Posted on: July 13, 2024
nubbins
Verified ownerGames: 279 Reviews: 3
A fresh spin on the classic OG
I came to this sceptical. Riven is a deep, engrained part of my childhood. I see Myst, I buy Myst, but I wasn't sure what I was going to get. I went in with VR, having enjoyed Myst VR but not being shocked by it. Riven VR, I was shocked by. If nothing else, thank you Cyan for the chance to walk into the scarab room on Temple Island in VR with Robyn's unmistakable soundtrack chiming in. I actually cried. For those who don't have some primordial semi-traumatic connection to this game, the elevator pitch; this is a sequel to Myst, but you can kind of come in without playing Myst because of Riven's raison d'etre - tactile, world-contextualised puzzling. This is video game a la mise en scène. This world is not made for you, you happen to just be here and be thrust into an important role. It's ok to not have any idea of what anything is, the game is to discern this world, what came before you, and what makes things tick. And most especially, why. Part of the fun is sniffing all that out. This is what Cyan are good at. The visuals are in every respect as striking if not more so than the original (the sole exception being the golden elevator on Survey which in the original is so obscenely ostentatious it can only have been Gehn's invention). The tweaks to the puzzles are welcome and appropriate for modern audiences, (although I miss detailed topographic elements to the Big Golden Puzzle, has Google Earth not taught us we can do coordinate hunting without greyscale?), enough to give this old Rivener pause for thought in places,, while still giving succour in my old age; I still find in this game my old friend. VR players, however, may find isolated instances of pixel hunting, and a metric poop tonne of ladder climbing a little extra. Highlights and a turbo button would be welcome. Still, this is an augmented nostalgia bomb for veterans and a taut excercise in worldbuilding and contextualised puzzle solving for newcomers, that cannot be Myst. Missed. You know what I mean.
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