realMyst: Masterpiece Edition

It's Myst. One of, if not the, greatest old school adventure game of all time. Challenging yet truly logical puzzles (no "use the banana on the goat's left front knee to open the window" bollocks) and an engaging story told through carefully crafted environments with cutscenes and dialogue kept to an absolute minimum. So why is this not worth your money? Because this is a rather overpriced remake of a remake that has no business existing. Specifically, it's a remake of Real Myst, which itself a much better remake of the original Myst. While Real Myst introduced free movement to the series, a change that greatly improved the overall experience (navigation in the original Myst was a royal pain in the bottom), Real Myst: Masterpiece adds nothing beyond flashier graphics, all for three times the price. There's just no reason to buy this version of Myst. Unless you think high res textures and fancier lighting slapped onto the original low polygon models is worth the extra $12, you're better off with Real Myst.

Unfortunately rM:ME's graphical overhaul is not an improvement, even over its predecessor. This is *far* from the photo-realistic quality visuals this remake should have presented. In fact, the environments seem even more fake. The vegetation, specifically, being the most obvious overhaul just stands out as jarringly *un*realistic. The appearance is just too far removed from the original presentation. Environments look plastic and the lighting doesn't add any finesse. For all its lower poly's and texture quality and pudding water, realMyst's presentation is superior. Mechanically, rM:ME doesn't add anything new or useful over its predecessor other than an additional time cycle and weather effects in certain levels. No new surprises. The flashlight is completely unnecessary. The real time movement controls have also been bungled up. Very imprecise and spastic. Why realMyst's mouselook needed to be changed is beyond me. The view no longer centers on the cursor, so you can only pan by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen. Still a good game. Still works. Inferior to realMyst. I expect better out of rM:ME to justify its existence.

So, I first played this on the default (even set to adapt to my system) settings and agreed with others here that it wasn't worth the price. But then I upped everything to maximum settings and completely changed my mind. It's *not* about flashy graphics and high poly counts. Rather, at the maximum settings much of the game looks like those over-rendered smooth pre-rendered graphics of 1992. Many 'shots' look very much like 1080p versions of those same classic elements from the original. Obviously, rendering in real time at 60fps what might have taken a day to render a frame of in 1992. The previous realmyst was great for moving things into a real time rendered environment, but it didn't evoke the same classical feel. By no means does the latest version of the game try to look realistic. And that's a fantastic thing! It looks almost like you're stepping through the original models and textures Cyan Inc had back in the day, anachronistically in high definition. Other things: I've only played with the classic settings, as I don't much enjoy the free roaming. Controls mostly work smoothly. Sometimes switches and dials get stuck in a 'grab' or 'pressed' state and you need to click to the side, making the player step back. Audio is in decent shape, but has not been remastered and overhauled as the video has. It is at times very rough. Had a few glitches in the Selenetic 'mine car' puzzle where scrambled audio played. Would have been quite problematic if it weren't for that little red button... Definitely check this one out! It doesn't replace Masterpiece, but I think it certainly is a step up from Real Myst, the first. It might not be worth the full $18 if you already have a version of Myst you're satisfied with, but it goes on sale for $12 from time to time.

I would like to just give a quick recommendation right away to anyone who hasn't played any of the previous versions of Myst before. For you newer players who think that the premise of Myst sounds amazing, go right ahead and purchase RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition, because this is probably the best way to play the game... Because you can get it to work by just installing the game. It's not that I particularly love RealMyst or this particular Masterpiece Edition over the original Myst: Masterpiece Edition (Confusing, I know), it's just that the older versions of the games can be hard to run, even if you purchase them from GoG.com. The old Quicktime can have some trouble running on newer operating systems, like Windows 10 (which is what I tried, without any luck) and Windows 8.1. Anyway, what about the real question? How's RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition for anyone who has played Myst before? Well, I'd say that if you have played Myst: Masterpiece Edition before, you should probably give RealMyst a try. The fully 3D environments haven't aged all-too gracefully, but they are by no means ugly. Experiencing the original adventure in 3D, alongside small additions and better audio quality, as well as an optional free-roaming mode is worth the price if you are a die-hard Myst fan like I am. If you have played realMyst before, though... There's no reason to go out and play this one. Unfortunately, this is the same realMyst from what I can tell, with higher resolutions and some updated textures (again, from what I can tell), but nothing that will make you feel like this isn't just a HD-er version of realMyst. There are performance issues at parts, so it isn't even a flawless version of realMyst... It's just a re-release with updated stuff. I think the Rime age was part of the original realMyst too, so there's no significant bonus features to this game. In Summary, it's definitely not an awful version of realMyst, but if you played it before, you don't have to play it again.