Myst is notorious for its incredibly complex puzzles, yet its captivating world and style captivate and compel exploration. I remember and recall playing Myst III in the early 2000s in my local library, having only seen copies of the game on the shelf for various systems at stores throughout the years. However, I refrained from playing it due to its incredibly complex puzzles, which even a small child would struggle to understand. Cyan completely remakes the game in real-time, so you can freely walk around these areas, unlike previous versions, which were fixed pre-rendered images.
Myst isn't very story-heavy, but the world is interesting, and as you explore the main island, you eventually learn the pattern of how to travel to other islands and get to the ending. Technically, you can reach the end of the game in two minutes (there's an achievement for it, and I got it after many frustrating tries), but you also want all four endings, so I recommend following a guide the first time around. This game is very landmark-heavy, so it's important you remember where everything is. The main island has a hub that will transport you to the islands, but you must solve the puzzle to unlock their doors.
You can follow this pattern by locating a map in the main library and directing the laser to various locations. Once you have done this, you can go up the library elevator and look for a single clue to help unlock the door to that island. These puzzles on the island are fairly easy and not hard to figure out at all, and each island's puzzle gets progressively more complex and obtuse. Channelwood Island is the easiest, with just levers that you need to flip to make water run through a pipe to power elevators and bridges. It's very straight-forward. By the end of the game, you are using audio cues to determine what direction a train goes via a compass rose. These sounds are from another island, which you hopefully wrote down or memorized. It's very overwhelming at first, but doing a guide playthrough allows you to do randomized playthroughs later to get the last few achievements.
Outside of the run button, the gameplay is very simple. You interact with objects, and that's pretty much it. Each island has a very linear path, so you can't get lost, but the cryptic symbols on doors and switches may scare some players and turn many away. I did run across a glitch here and there, such as an achievement not popping up or getting stuck in the game world (there's a reset option, thankfully), and you can save anywhere, which is nice. Despite the pleasant music and voiced dialog in the cutscenes, the game still feels dated, even with effects like HDR and ray-tracing enabled. The textures are fairly low-resolution, and the lighting just feels very artificial. There's also a low draw distance, so outside of the island you are on, there's just endless fog. I would have liked to have seen more stuff in the distance.
Overall, Myst is mostly for those who played it years ago, in 1993, but newcomers who crave brain-scraping puzzles will love this game. With a guide, you can breeze through the game in about 2 hours, but I went back and got all but three achievements, as they were fun to get. Once you get to know the island and the puzzles, the game becomes more fun with random playthroughs. Even though the puzzle solutions vary, you already know how to solve them, which is half the fight.
Myst isn't very story-heavy, but the world is interesting, and as you explore the main island, you eventually learn the pattern of how to travel to other islands and get to the ending. Technically, you can reach the end of the game in two minutes (there's an achievement for it, and I got it after many frustrating tries), but you also want all four endings, so I recommend following a guide the first time around. This game is very landmark-heavy, so it's important you remember where everything is. The main island has a hub that will transport you to the islands, but you must solve the puzzle to unlock their doors.
You can follow this pattern by locating a map in the main library and directing the laser to various locations. Once you have done this, you can go up the library elevator and look for a single clue to help unlock the door to that island. These puzzles on the island are fairly easy and not hard to figure out at all, and each island's puzzle gets progressively more complex and obtuse. Channelwood Island is the easiest, with just levers that you need to flip to make water run through a pipe to power elevators and bridges. It's very straight-forward. By the end of the game, you are using audio cues to determine what direction a train goes via a compass rose. These sounds are from another island, which you hopefully wrote down or memorized. It's very overwhelming at first, but doing a guide playthrough allows you to do randomized playthroughs later to get the last few achievements.
Outside of the run button, the gameplay is very simple. You interact with objects, and that's pretty much it. Each island has a very linear path, so you can't get lost, but the cryptic symbols on doors and switches may scare some players and turn many away. I did run across a glitch here and there, such as an achievement not popping up or getting stuck in the game world (there's a reset option, thankfully), and you can save anywhere, which is nice. Despite the pleasant music and voiced dialog in the cutscenes, the game still feels dated, even with effects like HDR and ray-tracing enabled. The textures are fairly low-resolution, and the lighting just feels very artificial. There's also a low draw distance, so outside of the island you are on, there's just endless fog. I would have liked to have seen more stuff in the distance.
Overall, Myst is mostly for those who played it years ago, in 1993, but newcomers who crave brain-scraping puzzles will love this game. With a guide, you can breeze through the game in about 2 hours, but I went back and got all but three achievements, as they were fun to get. Once you get to know the island and the puzzles, the game becomes more fun with random playthroughs. Even though the puzzle solutions vary, you already know how to solve them, which is half the fight.
about three years ago i tried playing this game and couldn't find the right approach to it. no doubt in part due to my inability to find catherine's letter (which also happened again here with equivalent time wasted) but i was also refusing to play ball with myst's framework. i had no desire to read the books in the library, didn't catch the impetus from atrus' message to catherine and as a result i never really found a foot in to the mystery of the island of myst, and i quickly lost interest.
this second go around i found it remarkable that once i actually got to another world, my progression snowballed and i was able to finish the whole game in two quick sessions on the same day i started it. myst is surprisingly not a difficult game, but it definitely requires that certain calibration towards it. what comes after isn't hurt in this way, it's still an incredibly charming world with a very unique aesthetic. it still has a surprisingly nuanced story effectively told entirely by exploration of environments. we read in the library of atrus the beauty of these worlds, these "ages", and what happened in them to better the lives of these people. and then you as the player see them in their total desolation and abandonment.
the remake of riven is a few weeks away at this point, and i cannot wait to continue what has started here.
this second go around i found it remarkable that once i actually got to another world, my progression snowballed and i was able to finish the whole game in two quick sessions on the same day i started it. myst is surprisingly not a difficult game, but it definitely requires that certain calibration towards it. what comes after isn't hurt in this way, it's still an incredibly charming world with a very unique aesthetic. it still has a surprisingly nuanced story effectively told entirely by exploration of environments. we read in the library of atrus the beauty of these worlds, these "ages", and what happened in them to better the lives of these people. and then you as the player see them in their total desolation and abandonment.
the remake of riven is a few weeks away at this point, and i cannot wait to continue what has started here.
It feels like they finally accomplished what they set out to do in the 00s with RealMyst: seeing the island and its associated ages rendered with this attention to detail is stunning. But just like their other 3D remakes, the lack of forced perspective means details that were once clear as day in the original are all too easily overlooked. And there’s just no getting around the reality that these CG models lack the charm and immersion of the OG FMVs. With the Riven remake launching in less than two days, we hope that their redesign of the islands makes for a more satisfying slideshow-to-3D conversion.
good homage to old Myst
VR was very fun to play on
VR was very fun to play on
Well they finally did it justice in full, free-roam 3D, HOWEVER they also ditched the FMV actors for (bad) rendered models, so POINTS DEDUCTED.
The key in the lighthouse made me go -_-
The shiny new graphics and free-roaming gameplay certainly make this version of Myst more legible than the 1993 original (especially for modern players not primed for that game), but it also polishes away the plastic-y early 90s CG look that has aged surprisingly well in the era of 'liminal spaces'. The modern gaming landscape has trained audiences to assume that remakes can entirely replace the original work, but this is definitely a case where the remake is more complimentary than anything.