I'll start by saying that I recently played Myst and then Riven, both of which I had played back when they originally came out. I absolutely loved playing Riven--it affirmed all my positive memories. Not so much with Myst. A couple reasons: 1. The graphics: I'm not a graphics snob, and enjoy plenty of old games--the problem is that the graphics make some of the puzzles frustrating--more than once I had to look up hints only to realize I was stuck because I didn't realize a brown line was actually a lever or something like that. 2. The puzzles: again, I loved Riven and was able to complete that entire game without any help, so it's not that I'm bad at puzzle games. But I found that Myst puzzles too often required you to make assumptions or know just where/how to click an object--in other words, not all the puzzles could be solved by logic alone. 3. Navigation: Related to the graphics, is that I often found it hard to know if I had successfully traversed all of a given area--not sure how to quite describe it, but I at times found myself unintentionally going in circles. Despite those three points, I enjoyed it enough to finish it, and I got some nostalgia value from it. In brief, while I don't regret buying it on sale, it doesn't hold up compared to Riven.
I played this as a kid when it came out and have fond memories of it. Riven was a joy to replay, and has held up wonderfully--unlike Myst, which I also recently replayed. Totally immersive, with logical puzzles--and that for me is key--yes, some of the puzzles are a challenge, but you can figure everything out just by carefully observing and thinking--while there are a few instances where you need to click the right spot, you're never pixel-hunting and any required backtracking is logical. Not any replay value, but still five stars.
