I have just finished Myst 4 - Revelation and, while I found it to be reasonably well thought out and planned, there were one or two issues that disappointed me.
Each Age had a fiendish puzzle, but it seemed to me that only the Mangree puzzle was amenable to logical thought. I felt that the complex sound puzzle in Spire was too reliant on speed and dexterity, and it was only when I read a W/T that I was able to complete it. The cloud puzzle in Dream was, frankly, silly, and the puzzle with the conversations and the floating icons was bizarre. Again, without a W/T, it seemed to me to be impossible to allocate speech segments to icons, but perhaps I missed something?
All in all, though I enjoyed the game with its excellent graphics and believable actors, it seemed to me to have a slightly over-inflated sense of its own importance.

I seem to remember reading inputs on GB which suggested that Myst V had gone even further down the eccentric route - perhaps I will stay away from it and preserve my temper a little longer.


petert

Whoa, petert. It is a pleasute to find someone who agrees with me on MYST IV. I've long considered it the most overblown and least entertaining of the MYST games. Might I suggest, however, that MYST V may not be the best of the games, but it is far better than 'Revelation' and you may well be sorry you missed it. the puzzles are difficult, but acceptably so. Most importantly, the game provides a real ending, and some comfortable closure, to the entire MYST epic. In my opinion, it is worth all the trouble: whereas MYST IV was not.

Both Myst IV and Myst V had problems.
But they were different problems.

Myst V was more like Uru, only with a point-and-click option,
and Myst V had no 3rd person option (unlike Uru).
But Myst V was still a lot more like Uru than like Myst IV.

I really enjoyed most of the graphics in IV and V..but found several of the puzzles just undoable (for me)..one of very few times i asked for someone here to do one of them for me...(mangree)..the crystal chair puzz i managed by just sheer dumb luck. I groaned a lot in V...drawing on that darn slate! Whew..they just keep getting harder and harder in that series..(going on into URU with that statement!)...in Uru they introduced jumping into the game..grrrrr...as well as some very difficult timed puzzles (IMHO). But i keep at it!

I also really disliked Myst 4. I asked Dadguy to do the chair puzzle for me, sent him my save, he sent it back saying I had completed the puzzle already. Argh, that was a disappointment and a huge waste of time. By the end of the game I realized that I had missed a whole world... I did not go back to even see it.

I am scared to even venture into Myst 5, besides not being a fan of Myst 4 I was also not a fan of URU so after reading Jenny100's post I am more hesitant than ever to jump into that final chapter.

But as luck would have it I purchased it before I considered all of the aforementioned things and so as a proud owner I shall play it one day. One far, far away day.

chesnut

I'm one of the most pro-Myst gamers around. I started gaming with Riven and have since replayed Myst, Riven and Exile a few times. I have been 'playing' Myst IV for over a year now; not because the puzzles are hard (needed a WT for the timed ones), but because it's frustrating and I need a break from the game. Bits of it I like - the exploration, the mechanical puzzles and the story - but there's enough timed puzzles to ruin it for me. In that respect it reminds me of Uru (also took over a year to play it). I'm so disappointed because I had been saving both IV and V as a special gaming experience. It sure is special, but not in the way I wanted :/ . The game I'm looking for to replace my Myst-like experience is Rhem. I still have 2 and 3 to play.

Join the club, Colpet.
I, too, more or less started with Myst, as it was the second game that I ever played (after Lighthouse), and I thought that Myst, Riven and Exile were pretty good. But Myst 1V was a curate's egg of a game to my mind, with the cloud puzzle the height of fatuity.
When I had finished Exile, I happened upon Rhem in the Trading Post forum and, as I also prefer mechanical puzzles, I was quite impressed with it, though the story seems a bit thin. Aura, Fate of the Ages also was OK - mechanical puzzles again.
Currently, I am fighting my way through Rhem 2 (metaphorically speaking), and Rhem 3 is sitting on the shelf. They should keep me busy for several months, and perhaps my disappointment with Myst 1V may fade with time and persuade me to try Myst V.

Anyway, Happy Christmas to all.

petert

Well I did it! Finally finished Myst IV. I almost gave up at the Mangree/tree top debaucle, about 20 tries to finish that sequence . The clouds were annoying, but doable. Just glad I'm done.
So I made a fresh start and got into Keepsake. Yay! Not only fun, but good puzzles too. I'm back in the groove .

Colpet, good for you! I've had Myst IV sitting on my computer forever (or so it seems). I'm up to that darn spider chair and just don't want to go back to the game since I know what my next "chore" will be.
I'm a Myst lover from way back, but I can't get myself through this one.
Maybe one day...

I am another one that was addicted to the Myst Games, Riven being one of my all-time favourites. But! - I did not like Revelation. My main gripe was that I do not like puzzles just for the sake of a puzzle and that spider chair just annoyed me more than anything else. I gave up the game after that, but after playing Myst V, which I loved, will go back to Revelation and try it again - as Mary says 'one day'.