MYST 3 was on sale for $4 at a store so I picked it up. It’s loaded and looks neat, but I wonder if I am missing something because it’s the 3rd in line. I’ve read the blip on the myst3.com site, but it’s mainly a byline.
So, what am I doing? Just meandering around and trying to find something? Is this a 1,2,3,4… type of progress, or can I jump all around (i.e. 1, 99, 15, 8, 56…)?
What are the ‘ages’ and ‘linking books’ all about?
Can I find a reader’s digest blip of the history of the first 2 games?
Totaly unknown person (actually, you, the player) lands in Myst after reading a weird book. You find there are two other people there - both of them trapped in books and claiming to be the good guy. One is a ridiculous fop and the other tactiurn and serious; they both want you to find all of their book’s pages and set them free.
You go around Myst, explore the other small worlds, accessable from Myst, and find all the pages. You also find pages to a third book.
At the end of the game:
Both of them were bad, evil men. Their father, Atrus, discovered some old books of D’ni and learned how to link worlds with them. He’s behind the third book. If you free either of the brothers, you get trapped in the book instead. IF you go to Atrus, who isn’t trapped but apparently wanted to lock that whole place away, he blasts both of his son’s books off the face of the earth.
Riven (Myst 2)
I don’t know. This one never made sense to me and I didn’t succeed in it. It was damned pretty, though.
“Game play” starts after an intro video in the Exile Age. You wander around, entering buildings and poking things until you find the means to get to another Age (a magic book). You’ll have to figure out how to make each Book work, then enter that Age. You’ll be in that Age until you find the Book to take you back and the means to make it work. Meanwhile, you’re being given pieces of a story that explains what the hell is supposed to be going on here.
Which is like describing Unreal Tournament as a game where you run around and try to see how many people you can shoot.
Personally, I liked the Myst series a great deal. There isn’t a lot of overt violence (the backstory on these games, however, is pretty nasty when you think about it), a lot of the mental work is figuring out puzzles to get things to work, and the sceanery is very pretty. There are some fanatics out there who foam at the mouth while insisting there are HUGE differences between the three games, often accusing folks of having “ruined” the concept, but although there have been some changes all three are more similar than not in most ways. (Myst II was my favorite)
You’ll want a link to a web-based hint site - unless you’re a big fan of these games with experience in the puzzle-solving you’ll probably need a few hints now and again to keep you from banging your head against the wall in frustration.
If you like Myst III you’ll probably like the other two. You would also probably like a little game called “The Neverhood”. Similar sort of game as far as puzzle-solving, very very different look (think claymation)
I may have missed some thread in the trilogy, but I don’t believe you need to know anything about Myst or Riven to play Exile.
In fact, as much as I like Billy from Cuckoo’s Nest, I found Exile’s character’s rantings really annoying, and skipped them completely without jeopardizing a good outcome.
Riven (Myst 2) is a world that is literally falling apart because Atrus’ father screwed it up. The natives - oppressed by the father dude - have a rebel faction that have learned the D’ni Book technology and are using it to escape their doomed world. They learned this from Atrus’ wife, who is a native of Riven. She’s imprisoned by her father-in-law - you are supposed to free her, get the natives to safety, and call Atrus to be reunited with his family. There are three possible endings, not all of them happy.
All of which is like describing a Tomb Raider game as “There’s this babe of an archeologist who travels all over the world, shoots people and stuff, and saves the world”
Either you like Myst or you don’t - but at $4, you have a cheap way to find out.
Pay attention to everything: what you see, what you hear, what you read. All the clues are there, you just have to piece them together.
Myst: Exile is possibly the best in that the puzzles, once you understand what you need to do, make sense afterward.
Whereas I found some of the puzzles in Myst: Riven to have a bit too much luck and wild stabs involved.
Push every button, explore every single nook and cranny, be very careful that you haven’t missed any side-path, make maps, draw symbols, keep notes…
And most importantly, try to ignore the horrible acting by Atrus, as the actor is actually Rand Miller, the co-creator of Myst, and not a very talented thespian at all. Especially compared to Brad Dourif as Saavedro.
Hint sites? OK, I’ll Google. But right now I’m just floundering around and don’t know what I am even looking for. I found my first puzzle- a ladder attached to a ramp with a barrel that I had to manuever out of the way - but once I did it (yea? pretty simple actually) I went to the door and found a hole…double yea? Moved my cursor all around, but couldn’t find anything else to do, so I must have jumped the gun and done it sooner than I should have, I guess. This is why I posted- I did something that has no point, so what am I missing?
I just finished Exile two days ago. I’ve completed Myst and Riven, and IMO, you don’t need to know anything about the other two games to complete this one.
I can’t think of a puzzle that it is possible to jump the gun on. It’s not a game like Zork (for example) that you can make a wrong choice and need to start all over. It’s possible to die late in the game, but there’s an option to continue the game even then, and still complete the game.
What I usually did when I became stumped, besides clicking the mouse more forcefully, was to think about what I would do if I were really in the game. Instead of thinking you did something that has no point, I’d try to concentrate on what the point was of why you were able to manipulate that particular thing. If there’s something you can interact with in Exile, it’s something you need to use to solve a puzzle. In Myst, there were things you could manipulate that didn’t really have a purpose except to look pretty, in Riven and Exile, there seemed to be a lesson in everything.
For hints, I found the best place is http://www.uhs-hints.com/uhsweb/myst3.php , it gives hints gradually, without necessarily spoiling the puzzle for you. Good luck.
I hated Myst, never tried Riven, and almost vomited playing realMYST. But Myst III: Exile is a good game. URU, the fourth game, is also good. I just finished the single player story for URU the other day. Both Exile and URU have puzzles that generally make sense (unless the first game).
I use www.gamefaqs.com for walkthroughs, but then again, I’m usually in a hurry to get through most adventure games and can’t take time to puzzle them out. Last night I was using a Babelfish-translated Russian gaming website because I was completely and totally stuck in this one game I’m playing. Talk about trying to figure out what’s going on.
I hated Myst, never tried Riven, and almost vomited playing realMYST. But Myst III: Exile is a good game. URU, the fourth game, is also good. I just finished the single player story for URU the other day. Both Exile and URU have puzzles that generally make sense (unless the first game).
I use www.gamefaqs.com for walkthroughs, but then again, I’m usually in a hurry to get through most adventure games and can’t take time to puzzle them out. UHS is great and only gives you the hints you need, while Gamefaqs has walkthroughs entirely written by fans and usually just spell out the solutions.
Last night I was using a Babelfish-translated Russian gaming website because I was completely and totally stuck in this one game I’m playing. Talk about trying to figure out what’s going on.
I found MystIII to be a lot easier than either of its predecessors. In fact, I beat it in just 3 or 4 days (technical problems notwithstanding…)
It’s a good game, and the puzzles definitely are intuitive. Like cichlidiot said, things make sense. Off the top of my head, I can’t really remember anything that was in there that didn’t have some kind of purpose.
You don’t need any real backstory to understand the plot, beyond what’s been mentioned already. Though if you can get your hands on the first two games, I highly recommend them (assuming you enjoy this game).
In my opinion, hints are a bad idea. I used some on the first game, and I feel forever cheated. I wish I could completely erase my memory of that game and play it over from scratch.
Not sooner than you should have. It doesn’t matter which order you achieve that in. It allows you to discover that chamber, which you can observe and take in, and soon enough you’ll figure out how to use it.
The biggest step is figuring out what those coloured lights scattered around the island do. Then you’ll be on your way.