Recensioni di Riven: The Sequel to MYST

Riven aims higher than its predecessor, Myst, offering more complex, ingenious, and satisfying puzzles. However, this greater ambition also brings some issues: in several cases, the puzzles become needlessly convoluted, leaps of logic or stumbling upon solutions concealed within barely noticeable details. A striking example is the Whark statue in the forest, which can only be opened by pressing a tiny button on a lantern, with no hint whatsoever suggesting that would be the case (why that particular one and not another?). Even worse is the path to Gehn's laboratory, blocked by a corridor that only opens when closing the entrance door behind you—already a questionable design—but even if you perform this action, the passage remains extremely difficult to spot, despite being essential to completing the game. The navigation system is perhaps the most outdated aspect: several times, I found myself stuck not due to a lack of ideas but because it wasn’t clear that moving in a certain direction was even possible. Only by randomly clicking did I manage to progress. Some puzzles, despite starting with good premises, fail in execution. The rotating dome mechanisms boils down to spamming clicks rather than a true logic-based solution. Even more frustrating is the puzzle leading to the Moiety Age book, which requires recognizing an animal in the code without any clear logic—ultimately, I had to look up the answer on Google. While Myst avoided the so-called "moon logic" of old adventure games, Riven unfortunately falls into it at times. And that’s a shame because when the game is at its best, both in gameplay and aesthetics, it reaches stunning heights of design, narrative and ambiance. The story is an excellent expansion of the original, and the atmosphere remains thoroughly unique. But the price of this ambition is, at times, an avoidable level of frustration.