Riven Review

This Riven review is based on the Steam version. Riven is also available via GOG, Meta Quest and the Apple App Store.

Myst… you either love it or hate it, but pretty much everyone in the gaming space will have some kind of memory of this classic. In 2021 Cyan brought us a remake and now they are back with one for the sequel to Myst, Riven! Can they recapture the original’s magic? Let’s catch the next Mag-Lev and go explore this reinvigorated age! While it lasts…

A fresh tour

For those who have explored Riven before, it will be good to know that, unlike the earlier Myst remake, this new take on Riven changes things up considerably. Yes, you will recognize the locations and the story beats that are there, are mostly unchanged. But the actual meat of the game, the puzzles and how you explore this strange world, are shaken up quite a bit.

This becomes obvious almost immediately with the first small puzzle, which is slightly altered. Both versions serve the same purpose, to teach the player to be observant and sometimes think outside the box, but the actual solution is different and still hilariously simple to the point you’ll easily overlook it. I actually welcome the changes, as this ensured that the little I remember from my time with the original, has become mostly useless. Especially the bigger, meta puzzles are quite different, which means that the whole experience was quite fresh, despite the familiar environments!

Left in mystery

The game at the same time is rather unkind to those unfamiliar with the series. There is barely any setup or context given on what’s going on or who you even are. There is an optional, digital companion book being sold, but the base product has you go in blind and if you have not played Myst prior, you will have no clue what’s going on.

You will get some insight through the various journals you’ll find, but without having an idea of the broader context, it’s not likely you’ll get an idea of the rich and confusing lore and dysfunctional family drama of the Myst ethos. But this doesn’t really matter much, as you’ll stick almost exclusively to Riven and everything you need to solve the game is found on the five islands it contains. Really, the biggest hint from back then still holds true now: “Lose your questions and you will find your answers.”

Leave no stone untouched

Exploring is the main thing you do and you’ll need to be observant as you go. Find something that seems odd? Take note of it or a screenshot, which is a handy feature added to help in note taking. As you stroll through the various environments you’ll find some things that seem inconsequential, but might prove a crucial part in solving a puzzle elsewhere.

It’s a good thing that the scenery is absolutely beautiful too. Riven has always had great art direction in creating this wonderful world to explore and now that you can freely move around, it’s a real treat. And where the Myst remake added a rather ugly brown mist over some ages, here they luckily retained the original coloring and it looks mostly great in the Unreal engine. Although it does show some familiar issues with flickering or floating shadows at times.

The price of progress

What doesn’t look great, are the few times you encounter other people. The original used live action and they tried to emulate this with models and while it would be passible animation on itself, the amount of detail tried to convey pushes it into the uncanny valley territory and it still cannot compete with actual actors, for obvious reasons. Animations also occasionally bug a bit with some skipped frames or clipping issues. Despite most scenes keeping you stationary, someone still managed to show me the inside of their head by clipping through me. Personally, I would have much preferred the old scenes, which at the time were actually very well executed.

Another issue that arises from the 3D movement, is that it can be easy to miss something. The original had you navigate through slides and these were deliberately framed to give hints as to what was and wasn’t important. You lose that here and the one time I got stuck was when I had just completely missed a lever that was hiding away in the shadow. Again, observation is key and this has become much harder in this take due to that free movement.

That hint was 2 train rides back…

So you will likely end up going back and forth to figure out what the heck you’ve missed, leading to the 3^rd big issue with the remake: it can be excruciatingly slow to move around! Everything plays an animation or Is moved in real time. And while the Mag-Lev rides are amazing to see the first time around, after the 5^th time when you need to double check something, it just gets annoying not to mention the times you have to call it and just wait as it travels towards you. Since the old version used FMV’s, these could be skipped with the click of a button, you don’t have that luxury here.

And early example of this is a room that can spin around to determine its exits. Each time it spins, it takes about 15 seconds for the animation to finish, yes I timed it. You’ll need to rotate it at least two or three times each time and it’s a bit of a cross road, so you will come across it multiple times. The game is full of stuff like this where you feel like the game is wasting your time.

Now there is a new fast travel system introduced… though calling it ‘fast’ doesn’t feel right either, as it introduces some load times and even operating the thing is a puzzle in and of itself. That being said, I do really appreciate its inclusion. Not only mechanically, but also as a great addition within the world itself. It fits right in and it was really fun to learn and play around with this new part of Riven.

What I just cannot understand however, is that a giant shortcut in the original is completely inaccessible in this version. Seeing where the path was and realizing I now have to use the new travel system and the stupid revolving room again to get to what was just a few clicks away in the original felt overly mean on the developers part.

Explore in VR

I’m sure some of the changes were made to make the game VR compatible. This works fine on a Meta Quest 3. It’s a cool way to explore the world this way, as it gives you a better sense of the scope of it all and Riven has some really cool travel sequences. However, it doesn’t add a whole lot to the experience otherwise and feels a little barren compared to VR focused games. It’s a nice addition, but I’m a bit sour if it came at the cost of actual actors. The 7^th Guest VR showed what’s becoming possible without even the need to keep a player stationary.

At least there are some welcome (optional) accessibility options for those new to VR to prevent motion sickness. Seeing how wild some of the transport scenes can be, a welcome option. There’s also a handy option to transcribe audio clues, so they become easier to catch.

Did you bring your reading glasses?

Seeing that they thought of accessibility, it’s then very disappointing that for visual aides you get bugger all. As immersive as it is to have to read books in game, and don’t worry there’s only a few, to get clues… the fact is that not everyone is proficient at reading and even fewer at reading cursive. In 2024 one would expect that gamers wouldn’t have to rely on fan transcripts to comfortably read essential texts in a game. Having journal entries transcribed or even voiced in a log section would have gone a long way in making the game much more accessible. Seeing how some interactive elements can be rather elusive and easily blend into the background, an optional function to highlight interactables would also be nice for those who’re growing impatient with walking all over the place.

Walking and trying to place the things you find into the bigger picture will make up most of your game time. Riven has never stood out as a very puzzle dense title and I’d dare say that overall the actual puzzle solving has become slightly easier. It does all feel more coherent and fitting to the world though, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing and I did still need some good old pen and paper to work things out.