[May contain spoilers] Yes, it’s far too late for a review of Myst IV: Revelations given the fact that Myst V is already available, but I just finished playing it. Or rather I’m about to finish it (the last puzzle still waits to be solved).

While Myst IV still is one of the best adventure games around and is altogether an enjoyable play, it misses some of the qualities its predecessors had.

On the surface, the different worlds are as beautiful and as interesting as before, but beneath the surface I feel that they haven’t been thought out as detailed as they were before. This mostly presents itself in the puzzles: It is much less important to watch the world und understand its basic principles it’s built on, but instead it’s perfectly okay to run around for the clues scattered throughout the worlds to solve the puzzles.

In most of these puzzles, you are presented with a machine that needs some sort of code, no matter in what world you currently are. (And the fact that the machines in Haven are built of wood doesn’t change that …).

In Myst 3, you had to understand the basic, underlying principles of each world to solve the puzzles – there were no machines in Edanna, the jungle island, while there were plenty of them in Amateria, a world that sparked of electricity in the air. In the original Myst, you had to understand the theme of each world to be successful, in Riven, there were the clues embedded in the landscape and the ‘religion’ of the place.

Such an understanding of a place isn’t necessary anymore. In fact, the puzzle machines seem often alien in their world – take, for example, the bathyscaph in Serenia. To me, this massive piece of metal looks strange in a world of floating rocks in mid-air and crossing streams of water – where, obviously, natural laws have no effect. Surely it should be possible to harvest the spheres of memory with some other, more mystical method?

Serenia is, to a certain degree, even more flawed. It is the world with probably the most human ‘interaction’ ever in the series. While this obviously is necessary to advance the plot and guide the player, the characters presented are merely sketched and appear weak and feeble. They dream, they have the gift of prophecy, but they don’t seem to realise that Achenar and Sirrus have entered the world and are up to no good. The plot never shows any resistance from the part of those women, which, on one hand, doesn’t really hasten the pace and the tension of the game and on the other hand makes the player feel rather stupid – why can’t they try for themselves first and then, after having failed, ask the ‘hero’? In my opinion, one could have done more with the given plot.

Regarding the plot, it is also pity to see that now, in the end, we land again at the point where one brother is simply more evil than the other and has to be destroyed. Much of the fascination of the original Myst was, in my opinion, that you seemingly had to decide which brother was good and which one was evil – to realise in the end that both were barking mad. This fact is now pretty much ruined. But, of course, gives you a nice, Hollywood-style happy ending.

So, what’s left? I feel that some of the spirit that was a trademark of the earlier games is no longer there, but the different worlds are still hauntingly beautiful, and together with the music create an atmosphere that is scarcely found in other games (there are others, thou, like American McGee’s Alice). 3 out of 5, shall we say?

Tagsoup: Game, MystIV