As we play offers the thought strands of the reviewer as they’re going through the game. This offers unique content for the reader so they can come to understand the conflicting feelings of the reviewer as they’re playing a game for the very first time. All feedback on this concept is welcome.
Myst is a series with a very odd history behind it: both hailed for being a masterpiece of adventure gaming thanks to immersive graphics and plot, while at the same time derided, by some, as the beginning of the end of the traditional adventure games for its lack of inventory management and puzzle-difficulty. Originally released in 1993, Myst had you exploring a strange world, solving puzzles and attempting to make sense of why you were there and what secrets each area held. Upon release it was a hit, managing record sales for PC gaming, a feat that would only be broken when ‘The Sims’ got its release in 2000. Naturally it spawned loads of ‘Myst Clones’, first-person adventures that threw you into confusing and odd locations. Its success also paved the way for a whole host of sequels, spinoffs and remakes. Oh, and there was also a parody version called ‘Pyst’, which is about as childish as you can probably guess.
Now we get realMyst: Masterpiece edition, released to celebrate the ’20th Anniversary’ of the original game. Every location has been remade under the UNITY game engine with an emphasis on faithfulness to the original and remastered graphics in place. On launching the game, however, disappointment sets in almost immediately. As soon as the music and sounds start, it becomes clear that everything audio-wise has just been ripped directly from realMyst and into this new version. There has been no extra recording in any way. While this isn’t exactly a terrible thing, it isn’t exactly encouraging to anyone who has already played any of the previous versions, such as myself.
Unfortunately, things don’t get any better when I begin the game. You’re offered a choice of movement styles: either the classic movement style, clicking to move to wherever you want, or the ‘realMyst’ movement style, controlling movement via the arrow/WASD keys while looking around with the mouse. With the ‘realMyst’ movement option selected, simply looking around turns into a task in of itself. Often the camera spins around, then stops and stalls at random points. I quickly felt ill just trying to walk around the first area of the game with the large amount of stop, start and stutter.
The mouselook itself isn’t the main issue, however. A bigger issue comes into play with the large amount of invisible walls present, blocking off areas and spots around the game. In addition, when using the mouselook, it isn’t always very apparent where you have to stand in order to use items. For example, near the beginning of the game, when trying to use switches on the main island. it turned out to be a bigger chore than was necessary, with switches not responding at times, even when stood right up close to them.
After an hour of mouselook, I turned it off and went back to classic movement. Much better. Now I’m moving the mouse around and clicking where I want to look and go. But sadly it was the change in control scheme that allowed me to focus and see the graphics for what they really were. Textures often appear ugly: looking blurry and misshapen with plenty of areas where the textiles don’t match up properly. In-game modelling is also an issue with plenty of blocky and jagged edges everywhere.If I didn’t know better, I would actually suggest that the previous remake, realMyst, had better graphics and more attention to detail. In fact, I would dare to suggest the original game actually beats this remake detail-wise, something easily tested with the game’s ‘Lookback’ feature. Hit the shift key at any point, and it shows exactly what you are looking at as if you were playing the original game.
And that is where the real issue lies, this whole ‘remake’ feels completely unnecessary. Fast-forward a few hours of me playing, getting more than half-way through the game and every puzzle is the same, every solution is identical. Nothing has been given a proper update. The puzzles still range from confusing to obscure, the sound barely seems to have benefitted from any sort of upgrade, and the cut-scenes are about the same with none of the live action elements changed or updated either. Cyan have added no new content, no galleries, no developer commentaries, soundtracks or anything to really showcase or make this a worthwhile buy for fans of the game.
Areas for Development
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Textures are broken, blurry or out of place
- Low-FOV causes issues during ‘realMyst’ movement
- No new content
Final Analysis
I cannot recommend this title, unfortunately. Newcomers to this game would be better served buying realMyst or Myst: Masterpiece Edition for just a fraction of the price. Meanwhile. for those of us who have played through Myst before, there is nothing to make the purchase worthwhile, thanks to a lack of new content.
Technical Competency – 4/10
Graphic/Sound Quality – 4/10
Network Stability – N/A
Overall – 4/10
(These grades assess our playthrough, taking into consideration how many (if any) bugs were encountered, whether there were any interruptions in gameplay and the product’s final technical state. These scores, coupled with the Final Analysis and Areas for Development, are suggestions for future patches and updates which the developers could (and in our opinion, should) explore. These scores are separate to our DLC/Expansion Reviews but link into our Patch/Firmware Reviews.)
(These scores are not designed as a grading system to determine the entertainment value of a product and should not be treated as such..)
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