Riven: The Sequel to Myst

The Good
First, the generic graphics-and-sound review:

Riven, as is to be expected, featured stunning graphics and sound effects for its time. But even by today's standards, exploring the islands of Riven is still a very pleasant experience. For the most part, the video sequences integrate with the pre-rendered backgrounds nearly seamlessly, with only minimal choppiness. I have a few problems with the graphics, however, which I'll outline in the next section.

Alright. With that standard stuff out of the way, lemme tell you a story.

I first played Riven back in '97 or '98, around when it was released. The game world was a blast to explore, but I quickly became frustrated by all of the puzzles. Very few of them seemed to make any sense; they were even worse than Myst's arbitrary puzzles.

I solved a number of puzzles, but none of the "major" ones. I didn't even know where to begin figuring out the Fire Marble puzzle (which, in fact, I stumbled upon by accident long before I was supposed to), and I had no clue whatsoever about the wooden eyeballs.

I shelved the game in frustration. Many years passed, bringing us to present day.

A couple of weeks ago, I re-installed Riven. I wandered about exploring, as I did before, solving the occasional puzzle. Then I started finding things I must have overlooked before. A notebook here, some symbolic images there, and entire areas I've never explored before. Then, suddenly, everything clicked. Everything started to make sense!

So this time around, I took copious notes. If I saw something that looked like a symbolic image, I sketched it out, whereas before I just thought "Neat graphic!" and moved on. Being older and wiser now, I had realised that it probably took hours to painstakingly arrange and render each individual screen in the game; the developers wouldn't put more textured polygons in the camera's field of view if the object didn't mean something. Armed with this new perspective, I proceeded to look at my surroundings with a lot more care, and proceed to bulldoze my way through the game's puzzles, many of which I never grasped before. I then went on to complete the game in short order.

Lemme tell ya, as I walked up to the Fire Marble puzzle again, knowing precisely what to do this time, I had a great feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. BOOYAH!

The Bad
As you've gathered by now, the puzzles in this game are HARD, much more so than Myst, or Myst III. Single puzzles are sometimes spread out all over the landscape too, which makes things even more frustrating. Take the wooden-eyeball puzzle, for example: you'll see these things all over the place, but unless you look around them very, very carefully you'll never figure out what to do with them. I practically figured them out by accident, when I accidently turned around and saw... The Symbol. "Oh, hey, so that's how this works! Neat!"

Additionally, as I've mentioned earlier, while the video usually integrates well with the backgrounds, it fails spectacularly when there's any large animation going on. For example, a switch or a lever moving won't cause any noticeable display artifacts. But when you're riding around in the inter-island transport system, your screen will turn into a washed-out, pixellated mess. You can sortof tell where you're moving, but the quality goes way down. Still, this is a very minor part of the game, since you don't really see video sequences of that size very often.

And finally, puzzles and video aside, my biggest gripe with this game is:

Please insert disc 2. Please insert disc 1. Please insert disc 3. Please insert disc 2. Please insert disc 4. Please insert disc 3. Please insert disc 2.

The game ships on five CDs, one for each island in Riven. However, since you tend to move around from island to island, you end up swapping CDs fairly often. There is no way to install the entire game to your hard drive, either - it's explicitly designed to look for actual CDs. However, there is... or perhaps, there was a DVD-ROM version of this game. I'd recommend tracking it down instead of the CD version, if anyone wants to play this old game on a modern system.

The Bottom Line
This game requires an enormous amount of patience. The way the puzzles are structured, you don't just need to know how to put two and two together to get four -- you need the ability to put one and two and five and negative three and six together, and get eleven.

Along your journey, you'll need to learn an alien numbering system, an alien system of color representation, learn the meanings of sounds, and analytically observe everything you come across.

Now that I've completed this game, everything in it makes sense (in its own way). The workings of the world are explained through notebooks you find as you progress. But it certainly doesn't start out that way; nothing in Riven is readily explained until you find your first notebook, which doesn't happen until some time into the game.

To summarise: die-hard puzzle-lovers will undoubtedly love this game, but I wouldn't really recommend it for the casual gamer. It's a brain-breaker, to be sure.

The Good
I liked this game because of the depth of the story. Every object in the game has a purpose, and the Myst series make you think (something I enjoy doing) instead of blowing away aliens. The game makes you feel so alone, you're afraid to see someone around the corner. The ten (count 'em) different endings to the game were also really cool. One of the best stories and scores I've ever seen and heard respectively in a game.

The Bad
Nothing, other than having to quit, changing discs, and playing during the day.

The Bottom Line
Riven is one of the best games to come to the adventure front, and will keep you occupied for weeks. Make sure to play with headphones and in the dark.

The Good
Riven is the sequel to one of the best selling adventure games in history - Myst. There's much talk in the industry (and in entertainment in general) of the 'bane of the sequels', especially in the case of successors to very successful titles.

So after I relinquished my Myst virginity and fell in love (and even wrote a review of it here on MG to amend a gross injustice), it was inevitable that I should play Riven.

Not only did Riven deliver what it promised, it actually transcends its prequel - the seminal Myst.

The story is an immediate continuation of Myst, in which we were given many clues and portents of what was to come. We learn of an age called Riven, a beautiful, pastoral world that is gradually decaying due to catastrophic events that transpired many years earlier. You will learn more of the story through the game itself, just like how it was done in Myst - through the various journals and diaries scattered about, but also from the actual, diverse locations and surroundings. Suffice it to say the story involves many interesting elements, intriguing developments and shocking revelations: There's a tyrant who controls the population with an iron fist, a subversive rebellion fighting him with stealth and espionage, a prominent native of the land held captive by said tyrant and a void-like, starry expanse waiting to consume the whole place.

All of the above come together to create a suspenseful atmosphere, a feeling of imminent doom and hence a sense of haste and dread (don't worry though - Riven is NOT a timed game by any means - you have all the time in the world to complete it). That's a commendable achievement - through so little dialogue and written text, the game conveys so much in terms of ambiance and emotions, it's remarkable. That is also accomplished via the stunning visuals and sounds.

And indeed, the art here is truly breathtaking. You get to wander through picturesque landscapes, filled with placid cyan waters and serene beaches and banks. Even more so than Myst, Riven is laden with natural life combined with the harsh mechanical constructions. There's animal and plant life galore, and even some signs of humans, though the latter are very elusive to keep with the game's forlorn approach.

I mentioned the mechanical structures and devices in the game. There's a very important point I'd like to address here: Riven is not a gallery of nameless and detached contraptions with no background to them. In truth, every such object has a story behind it: the person who built it and the purpose for which it was built in the first place. They're all interwoven within the narrative of the game. It was important for me to emphasise this fact, because it's one of the biggest misconceptions about Myst.

This leads me to the puzzles. They consist of a deeper comprehension of the game's world but also of the people who stand behind its creation. Yes, you actually have to think like certain characters in the game, which is a wonderful and original concept in and of itself. Once again, you have to analyse your environment and apply its logic in order to manipulate it to your advantage. Every small sound, visual, written text etc... can combine to a greater understanding and thus to the ultimate solution. There are at least two major puzzles, each representing a different aspect of Riven - one the natural, the other the artificial. It makes for a very interesting mixture, and contributes to the overall enjoyment. Needless to say, the puzzles are as integral to the game's world and story as they can possibly get.

One last thing - they say god is in the details. If you follow this proverb and want to convert someone to believe in god - let them play Riven. Every little feature in the game - a doodle carved on a classroom desk, a primitive mural, even seemingly useless knick-knacks scattered on a study desk - has some significance one way or the other. Even the number of CDs (in the original CD version of course) reflects an important recurring theme in the game. The designers and developers of the game must be lauded for this careful attention to detail - it shows great care and love devoted to their own creation, which in turn is transferred to us, the players who get to experience this fantastic creation.

I also liked the actors portraying the characters. Rand Miller (who also designed the game with his brother Robyn) as Atrus gives such a warm and candid portrayal of the character, that you simply can't imagine anyone else in the role. Then there's John Keston as Ghen, who's phenomenal in conveying the stark-cold nature of his character, very professional indeed.

The Bad*
Not even Riven is innocent of drawbacks, minor and mild as they may be:

While I completely get the minimalistic approach of the designers, stripping any redundant interface icons and features, I wasn't very thrilled with the fact the mouse cursor didn't indicate interactivity, or hotspots. It made some parts a point n' click fest, and, dare I say, pixel-hunting?

I wish Riven was less family oriented. The game has great potential as an exclusively adult intellectual entertainment. I'm not saying a game should have ample sex and gore in order to be enjoyable, oh no. But maybe if it was marketed towards a more adult demographic, more people would give it a chance. But the game is just as perfect as it is, so don't quote me on this. :P I'm not even going to make a point of the absent subtitles, just be aware of this.

Catherine and Ghen could take a few lessons from Atrus on writing more legibly. Their journals were quite painful to read. [=

The Bottom Line
Riven is further proof that games can be an art form, albeit a developing one, that unfortunately gets masked by bombardments of mindless, purely commercial products as of late.

Hopefully the days when games were made with love and care will make a return, until then we have a few modern gems and the many classics such as Riven to lean on.