Figured I’d post this. I’m guessing that many of you have already used the site, but this is the first place I turned in order to get help though Riven.
I helps without holding your hand too much, perfect for a puzzle game like Myst.
Unfortunately Riven was so serpentine that even the hints only got me past each puzzle but weren’t of much help in solving the big marble puzzle and understanding it’s implications. I eventually had to resort to the walkthrough.
My keyboard at home.
I agree that the idea was a cool concept. The thing that bugged me was the real-time aspect made execution very difficult.
Which is even more baffling since you never use your keyboard in Myst or Riven, it’s 100% point and click.
I would definitely second this. Riven was just so arcanely impenetrable that I didn’t enjoy it at all. It also had that terrible press button at this end of island, pipe moves at other end of island mechanic. Whilst some people here really liked the openness of the environment I found it a big turn off - in the other games the self-contained nature of the ages means that you at least get some sense of your actions having consequences on things around you.
I made very little progress in the game and worse had no sense of how I was doing as I progressed - at no point was it even clear what I was trying to achieve!
I would like this comment stricken from the record! 
Exile is my favourite of the series for three reasons.
First it had a great storyline - even if you weren’t that familiar with what had happened in the previous two games you got drawn into what was happening, and at the very least there was a plot and reason for doing everything you were doing. Of course if you were familiar with the backstory it was even better. Brad Dourif completely owned the role and really brought the game alive. You had to have a heart of stone to not be moved when the ice melted and he got to go back to his family on Naryan.
Second the puzzles actually made sense! I understood what I was supposed to do and why, rather than just randomly moving things around because I could! You actually did get a sense that the ages were teaching you something through the environments, especially the age focused on forces and motion (got to love that ball ride at the end of it). Even more importantly (for my own sense of pride, you understand) I was able to complete the game without resorting to a walkthrough!!!
Third - the music! I ended up buying the collector’s edition of Myst 3 and I’m so glad I did as the soundtrack came on a separate CD and it was well worth it. Track 16, the opening track to Voltaic, is one of my favourite pieces of music. The title sequence isn’t bad either.
I liked Myst 4 less so, although I LOVED the opening title and premise of the story. I was sooooooooo keen to see what trouble Sirius had wrought. Unfortunately I found the puzzles too hard (again it suffered from “I didn’t know that was relevant”-itus) and didn’t want to have to play it with a walkthrough in front of me. I’ve not picked up Myst 5 but probably should at some point as I hear it’s good.
Here are my mini-reviews:
Myst: Brilliant, especially when you play RealMyst. Absolutely brilliant.
Riven: The hardest “Myst” game. Better than the original Myst and worth playing for any adventurer.
Myst III: Very, very good, but not as good as Riven.
Myst IV: The best game in the series. The story is intriguing. The worlds are excellent, and the puzzles make sense and are original. I also loved learning to “speak monkey”.
Myst V: A big let-down. Very, very, very, short. A weak story. Some OK puzzles, but not excellent. The whole “write instruction on the pad” thing was way underused. Some good ideas, but overall very weak.
Never mind, it’s not worth explaining.
Oh, heck yeah. First time I played that game, I tried to solve that puzzle with a trackpad. I dug out the USB mouse in short order.
(Aside from that, Revelations was probably my favourite of the series as well.)
Emphasis mine.
That was what I hated most about Myst IV. One of favorite aspects of the rest of the Myst games was that everything was largely based on a kind of technology. Somewhat fantastic and otherworldly technology in many cases, but hard and concrete cause-and-effect nonetheless. Myst IV plunged straight into magic and spirits and whatnot, and that really took me out of the game. And, though I don’t dislike Peter Gabriel, I felt that sitting through that damn song sequence was unnecessary and tortuous. Ambient music is great, but that whole sequence again pulled me out of the game. It simply didn’t belong. I play the Myst games to immerse myself in pseudo-alien environments, manipulating things and solving puzzles. Not to call forth spirits and listen to songs that don’t have a place within the game world.
that’s my two cents, anyway.
I think he meant a piano keyboard, which is one way to go about solving the things.
You got it. Now that I come back and read your reply. I get that somebody thought I meant computer keyboard. :smack: I meant musical keyboard.
Agreement…on Riven. There are people in this world who agree with me on that ridiculous game.
I think I’m gonna like this board!
Illuminatiprimus - Fine, whatever you say. Where I come from, step 2 is designing the steps for the puzzle, step 1 is making the puzzle coherent. A whole bunch of random poles scattered at various points on a big rock doesn’t give me anything. Other than motion sickness, which is an automatic thumbs-way-down for me.
Look, honestly, I think way too much has been made of the whole philosophy of this kind of game and what it’s supposed to be about and the “true nature” or whatever of these worlds. Myst worked precisely because there was no background whatsoever; you were thrust headlong into a strange world and had to figure out, piece by piece, what the heck this place was and what you’re supposed to do in it. That’s what made it great. Discovery. Wonder. Making things work. A story that unfolded page by page. Beauty. Accomplishment. Riven killed it dead, presenting one back-breaking task after another, culminating in one of the most outrageous puzzles I’ve seen on any platform in my life. Did I properly stress how horrific the marble board was? There are some things in game design that should be an automatic no, period, and anyone with five brain cells should be able to place a board with 625 spaces and 6 objects (one of which is a dummy) squarely in that category.
Where’s the joy of discovery? Where are the peridoic little rewards to keep you motivated? How the hell did this franchise become work so quickly? (And a ton of work, to boot.)
One reason they were popular is they pushed the limit on what the hardware could do, and presented beautiful graphics and sound. Many people didn’t have internet and the ones that did had slow modem connections. I liked other ones too. Did anybody play Oblivion, Lighthouse, Journeyman Project, or 7th Guest?
V, as I mentioned, was initially hard for me to get into. My biggest hang up was probably the 3D environment. I’m rather partial to the pre-rendered graphics that tend to get mocked so mercilessly by non-adventure fans. But when I really gave it a chance, I found it to be pretty rewarding. David Ogden Stiers voices the main character, which to me is always a big plus. It also had a fairly interesting story, though it (IMO) only had a tenuous connection to the rest of the Myst universe. There’s no Atrus or Catherine, no Achenar or Sirrus - but there is Yeesha (who, for completely irrational reasons, drives me nuts).
The puzzles were pretty good, but as someone else mentioned, the game was really short. Just when I was really getting into it, everything was done. I’m used to taking several days to a couple of weeks to really get through a Myst game; I think I finished V in a day and a half.
He means that Riven doesn’t have a musical puzzle like that, nor does Exile. You must mean Myst, it is the only one which takes notes played on a keyboard, (There is a piano in the rocket ship too, and you can go back and forth between them to compare the sounds if you need to.) then you must move toggles to the proper spots to make the same notes for the sequence in order to obtain the linking book. Indistinguishable and Omniscient are correct.
You have forgotten, or never knew the pain of solving the water pipe puzzle on a crappy monitor. And you have forgotten the “fishlooking/yellow submarine” rail car puzzle also. Not to mention the final puzzle you must enter in order to get to the Green book, taken from a book with hundreds and hundreds of patterns.
I seem to remember the puzzle with the “flower car” having to do with matching musical notes, no? It’s not a musical puzzle per se, but it does involve hearing, recognizing and reproducing a specific tone.
I couldn’t solve Riven without an eventual walkthrough, but I still love it for the environment it created. It was a hell of a beautiful game.
The thing is, yes, it’s hard, and yes, some of the puzzles are seemingly unocnnected, but the game expects you to keep a log. So did Myst. There’s no way you were going to have much success getting past the grand, overarching puzzles without writing things down in a notebook and then seeing how it all connected up.
The one major puzzle I did solve on my own, thankyouverymuch, was the number system, and I was damned proud of myself for doing that by myself. A little like comparative analysis in linguistics, really.
He spoke about setting the controls to the correct configuration though. That speaks more of the “rocket ship” puzzle to my mind.
Exactly! That is what I meant with my archeology reference. Archeologists take notes to help them make sense of things.