Myst: Masterpiece Edition Review

Myst is a name I’ve heard a lot but never actually got around to playing. Until now, that is. As I’ve heard, it’s something of a landmark in adventure games, bringing a new and much calmer atmosphere removed from gag-filled action or the fear of death around every corner. Myst is a game where you make logical connections instead of trying every item on every item, a game where clicking blindly is not a real possibility.

In short, good adventure game for me. I’ve played the click everything with everything games a little too much. Myst kind of came up in my head when I remembered the Old Man Murray post talking about the death of adventure games. If you don’t know Old Man Murray are, they’re two morons who later did mediocre writing work at Valve and now think being funny should be illegal, so don’t worry too much about them.

But their post about adventure games is one that gets shared around a lot, namely from people who are tired of adventure game moon logic. I’ve later heard it’s meant to be seen as a defense of Myst against the typical videogame journalist slander, and I can see where that comes from. You really couldn’t get more separate from Gabriel Knight 3 than Myst.

Myst is one of those games that if you spoil it, you’re really fundamentally ruining the gameplay. So while I won’t be diving into spoilers on purpose really you should be going into this game as blind as possible.

Myst’s prelude is told to you in the manual that I didn’t read until after I was done with the game. Apparently, you find a book and it teleports you to Myst, and Myst is filled with Mysterys. An objective will become clear soon enough, but really at the start you’re left to wander and see what the world holds.

Boy does Myst have a beautiful and unique world. Even with its age Myst was incredibly pretty to look at. It’s got that pre-rendered ray traced crust on it, God bless it. Aside from the technical bugs that have sprouted up with time I don’t think anyone would say Myst has aged poorly, even considering graphical fidelity. It’s highly detailed and very creative in its design, I never felt for a moment that Myst merely existed as a series of videogame obstacles which is very important for immersion.

Myst is never unfair in its puzzle design, but it does make you take a lot of notes. Or, in my case, screenshots. It’s one of those games where the only thing you really keep in the end is knowledge, which means it makes for a very funny speedrun.

I will say that some of the Myst-ique kind of faded after I realized that it was pretty rigidly structured. Myst might seem like it’s incomprehensibly large at first, but once you start to get into the swing of things you’ll realize “oh, this is how the game is going to progress” and you’ll be in your videogame brain in no time.

I can’t really write much specific without spoiling, so I’ll say good game, do play. Three things I’ll mention though,

1. There was one point I had to use a walkthrough for. I misunderstood that one part had more interactivity than I originally thought and assumed it was bugged. You might come to the same conclusion if you’re as mentally deficient as I am.
2. There’s multiple endings but they’re not all worth the effort of seeing.
3. The game might crash at the very end and if it does you might have to start a new game like I did. How bad this is is up to you.

Happy Mysting!