My video game origin story probably has a chapter on working for Electronics Boutique during college. I had a co-worker there who probably had the best taste in games of anyone I’ve ever met. He recommended X-COM, Civilization II, Arena, Daggerfall and Shadows Over Riva to me. I first played Shadows Over Riva when it was new on a period-accurate PC. Ok, I guess by definition the PC I had in 1996 was period-accurate because it had to be. I’m not burying the lede and trying to communicate to the world my possession of a time machine. I’ve tried to pick Riva up every few years since then – you can get it through Steam, gog, eXoDOS and, er, let me put the –MORE– tag here for the rest of this sentence.
probably other places if you just want the .iso and want to give it a “crack” hrewhrwehwer.
Riva was developed by a German company whose name appears to be “attic Entertainment Software GmbH”. Up until I started writing this post, I thought it was completely done by Sir-Tech in house, so we’re all learning here. Sir-Tech did publish it in America, and owning other Sir-Tech games, it’s clear to me that the house style for the manual was done in their house, with their style. It’s one of a few 1990s computer game manuals I keep nearby and in my office, because it’s a perfect way to introduce players to what Riva is, fan of the genre and non-fan alike. The manuals have a witty, conversational tone. In the 1970s and 1980s, you had to read the manuals of anything other than maybe arcade-style games to understand what keys to press. A lot of an adventure game’s plot was stored in the manuals. By the late 1990s, text could be compressed and displayed quite nicely, but there were very few standards for UI.
Let’s get the biggest issue out of the way. Look at this combat orders selection screen. LOOK AT IT. This is awful! Look how much of the screen it takes up. If this were Qix, and you claimed as much of the screen as the combat orders panel takes up in Shadows Over Riva, you’d be onto the next level and thinking about what three-letter swear to put into the high score table. This is one of the great fumbles in computer game history. You can’t see the dudes on the battlefield when this is up. The screenshot I posted doesn’t even fully demonstrate the problem because my first few combats had my guys on the left side of the screen, completely covered up. It is very, very difficult to engage in tactics when you can’t see what is going on.
Shadows Over Riva was the third game in a trilogy. The first two were remade, Riva was not. Larger screen resolutions means there is no way this error could be duplicated, but as an owner of all of the original games and the two remakes, the pixel art for Riva is breath-taking and losing out on it would be a shame. The portraits are beautiful, creepy, distinctive. Possibly they started from actors and models. Possibly the actors and models didn’t know they were signing up to be in this game, because there are quite a few that look like extremely expensive and famous people. But everything in the game is beautiful, not just the portraits.
So much of what Riva does is good – when you start the game, it instantly loads your last save and you are playing. That doesn’t happen with AAA CRPGs now! The music in the dungeons are bangers. The 3D environment for all gameplay areas is smooth and drawn beautifully.
But I can’t get over the size of that combat UI. There is so much of it that could be removed so you can see the screen when combat starts. The word “Options” can be removed. The “What do you want to do now?” is unnecessary. The game is murdered by its 320×200 resolution – if we could have even gotten to 640×480 I think there would be enough room for the combat UI to be there.
There is automatic combat, but I lose at least three adventurers every time I try it. realNC from the Jolt Country forum said that he imported his characters from Star Trail, so he didn’t have as much trouble with the early fights. Star Trail got a remake – as did the first game in the trilogy. The remake abandons the pixel graphics, so take that as you may.
I don’t like being defeated by the age of a game, but I am at that spot with Shadows Over Riva. For now. It does so many things right – it looks beautiful, as stated. There are lots of one-off characters hanging around. For decades people wanted to just be able to go into an NPC’s house – any house – and you can do that in Riva. You can just walk right in. Now, they tell you to get lost, but still. You can’t see anything at night, so you need to, on your own, figure out where to buy a torch. The spellbook needs to be considered and read if you want to try casting spells, otherwise you’re going to try flinging nonsense in combat. To me, the lack of hand-holding is a plus. I consider this game “incline,” as they say on RPGCodex. In fact, I consider this to be the most perfect CRPG except it’s not a blobber, it has squad based tactics on a grid that you can’t rotate, and the UI covers the whole thing up. It’s a disaster. I am trying to think if that’s the worst piece of UI in video game history.
My next actionable point for this game is to try to find a trainer. I suck but I do want to progress, I just something to allow me to get through a few early combats. Then I can simulate them and I don’t need to look at the intrusive combat UI. Adam Cadre did something like this for Roadwar 2000, except you can see what is going on in Roadwar. He built up some dudes through turn by turn combat at the beginning and then was able to play on by simulating it later. If I can just get my early characters to be slightly more deadly than the creatures they encounter, I think I can continue. But for now we must part, Shadows Over Riva.