chapter will play out as you access events and fights throughout the various Areas that make up that Chapter.
So, what kind of "events" can you access via these Look commands and Trigger Points? Well, most of the white Look commands will net you little more than background information, context, or humorous character interactions. Some might net a new weapon or healing item, or possibly even an optional fight. The red triggers, however, are of greater importance, and almost always either represent a fight, weapon, or relatively important story cutscene, or is part of a larger sequence of triggers necessary to complete the Chapter. To make a long story short, you need Trigger Points to access these red events, and some of the events are there, literally, as red herrings that do nothing more than suck a point. However, if you become at all profficient at the game's combat engine (which may seem random at first, but allows for some pretty decent strategy), you won't be lacking Trigger Points to access just about every red event. At least, not so far in my game.
Lots of the character interaction events also have you choosing from multiple selections (depending on context) and your responses can and will directly impact how your party members feel about Ein. For the record, Ein is a male Grim Angel, and just about all of your party members are female... and yes, the game is rated T for Teen thanks to some sexual themes (and implied drug use, heh.) Decisions you make during some of these scenes can affect the story line, and a combination of your choices and your party members' respective "affection levels" to Ein will result in multiple and exclusive story directions and endings. So there's some replay available outside of the gameplay as well.
Some of the more interesting events are commonly called "Traps" (such as booby traps on chests), but are also often interwoven into story sequences for fun. They essentially take the form of button pressing or timing mini-games, presented as a means to avoid an optional fight, catch a stumbling party member, disarm a trapped chest, or some other kind of challenge representation. They're not too tough, quite fun, and provide a neat way to break up the look-move-fight-cutscene flow. Successfully completing the challenge could also net you neat permanent statistic boosts, and failing at them will cost you in the stats department... also permanently! Keep that in mind if you see a message on the flashing on the screen such as "Ein loses 5% Max HP".
Successfully completing these events will also net you a set amount of points, which goes towards your overall Chapter grade. The better the grade, the more Trigger Points you start off with next Chapter. Some Chapters deviously start off with lots of missable red trigger events before the first fight, so starting off with a couple of TPs next chapter could be very rewarding. Your overall Chapter grade is determined by your "Score" (which can be checked at any time, and can also provide you indicators as to whether or you not you missed or goofed certain events) and the overall number of "Turns" you took took complete that Chapter. Every time you use the Move or Look directional commands, your turn count for that chapter will increment by 1. I've generally found that it pays off to use more turns to fully explore a Chapter and complete all of the major and optional events, rather than skipping the non-essentials for sake of speed. It's also much more fun and rewarding (particularly in items) to explore, and not rush.
Combat, a (mostly) turn based affair, is a pretty signficant part of the game, and since there are no random battles (all are scripted either through story sequences or through optional events you can Look at to access), most of the battles are pretty damn interesting. You get no experience or money for killing foes (the game doesn't feature traditional levels, nor currency of any type.) You can build a team of up to 3 members to fight in a battle, and can carry in up to 4 items, total, from the list of 20 or so objects you can store in your inventory at any time. These can range from weapons, to shields, to magical staves, and of course, healing and curing items. Every item in the game, save for certain special pieces of equipment, has a set number of charges, and once those charges are depleted, the item breaks.
You cannot even actively target your foe. Who your character targets is entirely dependent upon that character's position in your combat grid (which you can customize, before and during the fight), and which item they are wielding. Generally speaking, a character wielding a sword item will target the front row enemy on the same side, opposite the character. A character with a bow will most likely target the backrow enemy, or one furthest away. A character with a throwing weapon may target any random enemy. A character wielding a heavy, two handed weapon might target the entire front row of enemies... whereas a character wielding a magical staff my be able to hit the entire back row... or a character with a light rapier might be able to splash from foe to foe, peppering a few with multiple light hits. A spear might hit the front row for its first two hits, but pierce to the back row for it's final blow... etc. Finally, you various party members wield and react to the same weapons differently, so there's plenty of room for experimentation. And if you need a guide, you can always check out your characters' status sheets for indications of which weapons they excel in, which they can use competently, and which you should probably avoid having them use.
An intuitive menu system will easily allow you to check out what foe(s) any given weapon will hit, the rough amount of damage it will do (relative to other weapons in your inventory), and if that weapon has any special effects, such as poisoning, high accuracy, element damage, etc. Learning to read the menu and becoming familiar with the various weapons will eventually lend itself to a pretty streamlined RPG combat experience that essentially requires you to pay attention and evaluate at all times, instead of simply mashing A.
A HUGE part of the game (and this cannot be stressed enough) involves the concept of weapons mastery, which replaces the traditional exp and level up systems of most conventional RPGs. While selecting a weapon, you'll easily be able to determine whether that character can gain any weapons experience from it or not. If so, then using that weapon repeatedly (anywhere from 2 - 15 or so times, in combat) will allow them to "master" that weapon, which has two dramatic effects. The first, is that the character will learn a "Overdrive Skill", or a new attack ability, from that weapon. The second, is that the character's base stats (such as HP, Str, Vit, Mgc, etc) will get boosted, often significantly. As I suggested above, you can and will get stat boosts just by exploring, but those make up the smallest percentage, an almost insignificant amount, when compared to all of the permanent gains you can get simply by mastering weapons. Most characters can wield most weapons (to greater or lesser degrees), regardless of their ability to master it or not. However, since most weapons break after a set amount of uses, you'll want to focus on those that can master them and thus, unlock their skills.
How significant is this game's quality? Well, when I started off Chapter 2 (which is still somewhat a tutorial phase of the game), my characters were still very weak, and even some of the fights against the early foes were close things. By the time I had completed Chapter 2, having mastered at least 6-8 weapons and items per character, my stats had grown to the point where most of those enemies couldn't even deal 1 point of damage against me with their standard attacks. Granted, it takes a certain measure of Practice Battle (explained below) exploitation to get that strong, so the game's challenge and difficulty is, in a sense, highly customizable by the user.
Ok, so you gain items and weapons as rewards for fighting well, and for successfully exploring the Rooms and Areas, and succeeding in the various traps and mini-game challenges that abound. But what happens when you find that Hell Scythe with only 10 charges (before breaking), that can be mastered by Ein, Fia, Lina, AND Serene? Between the 4 of them, you'd need at least 20 uses of that weapon to grant all 4 of them mastery of the weapon!
This is where Practice Battles come into play. Essentially, these are mock battles (not scored, not graded, don't even count as taking up a turn in your Chapter grading) with enemies where your weapons do not degrade. You cannot scum these fights for Trigger Points (since they aren't graded), but you CAN use your weapons freely and master them without having them depreciate in the least. Also, as a bonus, these fights can yield weapon and item drops... they're generally lower level equipment, but it's a good way on stocking up some lower-tier weapons, if your strongers ones are breaking, or you want to save them for major battles and boss fights. Essentially, the first thing I do after finding one or two new pieces of equipment that can be mastered, is practice with them until everyone HAS mastered them. This is Riviera's method of "exp and level grinding" (even though the game doesn't really have exp or levels.) It may be required to do this a bit, but it certainly isn't necessary to take it to the extremes I've taken it to. However, it is recommended that you at least master the rarer equipment, the equipment that features a small number of uses, etc.
Combat also features two fun bars; the Overskill bar and the Rage bar. The Overskill bar will increase as you both deal and take damage. Multi-hitting weapons (generally weaker and/or prone to missing more often), seems to raise the bar higher than stronger weapons that hit less. For example, two early weapons include the Rapier and the Iron Sword, both of which come with 40-50 uses before breaking. The Iron Sword is generally stronger, hitting twice for roughly 50 damage with Ein in early Chapter 2. However, a Rapier can hit three times, at a grand total of 60-65 points of damage with a similarly powered up Ein... if it actually hits all 3 times. Regardless, the Rapier seems to fill the Overskill bar faster.
The Overskill bar is broken up into 3 levels, much like a classic Street Fighter 2 Super Bar. Likewise, Overskills you learn from mastering weapons are ranked as Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3 skills. Obviously, in order to use a level 2 skill, you must have at least 2 levels of the Overskill bar accrued. There is a 4th type of Overskill called "Exectution Level", which is essentially an even more powerful version of a Level 3. It does massive damage, but shatters the Overskill bar, thereby negating your ability to use skills for the remainder of that battle. Fantastic way to finish off a fight, however, and net bonus points for rank and scoring purposes.
Leaving the second bar aside for a second, let's go back to the core combat. I said, above, that the game features a mostly traditional turn based engine. However, that's not entirely accurate. Combat isn't broken up into turns so much as it is divided by "counts", which tick down VERY rapidly when ever an action is not currently occuring. Each character has to wait a certain number of "counts" before their turn pops up. Once they do select a weapon or skill to wield, the combat pauses (the counts cease to errr, cound down) while the action is executed. Then the count resumes ticking down until the next character's (or foe)'s wait count hits 0. After acting, the character or enemy will have to wait another set amount of "counts" before they can act again. What's interesting, however, is that different items, weapons, and skills feature different wait times. The Rapier might had 35 counts to your character's wait time, whereas the Iron Sword might add 40 or 50. A healing spell might only had 25 to your wait count, whereas a healing herb might only add 15. Etc. So while it is turn based, there are special considerations which should be taken into account when choosing the 4 items to bring into combat. Again, different characters react to the same equipment differently! You could also spend what turns out to be only "half" a turn boosting your offense or defense before unleashing full force against a boss, for instance...
The Rage bar functions much like the Overskill bar, but applies to the enemy instead. There is only one level to this bar, when it is full, it pulses red, and the VERY next enemy to act will unleash their Break Out skill (intrinsic to the enemy) which generally involves high damage to one character, splash damage to the whole team, heavy afflictions (such as freezing, burning, poisoning, sleeping, etc, or any combination thereof.) Unlike the Overskill bar, the Rage bar only increases when you strike an enemy, and as the counts tick down, it also slowly decreases. The more aggressive you are, the higher it builds, but if you space out healing or buffing commands in between the fighting, the Rage bar might not build to catastrophic levels before the enemy forces are wiped out. Be warned, however, that killing foes will generally provide a significant boost to the Rage bar, so if you are fighting a force of 3 or more enemies, having it fill up is pretty much inevitable, somtimes multiple times throughout the fight.
Finally, much like the reflex and timing "mini-game" events, you do get scored for each (non-practice mode) fight you win. Scores range from S (highest) to B (the lowest I've scored so far) and are determined by a variety of factors, including how well your team faired (HP-wise), how quickly you won (counts-wise), and whether or not you finished off the fight with an Overskill or not. The higher the Overskill used to kill the final foe, the better off you'll rank. Rank will determine how many trigger points you earn for that fight (try to get as many S ranks as possible, so that you'll always have enough TPs to fully explore each chapter), and also what items (and how many charges!) you get for winning the fight. The better the rank, the better the item, and the more charges it'll have. The rank also translated into a score grade for that fight, which gets added to your Chapter Score tally. A fight might be listed as being worth 1500 points, but if you score an S rank, you might actually attain closer to 2700 for that fight. Since there is no random battling, every fight is scripted and becomes part of your total Chapter Score, which you can check out at any time from the game's menu. Generally speaking, the special and optional Trigger events can be worth quite a bit more than any individual fight, save perhaps the end of Chapter boss battles, but performing well on even the easier, less important battles remains important thanks to the constant need for TPs.
Sorry for the long post, it wound up being much longer than I had anticipated. I'm actually very surprised by how playable the game is despite the streamlining. They made some very strange decisions when designing this RPG, taking away some of the hands-on control you'd expect from a RPG, but injecting the gameplay with multiple layers of depth. Should I use the weaker, lighter weapons to maximize my Overskill bar and minimize my wait time? Or should I attempt to end the fight quicker with the stronger, though clumsier heavy weapons? Should I spend time in Practice mode to master all of the weapons I found, maximizing my stats and possibly offsetting some of the HPs I lost from failing in disarming traps... or should I just reset it and restart that Chapter's Area, in the hopes that I'll succeed in disarming the trap this time? Should I respond to important prompts in such a way as to woo Fia or Lina? Or Serene? Should I master every freakin' weapon and item I come by, admittedly breaking much of the difficulty, or challenge myself by limiting my weapons master to only a select few powerful weapons, or only the lower tier stuff? Good stuff. There's lots to play with here, a lot more than you'd think from the first hour or two, anyway. (The game admittedly starts off pretty slow, particularly since the rather condescending tutorial lapses aren't skippable.)
From a technical level, the game is downright amazing. The hand-drawn graphics are simply gorgeous. Bright, sharp, aesthetically pleasing. Excellent character portraits capture the various moods and moments of conversation, and major cutscenes are told in lovely, scrolling, and larger-than-full-screen CG stills. The music is amazingly well composed (as anyone who has listened to the 40-song Full Arrange album can attest to), though the GBA's lack of a sound chip ruins the effect to a certain degree. Also, the programmers didn't utilize whatever trickery employed in other titles, such as Zelda - Minish Cap or the Golden Sun games, which make the GBA sing like few other games can. However, the tunes, battle themes in particular (of which there about half a dozen), are very dramatic and powerful, featuring some truly inspired composition. Also features a remarkable amount of rather clear voice acting... You've got VA bookending every fight and announcing most of the higher level Overskills... Pretty impressive.
All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised by this game. Very stylized and unique, there's honestly nothing else quite like it in the GBA library, and it pulls off most of it's gameplay tricks with unusual elegance and polish. Highly recommended for anyone even remotely interested in exploring new twists to some classic concepts. A+
From the early shots, it looked like a very colorful and graphically stunning (by GBA standards) SRPG, vaguely similar in combat to Tactics Ogre or Ogre Battle. Of course, that's how it may have looked, but the game really is a much more straight up RPG, only it turns a lot of the traditional RPG conventions on their heads... and is a more memorable game for it. There's actually nothing of Ogre Battle or FF Tactics here...
I'm haven't completed the game, yet it seems to be a Norse-mythology inspired tale of Angels, Demons, and the poor spirits, sprites, and fools caught in between. It seems to eschew the polar black/white trend rather early, as it doesn't seem that all of the "Grim Angels" are good, nor do all of the "Demons" seem really evil. We're 1000 years beyond the war known as Ragnarok, during which the Grim Angels defeated the Demons of Ungart (sp?), ending the war, and the reign of the G-ds as well. The land of Riviera in some way contains the power and secret used to end the war the first time, and a pair of Grim Angels (of which you take the role of one of them, named Ein) are summoned by the Seven Magi to find and access this power, in order to undermine the re-emerging demon "threat". This, however, seems to entail the destruction of Riviera, something that Ein doesn't seem to keen on allowing, though Ledah, his companion and the other Grim Angel, has no compunctions about.
The gameplay applies some twist to most of the traditional RPG conventions you'd expect from the genre. Those conventions include an arsenal of weapons (which degrade and shatter), experience (tied to weapon mastery, not experience points earned from defeated foes), character statistics (but no levels!), and of course, turn based combat (but no random battles!)
The game is divided into Chapters, which seem to encompass one or more major locations that you have to meticulously explore. In that sence, the game will likely play out quite linearly, with a minimum of fuss or backtracking allowed. In fact, you can't actually navigate the maps yourself, and instead choose which direction to travel, and thus navigate from screen to screen with one button press. Sounds odd? Consider the classic text adventure structure, whereby you enter a room, are provided details for you to explore, and possible "exits" to navigate through. Riviera plays out similarly, though the "details" and "exits" are presented graphically. With a flick of the A or B buttons, you can choose between "Move" and "Look" modes. When you toggle Move mode, the overlay changes to show you possible exits. Hit that direction on the D-Pad, and voila, you'll find yourself in the next room. Alternately, by toggling Look mode, the overlay will change to flag points of interest (in either red or white text), and map a direction to each point for you to investigate. White points of interest can be investigated freely, whereas red ones require "Trigger Points" which are earned in combat. I'll go in more detail later.
Thus, a Riviera Chapter may contain one or more location (town, dungeon, forest), each one broken up into rooms (screens.). 3-10 rooms form an Area, and it is in between these Areas that you can truly save your game, not within them. You can only temporarily suspend your game (either in combat or out), but once you reload the file, it'll delete, so make sure you save your progress everytime you get to an area break. Generally speaking, you can freely travel from Room to Room, but NOT from Area to Area (so make sure you're fully done exploring before moving on.) The main story arc for that chapter will play out as you access events and fights throughout the various Areas that make up that Chapter.
So, what kind of "events" can you access via these Look commands and Trigger Points? Well, most of the white Look commands will net you little more than background information, context, or humorous character interactions. Some might net a new weapon or healing item, or possibly even an optional fight. The red triggers, however, are of greater importance, and almost always either represent a fight, weapon, or relatively important story cutscene, or is part of a larger sequence of triggers necessary to complete the Chapter. To make a long story short, you need Trigger Points to access these red events, and some of the events are there, literally, as red herrings that do nothing more than suck a point. However, if you become at all profficient at the game's combat engine (which may seem random at first, but allows for some pretty decent strategy), you won't be lacking Trigger Points to access just about every red event. At least, not so far in my game.
Lots of the character interaction events also have you choosing from multiple selections (depending on context) and your responses can and will directly impact how your party members feel about Ein. For the record, Ein is a male Grim Angel, and just about all of your party members are female... and yes, the game is rated T for Teen thanks to some sexual themes (and implied drug use, heh.) Decisions you make during some of these scenes can affect the story line, and a combination of your choices and your party members' respective "affection levels" to Ein will result in multiple and exclusive story directions and endings. So there's some replay available outside of the gameplay as well.
Some of the more interesting events are commonly called "Traps" (such as booby traps on chests), but are also often interwoven into story sequences for fun. They essentially take the form of button pressing or timing mini-games, presented as a means to avoid an optional fight, catch a stumbling party member, disarm a trapped chest, or some other kind of challenge representation. They're not too tough, quite fun, and provide a neat way to break up the look-move-fight-cutscene flow. Successfully completing the challenge could also net you neat permanent statistic boosts, and failing at them will cost you in the stats department... also permanently! Keep that in mind if you see a message on the flashing on the screen such as "Ein loses 5% Max HP".
Successfully completing these events will also net you a set amount of points, which goes towards your overall Chapter grade. The better the grade, the more Trigger Points you start off with next Chapter. Some Chapters deviously start off with lots of missable red trigger events before the first fight, so starting off with a couple of TPs next chapter could be very rewarding. Your overall Chapter grade is determined by your "Score" (which can be checked at any time, and can also provide you indicators as to whether or you not you missed or goofed certain events) and the overall number of "Turns" you took took complete that Chapter. Every time you use the Move or Look directional commands, your turn count for that chapter will increment by 1. I've generally found that it pays off to use more turns to fully explore a Chapter and complete all of the major and optional events, rather than skipping the non-essentials for sake of speed. It's also much more fun and rewarding (particularly in items) to explore, and not rush.
Combat, a (mostly) turn based affair, is a pretty signficant part of the game, and since there are no random battles (all are scripted either through story sequences or through optional events you can Look at to access), most of the battles are pretty damn interesting. You get no experience or money for killing foes (the game doesn't feature traditional levels, nor currency of any type.) You can build a team of up to 3 members to fight in a battle, and can carry in up to 4 items, total, from the list of 20 or so objects you can store in your inventory at any time. These can range from weapons, to shields, to magical staves, and of course, healing and curing items. Every item in the game, save for certain special pieces of equipment, has a set number of charges, and once those charges are depleted, the item breaks.
You cannot even actively target your foe. Who your character targets is entirely dependent upon that character's position in your combat grid (which you can customize, before and during the fight), and which item they are wielding. Generally speaking, a character wielding a sword item will target the front row enemy on the same side, opposite the character. A character with a bow will most likely target the backrow enemy, or one furthest away. A character with a throwing weapon may target any random enemy. A character wielding a heavy, two handed weapon might target the entire front row of enemies... whereas a character wielding a magical staff my be able to hit the entire back row... or a character with a light rapier might be able to splash from foe to foe, peppering a few with multiple light hits. A spear might hit the front row for its first two hits, but pierce to the back row for it's final blow... etc. Finally, you various party members wield and react to the same weapons differently, so there's plenty of room for experimentation. And if you need a guide, you can always check out your characters' status sheets for indications of which weapons they excel in, which they can use competently, and which you should probably avoid having them use.
An intuitive menu system will easily allow you to check out what foe(s) any given weapon will hit, the rough amount of damage it will do (relative to other weapons in your inventory), and if that weapon has any special effects, such as poisoning, high accuracy, element damage, etc. Learning to read the menu and becoming familiar with the various weapons will eventually lend itself to a pretty streamlined RPG combat experience that essentially requires you to pay attention and evaluate at all times, instead of simply mashing A.
A HUGE part of the game (and this cannot be stressed enough) involves the concept of weapons mastery, which replaces the traditional exp and level up systems of most conventional RPGs. While selecting a weapon, you'll easily be able to determine whether that character can gain any weapons experience from it or not. If so, then using that weapon repeatedly (anywhere from 2 - 15 or so times, in combat) will allow them to "master" that weapon, which has two dramatic effects. The first, is that the character will learn a "Overdrive Skill", or a new attack ability, from that weapon. The second, is that the character's base stats (such as HP, Str, Vit, Mgc, etc) will get boosted, often significantly. As I suggested above, you can and will get stat boosts just by exploring, but those make up the smallest percentage, an almost insignificant amount, when compared to all of the permanent gains you can get simply by mastering weapons. Most characters can wield most weapons (to greater or lesser degrees), regardless of their ability to master it or not. However, since most weapons break after a set amount of uses, you'll want to focus on those that can master them and thus, unlock their skills.
How significant is this game's quality? Well, when I started off Chapter 2 (which is still somewhat a tutorial phase of the game), my characters were still very weak, and even some of the fights against the early foes were close things. By the time I had completed Chapter 2, having mastered at least 6-8 weapons and items per character, my stats had grown to the point where most of those enemies couldn't even deal 1 point of damage against me with their standard attacks. Granted, it takes a certain measure of Practice Battle (explained below) exploitation to get that strong, so the game's challenge and difficulty is, in a sense, highly customizable by the user.
Ok, so you gain items and weapons as rewards for fighting well, and for successfully exploring the Rooms and Areas, and succeeding in the various traps and mini-game challenges that abound. But what happens when you find that Hell Scythe with only 10 charges (before breaking), that can be mastered by Ein, Fia, Lina, AND Serene? Between the 4 of them, you'd need at least 20 uses of that weapon to grant all 4 of them mastery of the weapon!
This is where Practice Battles come into play. Essentially, these are mock battles (not scored, not graded, don't even count as taking up a turn in your Chapter grading) with enemies where your weapons do not degrade. You cannot scum these fights for Trigger Points (since they aren't graded), but you CAN use your weapons freely and master them without having them depreciate in the least. Also, as a bonus, these fights can yield weapon and item drops... they're generally lower level equipment, but it's a good way on stocking up some lower-tier weapons, if your strongers ones are breaking, or you want to save them for major battles and boss fights. Essentially, the first thing I do after finding one or two new pieces of equipment that can be mastered, is practice with them until everyone HAS mastered them. This is Riviera's method of "exp and level grinding" (even though the game doesn't really have exp or levels.) It may be required to do this a bit, but it certainly isn't necessary to take it to the extremes I've taken it to. However, it is recommended that you at least master the rarer equipment, the equipment that features a small number of uses, etc.
Combat also features two fun bars; the Overskill bar and the Rage bar. The Overskill bar will increase as you both deal and take damage. Multi-hitting weapons (generally weaker and/or prone to missing more often), seems to raise the bar higher than stronger weapons that hit less. For example, two early weapons include the Rapier and the Iron Sword, both of which come with 40-50 uses before breaking. The Iron Sword is generally stronger, hitting twice for roughly 50 damage with Ein in early Chapter 2. However, a Rapier can hit three times, at a grand total of 60-65 points of damage with a similarly powered up Ein... if it actually hits all 3 times. Regardless, the Rapier seems to fill the Overskill bar faster.
The Overskill bar is broken up into 3 levels, much like a classic Street Fighter 2 Super Bar. Likewise, Overskills you learn from mastering weapons are ranked as Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3 skills. Obviously, in order to use a level 2 skill, you must have at least 2 levels of the Overskill bar accrued. There is a 4th type of Overskill called "Exectution Level", which is essentially an even more powerful version of a Level 3. It does massive damage, but shatters the Overskill bar, thereby negating your ability to use skills for the remainder of that battle. Fantastic way to finish off a fight, however, and net bonus points for rank and scoring purposes.
Leaving the second bar aside for a second, let's go back to the core combat. I said, above, that the game features a mostly traditional turn based engine. However, that's not entirely accurate. Combat isn't broken up into turns so much as it is divided by "counts", which tick down VERY rapidly when ever an action is not currently occuring. Each character has to wait a certain number of "counts" before their turn pops up. Once they do select a weapon or skill to wield, the combat pauses (the counts cease to errr, cound down) while the action is executed. Then the count resumes ticking down until the next character's (or foe)'s wait count hits 0. After acting, the character or enemy will have to wait another set amount of "counts" before they can act again. What's interesting, however, is that different items, weapons, and skills feature different wait times. The Rapier might had 35 counts to your character's wait time, whereas the Iron Sword might add 40 or 50. A healing spell might only had 25 to your wait count, whereas a healing herb might only add 15. Etc. So while it is turn based, there are special considerations which should be taken into account when choosing the 4 items to bring into combat. Again, different characters react to the same equipment differently! You could also spend what turns out to be only "half" a turn boosting your offense or defense before unleashing full force against a boss, for instance...
The Rage bar functions much like the Overskill bar, but applies to the enemy instead. There is only one level to this bar, when it is full, it pulses red, and the VERY next enemy to act will unleash their Break Out skill (intrinsic to the enemy) which generally involves high damage to one character, splash damage to the whole team, heavy afflictions (such as freezing, burning, poisoning, sleeping, etc, or any combination thereof.) Unlike the Overskill bar, the Rage bar only increases when you strike an enemy, and as the counts tick down, it also slowly decreases. The more aggressive you are, the higher it builds, but if you space out healing or buffing commands in between the fighting, the Rage bar might not build to catastrophic levels before the enemy forces are wiped out. Be warned, however, that killing foes will generally provide a significant boost to the Rage bar, so if you are fighting a force of 3 or more enemies, having it fill up is pretty much inevitable, somtimes multiple times throughout the fight.
Finally, much like the reflex and timing "mini-game" events, you do get scored for each (non-practice mode) fight you win. Scores range from S (highest) to B (the lowest I've scored so far) and are determined by a variety of factors, including how well your team faired (HP-wise), how quickly you won (counts-wise), and whether or not you finished off the fight with an Overskill or not. The higher the Overskill used to kill the final foe, the better off you'll rank. Rank will determine how many trigger points you earn for that fight (try to get as many S ranks as possible, so that you'll always have enough TPs to fully explore each chapter), and also what items (and how many charges!) you get for winning the fight. The better the rank, the better the item, and the more charges it'll have. The rank also translated into a score grade for that fight, which gets added to your Chapter Score tally. A fight might be listed as being worth 1500 points, but if you score an S rank, you might actually attain closer to 2700 for that fight. Since there is no random battling, every fight is scripted and becomes part of your total Chapter Score, which you can check out at any time from the game's menu. Generally speaking, the special and optional Trigger events can be worth quite a bit more than any individual fight, save perhaps the end of Chapter boss battles, but performing well on even the easier, less important battles remains important thanks to the constant need for TPs.
Sorry for the long post, it wound up being much longer than I had anticipated. I'm actually very surprised by how playable the game is despite the streamlining. They made some very strange decisions when designing this RPG, taking away some of the hands-on control you'd expect from a RPG, but injecting the gameplay with multiple layers of depth. Should I use the weaker, lighter weapons to maximize my Overskill bar and minimize my wait time? Or should I attempt to end the fight quicker with the stronger, though clumsier heavy weapons? Should I spend time in Practice mode to master all of the weapons I found, maximizing my stats and possibly offsetting some of the HPs I lost from failing in disarming traps... or should I just reset it and restart that Chapter's Area, in the hopes that I'll succeed in disarming the trap this time? Should I respond to important prompts in such a way as to woo Fia or Lina? Or Serene? Should I master every freakin' weapon and item I come by, admittedly breaking much of the difficulty, or challenge myself by limiting my weapons master to only a select few powerful weapons, or only the lower tier stuff? Good stuff. There's lots to play with here, a lot more than you'd think from the first hour or two, anyway. (The game admittedly starts off pretty slow, particularly since the rather condescending tutorial lapses aren't skippable.)
From a technical level, the game is downright amazing. The hand-drawn graphics are simply gorgeous. Bright, sharp, aesthetically pleasing. Excellent character portraits capture the various moods and moments of conversation, and major cutscenes are told in lovely, scrolling, and larger-than-full-screen CG stills. The music is amazingly well composed (as anyone who has listened to the 40-song Full Arrange album can attest to), though the GBA's lack of a sound chip ruins the effect to a certain degree. Also, the programmers didn't utilize whatever trickery employed in other titles, such as Zelda - Minish Cap or the Golden Sun games, which make the GBA sing like few other games can. However, the tunes, battle themes in particular (of which there about half a dozen), are very dramatic and powerful, featuring some truly inspired composition. Also features a remarkable amount of rather clear voice acting... You've got VA bookending every fight and announcing most of the higher level Overskills... Pretty impressive.
All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised by this game. Very stylized and unique, there's honestly nothing else quite like it in the GBA library, and it pulls off most of it's gameplay tricks with unusual elegance and polish. Highly recommended for anyone even remotely interested in exploring new twists to some classic concepts. A+
