Certainly successful at creating an intriguing, mysterious world to explore and try to comprehend - significantly less so at allowing you to navigate or interact with said world and unravel its secrets. The puzzles are, yes, in fact, MYST puzzles - maddeningly unclear yet undeniably evocative and built into the world in exciting ways - but their legendary obtuseness would actually be much less of an issue if the solutions weren't so labor-intensive. Every time you get that wonderful "a-ha!" moment, it's usually tamped down by the realization of all the places you have to go and crap you have to do to enact the results. This and the trial-and-error nature of the worlds' machinery is obviously anti-fun and certainly not intelluctually stimulating - it just exists to extend the experience. (The fact that the 100% no-glitch speedrun record is sitting at about ten minutes speaks to this, also.)

But the game was a hit and was influential for a reason, and it does still hold some power. Tinkering around, wondering at the sights, desperately trying to make something, somewhere happen. The visuals actually hold up a lot better than 99% of early CG because they were smart about their designs and didn't overextend themselves, and I love how the FMV being (mostly) confined to little windows in glitchy magic books masks the low quality. Aside from the terrible hotspot navigation, it actually stands up and is fairly playable today. But, to stoke a very pointless old rivalry, it's no THE 7TH GUEST.