Riviera: The Promised Land Remaster 1
Image: Sting

Dept. Heaven fans will have a chance to revisit the origins of Sting's unusual series this month as Riviera: The Promised Land is coming to Switch in North America and Europe on 28th November 2024 (thanks, Gematsu!).

The remaster launched in Japan in February 2024, and back then, we had our fingers crossed for a Western release. It did make it to Steam back in July, but you know we were waiting for that Switch version. Well, it took all year, but we're finally here, and it'll cost USD $34.99 / GBP £30.19, with a 15% launch discount until 5th December

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While this is the same game you remember from the GBA (or maybe PSP), the remaster includes some additional elements, such as a "BGM change function", auto-saving, the ability to skip events, a speed-up mode, and difficulty mode selection, among other things.

There are many quirks that make Riviera a fair bit different from most RPGs — for one, you can only control your character, Ein, through "triggers" in either Look Mode or Move Mode. Combat is also a twist on the standard turn-based stuff — you can prepare before every battle, selecting three characters, four items, and your formation. Then, during battle, you can select what items or skills characters can use — items can be used multiple times before they break.

Reviews for the Steam version sit at "Very Positive" from 62 ratings — it's a pretty niche one, so we're not surprised at the low number of reviews. Curious about how it looks? Then let's have a gander at some screenshots:

Riviera: The Promised Land launched on the WonderSwan Color in Japan in 2002, before getting ported to the GBA in 2004 — it came to North America in 2005, with a PSP version followed a few years later worldwide. It's dubbed Episode I in the Dept. Heaven Series, which is a cult favourite among diehard RPG fans.

Three other mainline games make up that series — Yggdra Union, Knights in the Nightmare, and Gungnir. Yggdra Union also received three spin-offs in Yggdra Unison, Blaze Union, and Gloria Union, but none of those have been released outside of Japan.

Have you played Riviera: The Promised Land before? Will you be getting the remaster on 28th November? Get planning in the comments.

[source gematsu.com]