The best game ever....

[Zukeenee]

Myst 3 and 4 - (both are just visually awsome)

Myst 4? Gah! Just... gah! Sure, it looked awesome, but there were so many other things that were just wrong with it!

The music? It was just a chorus singing the name of the age over and over again. They really hit you with it in Serenia. Just "Seh-ren... nee-ah" over and over! And I love big orchestral numbers; I really do, it's just that they went a little over board there. Every time you solve a puzzle, the orchestra swells up again. Too much, I say!

And the graphics, too. In Haven, all of the animals were so perfectly computer generated that they looked... well, fake. I, on the other hand, thought that the animals in Riven (Myst 2) were amazing. Especially the Whark. they just had that grainy feel that made it all more realistic to me.

The acting. What can I say about the acting. Well, it sucked. For the most part, Yeesha was okay. She was a little girl, and a child isn't a hard role to play. Rand, who played Atrus, was still awesome. Always has been. Ever since the first Myst, he just fit the role so well. Catherine, although you never saw her in the game, also sucked. You heard her voice in those little "Necklace flashbacks" every now and then. She just wasn't convincing. "Oh, Atrus. Tell me again we did the right thing." Too stiff. Achenar wasn't too bad either. I liked the way he was portrayed this time, but it's just so different from the original Myst. There, he was a crazy loon who enjoyed watching others' suffering. In Myst 4, He's a strong brute with a kind heart. When did that change? And Sirrus... ugh. Way too over-acted. His character was still the same from the first Myst, but his new actor was just too much. "I... am Sirrus. AND-I-WILL-NOT-BE-DE-FEAT-ED!!!" A little bit over the top there.

And then there's the redemption of Achenar. Why? Why did they need to go and ruin everything that was set up in the first game? The point of the first game was to get enough pages to free either Sirrus or Achenar from their prison books. In that game, you had to decide who to trust. Mister crazy torture man in the blue book, or the drunkard with father issuses in the red book? Well, to win the game, you need to realize that neither of them are worth freeing. You go straight to the green book that they tell you not to touch, and there you meet Atrus, who then goes and deals with his sons in the prison books. In Myst 4, theres the theme of "Who can I trust?" again. This time, it turns out that Achenar is the good guy, who only wants to save his little sister from the big bad Sirrus. In the end, it really doesn't matter though, because both Sirrus and Achenar end up dying. What a shame.

Now for my major problem with the game: The magic. Ever since Myst began, the game was all about science, logic, physics and the like. Everything could be explained (not that we would always get an explaination). The Art, for example. The Art of writing. The D'ni saw their power to create links to new worlds as a science. It all made sense; there was no "magic" involved. Everything could be worked out. Even Atrus, the main character, is a man of science. He doesn't believe in the paranormal, because it just doesn't happen. Now in Myst 4, we get all of this Serenia crap with that "Dream" World and a "Spirit Guide". Not to mention the whole "Sirrus in Yeesha's body" and "Necklace that lets you see important plot points" stuff. It just doesn't fit in the Myst universe.

So those are my problems with Myst 4. Sorry if you took offense that I pretty much spat on one of your favorite games, darklord, but those are just my feelings toward it.

Torn f'shem, Myst tor!
(I spit on you, Myst four!)

---