Behold, my 1500th video game! This special occasion warrants nothing less than a super special review. So, what did I think? Well first, some backstory.

This past year or 2, I've been obsessed with playing games that are considered foundational. Sometimes, I don't enjoy them but I'm still glad I played them for the historical value alone which has been the case for games such as Colossal Cave Adventure, Mystery House, or Portopia. Other times, I find some of my unexpected favourite games that are actually very fun such as Wizardry, Fantasy Zone, or... oh yeah, another game by Myst's developers called The Manhole!

When I played The Manhole and its 3D remake last year, I was very captivated! These are 2 games where there is no real objective but to take in the scenery. Just explore and find hilarious imagery while listening to wacky characters. No win condition, no lose condition, no timer, no stress. In a way, this is a really avant garde method of showing that video games are more than their title suggests. That being, they aren't just "games" played for the sake of winning but perhaps important pieces of art.

With how hyped up Myst has been over the years, I decided I would make it my 1500th game on Backloggd (Jesus I've been on this site for years) knowing that it would be something special and, well....

Look. I immensely respect what Myst is going for. I really love how inspired it is, and I am sure the pre-rendered graphics were mindblowing to 1993 audiences. It's neat how several of my beloved games such as Drowned God were blatantly inspired by it, and it's arguably the most important game in the last 30 or so years due to how it was the big boom for PC gaming the world needed.

Yet, I can't feel passionately about it the way I can with The Manhole or Wizardry or even the likes of Colossal Cave Adventure. It is hard for me to be captivated by Myst's legacy when many point and click/adventure games predate it and, in my opinion, have far better QOL, gameplay, and storytelling.

As far as point and click games from before 1993 go, I have a lot of favourites. Uninvited felt like a very kinetic and replayable game with a unique horror feel. Monkey Island 1-2 are still some of the most entertaining and hilarious games I've experienced, boasting incredible artstyles and early popularization of dynamic music. The Manhole, again, was one of the very first entertainment CD-roms and it's still rather fun. Alter Ego having barely any pictures and still being one of the most engaging, deeply written games I've experienced. Hell, when looking at niche Japanese games I'm impressed at how Cosmology of Kyoto, Otogirisou, or Ihatovo Monogatari managed to breathe new life into the game medium as a whole, displaying such artistry that even the likes of Roger Ebert were impressed.

All this is to say that I don't understand at all why Myst is often defended on the basis of "well it's a 30 year old game" especially when other point-and-clicks like Monkey Island before it are still popular today. Hell, Monkey Island is probably much more fun to revisit for the average player. Monkey Island doesn't receive memes like this, at least certainly not with any frequency https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E9tXrGBWYAYBtfc.png

When trying to wrap my head around what made Myst so popular beyond the graphics, I looked at the development history behind the game and found this https://youtu.be/EWX5B6cD4_4

Myst was meant to give players a bang for their buck, resulting in a design based around "brute force" real estate to explore. With no win or lose conditions, the player could feasibly spend weeks if not months on the game. And it doesn't stop there, there is what seems to be a deliberate lack of QOL.

I found myself constantly frustrated by Myst. The save feature restarts the player at the beginning of the area rather than saving their progress, contrary to other even older adventure games. Batteries near the dock drain rather fast and need to be constantly recharged. Activating the large tree elevator is an annoying process. The main character is too much of a moron to carry two pages at a time, so if the player wants to experience every FMV they are forced to go through the same area twice, some of which can be rather confusing to navigate. The sound puzzles where the player must match 5 different sound effects in a row with very large margin of error might as well just say "fuck the deaf and the tone deaf players" good lord. I personally felt the pace broken when 10 minutes into the game I was compelled to read 4 mini-novels in a row. And perhaps most importantly, I had trouble making out a single full sentence in the red and blue books due to the overloaded static noises in the cutscenes.

Are there things I appreciate about Myst? Sure! This is far from a game without merit. The minimalist presentation is rather beautiful, with the pre-rendered images and FMVs still holding their own against photorealistic graphics from far stronger hardware. The atmosphere can be rather immersive a lot of the time, with the sound effects being very convincing for every action in the game. I rec listening to this part of the Ars Technica documentary, since it explains things better than I could https://youtu.be/EWX5B6cD4_4?t=860

It's truly a technical engineering feat. Also, after the player obtains the true ending, they are allowed to just explore the island. It really gives me the impression their earlier work on The Manhole helped shape some decisions in this game, and that's just lovely.

Well, that's Myst. It's a technically impressive game, but far from a fun one in my opinion. It was only while writing this review that, perhaps, it hit me.

Everybody has their own unique perspective and experiences that shapes them into the EPIC GAMER they are today. I saved Myst for a rainy day, subconsciously putting it on a pedestal in my head. Most of the people who told me how much they loved Myst mentioned it being a formative artistic experience for them. Could it be because I had the liberty of playing so many untranslated JP adventure games, more modern adventure games, and so forth before Myst, its impact was lost on me?

1500 games is a lot of fucking games. There is an alternate universe out there where I was fascinated by Myst and fell in love with it, rather than found it frustrating in my mid 20s. In fact, this is what one of the developers theorized; only maybe half of players even left the first island. Yet, so many young players who discovered the game left with quite an impression, that they played something which resonated with them FOR the unfamiliar mystique, rather than despite it https://youtu.be/EWX5B6cD4_4?t=1070

When I started typing this review, I wasn't sure if I was happy I played Myst. Yet now, I feel confident I am happy it was my 1500th game. It was not a waste of time, but a good reminder of how games are more than what I play. They are artistic statements, impressive feats of software development, and parts of our culture. The cynic in me can say Myst is a subpar adventure game that only had any success due to the photorealistic graphics. Yet, I'm more inclined to ask one thing:

Is there any game which better embodies the culture of early PC gaming and the appeal of pre-rendered graphics?

God, I fucking love video games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e49OXXBX3Ko

If you want to talk to me about games, I consider playing all the way through Myst to be the bare minimum requirement for us to even begin to be speaking on the same wavelengths. It's the first puzzle on my mysterious island of intricate riddles.

It's very rare in games for the first pioneer at the gate to truly nail it in one go, but Myst blew everyone's balls off in '93 for the same reason it still blows peoples' balls off today and has like 35 new variants that all just change the way you walk around the worlds, because the worlds themselves are an absolute masterclass in puzzle and level design and artistry.

There's really nothing I can say about Myst as a review that hasn't been said a thousand times before, it is such a fundamental piece of my gaming thought process that even the things I could say are things that would simply emerge in my thoughts about nearly every other game I talk about. It still holds up to this day and, again, has been remastered and remade in so many formats, including ones that just have a big huge "HINT" button to let you beat Myst the same way you beat the Hardest computer at Chess, so there's no excuse to skip on it.

Also don't give those fucking guys any of the pages. Come on.

US Saturn Release #008 - Myst

Played on a real American Sega Saturn with the Fenrir ODE

Myst knows how to truly immerse you quickly and efficiently. Even if you have a hard time getting into the puzzles and the general game loop, I think you'll appreciate how it feels.

On those puzzles though, they really vary in fun factor. Some of them are really easy, some are tricky nut actually fun to do and make you feel smart for accomplishing, and others make you drag out the ol' notebook. That's not necessarily bad but I wasn't exactly expecting it so I wasn't too happy about it.

This is a game you really need to play with the shuttle mouse (or on emulator with your regular PC mouse). Playing with the controller is just kind of slow and annoying for the most part, really draggin stuff out making you not want to go through some puzzles the intended way just due to how much playing with controller tanks it.

So I guess overall, Myst is an ok game for the Saturn, though, I don't really know why you would play this on Saturn and not on PC.

6/10

Myst is an interesting cultural object that might be a little odd to visit for the first time today. My experience with it was quite positive given the intervening time, despite occasional frustrations.

I think the most striking thing about Myst today is the effectiveness of its pacing and world design. While the actual acting performances are over-the-top, the mechanism of gating the worlds behind journals and puzzles develops an excellent sense of mystery and curiosity.

Reading the journals for the various ages to which you can travel instills a sense of familiarity and anticipation to actually traveling to them. Arriving at an age was exciting, because it meant seeing something in person that you'd only read about, but also an encouraging sense of understanding as you recognize details based on what you've read.

There are a few occasions where it's near impossible to see a particular detail that you must interact with, or to find a path you can travel down in order to get where you need to go. I definitely encourage players to seek out clues or solutions online if they're stuck (I certainly had to a few times). Besides a few of these (probably unintentional) cheap shots, the widely available Masterpiece edition is very playable and very engaging for a sufficiently patient modern player.