All remakes are tough in a lot of ways, but remaking Riven has to be one of the toughest things you could ever do. A lot of the original's power and beauty was executed through the clever use of pre-rendered images and videos that allowed for Cyan to achieve the sorts of stunning environmental art that late 90s computers could not handle in real time, and that's without mentioning the heavy usage of live action footage for all the characters. With this in mind, if there is one thing that can be said about the march for more complicated and performance intensive graphics techniques, for all the problems they have caused in other games, is that we have reached the point where we can recreate the stunning landscape of Riven in real time at 4K, which i feel makes the whole thing worth it. The remake keeps the original music and most of the puzzles, though some have been simplified. In terms of keeping the spirit of the original, it is a massive triumph. I have a unique relationship with Riven and the Myst games in general. I was not born when Riven came out - i only played it a few year ago. I still enjoyed it greatly. Having now played this remake (and having not gone back to the original) I feel that both are on par with each other, but anyone who has played this amazing remake should absolutely give the original a shot if only to marvel at how far graphical technology has progressed.
