Obduction ®

A clunky, boring, over-long, and frankly quite bad take on Riven. I am confused by how many fans of Cyan's previous games had a positive reaction to this one; It's a bizarrely bad interpretation of the originals where almost every single element of them is present and yet none of the magic or wonder is captured. This game spends the majority of it's time wallowing in undirected frustrations without providing the narrative or world believability that made the world a joy to inhabit in Cyan's previous games. The world is also needlessly scaled up to the point of wasting your time; 90% of my playtime was spent holding Shift + W. To test any theory or possible solution to a puzzle will most of the time require you to walk for multiple minutes before being able to actually interact with anything. I would not recommend this game even to die-hard fans of Myst and Riven.

exactly

It let me relive the feelings I had during playing Myst ...

Good

The more this game sits with me the more I realize it should be hailed as a brilliant masterpiece. Such intelligent game design on display, such masterful level design, unparalleled environmental story telling. This game carries on much of the design philosophies that made Riven special, and while that game basks in its "classic" status, I feel like Obduction might end up being forgotten, which it doesn't deserve. I honestly consider this an improvement over Riven, and the crowning achievement of Cyan.