I bought Myst V last fall when it was released and never really got into it. I installed it again last night for shits and giggles and ended up beating the game. Completing it has left me with a mixed bag of emotions.

I received the original Myst as a birthday present in 1993. It had made all the headlines and magazines and my dad thought I’d like it. He was right. Not only did I like it, I couldn’t get enough of it. Before Myst, I owned only two games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom II. Although the graphics for those games were good back in ‘93, Myst’s were so believable that they were unbelievable. Plus, this game required some skill in puzzle solving, a nice break from the mindless shooting action of Doom and Wolfenstein.

When Riven, the sequel to Myst, was released in 1997, I was ecstatic. The graphics were even better and the story was much improved over the original. A novel, Myst: the Book of Atrus, was released between games and was more or less a prequel to the events of Riven. Since I had read the book, I enjoyed the sequel to Myst even more. Myst and Riven had depth and characters that I cared about. It wasn’t enough for me to know what was happening, I wanted to know why it was happening. I found myself caring for these fictitious game characters as much as I would for actors in a really good movie.

Sadly, I think the pinnacle of the Myst franchise was Riven. Myst III: Exile was released around 2001 and had little to do with the original series. While the technical improvements of the game were welcomed, the graphics were not better than its predecessor and the story was lame. It felt like a stale spin-off rather than a true sequel.

Enter Myst IV: Revelation. Myst IV attempted to revisit the roots of the original Myst series, and expanded upon the story of Sirrus and Achenar, the two “villains” from the original Myst game. Myst IV: Revelation was only a revelation in that it made me realize I no longer cared about the Myst games. All the Myst games were like slideshows, in that they featured pre-rendered graphics at the expense of being able to play the game in real time (like Quake or Unreal). This wasn’t so bad in the mid 90’s, when computers could hardly run the “graphic intense” games like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, but Myst IV was released in 2004. Technology had caught up with Myst, but still Myst IV was a slideshow-like game. It also had the most annoying puzzles and the most shameful acting of the series. So annoying were the puzzles, in fact, that I never finished the game.

Myst V was finally released last fall and was, for the first time, a true Myst sequel that utilized a 3D engine and ran in real time. (Myst purists would argue that Real Myst and URU: Ages Beyond Myst were the first real Myst games to run in 3D, but Real Myst was nothing more than a remake of the 1993 original and URU was a failed, online gaming spin-off and had little, if anything, to do with the original characters.) While the graphics for Myst V were good, the story was, once again, abysmal. The central “plot” of the story isn’t really explained in detail, and I didn’t really care one way or another about the two central characters.

There are four possible endings for Myst V, two of which allow the player to return to the original Myst island. I saved my game and went, just to see what it was like. Besides, I hadn’t “seen” it since 1993. Myst island was my favorite part of the original game, and I did want to see how it looked in real time.

I arrived on Myst island in the location as I had back in 1993. But the experience wasn’t the same for me as it was then. In ‘93, Myst had a bright sky, birds chirping, and looked and sounded like a happy place to visit. This was the same island alright, but it had lost its innocence. Here, before my eyes, was Myst island with heavy rain, lightning, and dark black skies. The grass was overgrown and the trees all looked dead. All the magnificent machines and enigmatic landmarks stood desolate and destroyed.

I understand that, for the plot of Myst V to work, none of the original items on Myst island could function as they once had. It would give the player a means to escape the ending of Myst V altogether, and you just can’t do that in a game. But the Myst island I saw before me looked more like a rape victim that had been used and left to die. The sinister weather and melancholy appearance of Myst felt like a metaphor for the series. Once the bestselling game series of all time, Myst had now been reduced to this. Like the series itself, Myst island was abandoned and forgotten.

I suppose I’m getting too emotional over a simple game, but Myst really had an impact on my life. I own all the Myst novels, I have an autographed copy of From Myst to Riven (signed by all the creators of Myst and Riven), and I was, once upon a time, a very active participant in the fan community.

But that was a past life and a long time ago…

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 23rd, 2006 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Games, Nostalgia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.