From a Nintendo Life report:
The first entry in Sting’s Dept. Heaven series is getting an HD remaster. Making the announcement on Twitter, developer Sting revealed that a remaster of Riviera: The Promised Land is in the works.
I have and played Riviera: The Promised Land on my PlayStation TV (probably one of the more niche consoles in my collection). I completed it six-to-seven years ago. It is an interesting game. You take the role of a Grim Angel and go on a quest to save the world. You meet several female traveling companions who join you in battle. Navigation is interesting, you travel from one screen to another (reminded me vaguely of the first two Paper Mario entries). What stood out the most was the strange combat system. Characters leveled up by mastering different items, incentivizing you to collect and use as many items as possible. While I got the mechanic, I found myself under-leveled for the final boss fight and had to come up with a somewhat cheesy strategy (I recall it involved carefully not maxing the boss’s aggro meter) to avoid being overrun. It was almost as cheesy as a strategy I stumbled upon in the final boss fight of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky a few years earlier wherein I was able to completely avoid taking any damage, but my strategy in Riviera was adopted as a matter of necessity.
Riviera is not a great game, but it is a fun one to play through once and the significant number of choices will keep those who like interactive elements engaged (albeit the degree to which the choices change the story is somewhat lackluster). The remaster should be worth a look for JRPG fans who never played a prior release of Riviera.