Riven (1997)

For those looking at the game, please note the following. This game available in the 1990's was state of the art. It was awesome. It is literally a world with sight, sound, design and rules. All of these were combined in an excellent manner. But please note, current games have much better graphics and continuity. So if you compare to games of today, it is a bit dated. I would actually recommend the 2024 version as it has been developed with current tech.

With all that said, this is a beautiful game. It has great continuity between areas and it is a work of Art. Some of the puzzles are very difficult. Make sure you inspect everything. Look up, down, and side to side. When you open doors, close them. I would say most people could not finish this in a day. It has a great amount of depth.

Hope this helps all. Enjoy.

I played this with a friend years ago and really enjoyed trying to figure out what to do and the screen being 1st person. It's a game that takes patience and some immersion. They have apparently updated the graphics in the newer, more expansive version that I hope to try soon, but this is still surprisingly good.

The first time I heard of the Myst series was on promotional VHS tape that came with a Sega Saturn magazine I bought as a teenager. Young me at that age wasn't interested in this sort of game then. I'm older now and after noticing it on sale nostalgia kicked in and I purchased this and its prequel Myst to see what the fuss was all about.

Riven turned out to be a very fun brain tester than I expected. The story focuses on trying to trap one of the characters in a book and report back to the man who sent you to the strange archipelago called Riven. You explore the world by clicking through a series of static images from the first-person perspective and solve puzzles along the way in order to achieve this goal.

The visuals, while somewhat dated are clear and far better than its predecessor, Myst. Riven runs fine on Windows 10 with no crashes. The puzzles are clever and involve clicking on specific identifiable objects to find out what they affect. There are some codes to remember as well so I would recommend keeping a pen and paper handy to jot them down, or if it helps you map out the islands.Not to give away too much but part of the puzzle is figuring out what symbols you come across mean. I will say no more...

It took me about 9 or 10 hours to finish, stepping away from time to time to do household chores, so not a long game, but may take you longer if you reach a point where you're stuck on what to do. There can be quite a lot of back tracking in this game depending on how you play but the way the game is laid out doesn't make it too confusing to figure out where in the world you are.

All in all if you were a fan of the original or fancy some nostalgia from a game you didn't try in the 90's Riven is a good distraction. Anyone else under 30 may be better off looking at the more modern remakes. It stands up better as a game than the original Myst, purely because Myst looks very dated and only took me about 2 hours to finish. Also, once you've figured out the puzzles and explored the world there isn't much reason to replay, bar allowing someone else to have a go.

One my FAVORITE games of all times, STILL haven't solved most of the puzzles since I first played it 2004.

Just incredible, enjoy getting absorbed in the intricate world and environmental puzzles.