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Oh how the mighty have fallen...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I should preface this by saying that Myst and Riven are, in my opinion and for a host of reasons, *the* two best PC adventure games ever made, and both have unquestionably defined and revolutionized the PC adventure game genre. The backstory behind Myst was also something that I found intriguing; the Book of Ti'Ana is simply brilliant - part adventure, part romance, empires collapsing, disease, death, destruction, etc - and is essential reading for anyone even remotely interested in learning more about the Myst backstory. Riven was, in my mind, the peak of Cyan's achievement that was exceeded only by the "Ahnonay" Age of PotS, which I think was, conceptually, the most brilliant idea in the entire Myst series (although the entire Uru experience was marred by a poor interface, poor character animation, and... well, Yeesha's dialogue)

That being said, it pains me to admit this, but the grand finale to the Myst saga in the form of Myst V is simply poor. As others have pointed out, the Ages are small. The puzzles seem arbitrary, illogical, and there for no apparent reason. There is no sense of unity among the puzzles in an Age; you simply proceed from point A to point B (quite literally), solving puzzles along the way. If you're not too good at drawing with the mouse, you're going to have problems too, as this is a fundamental requirement in the game.

I was also disappointed that my computer (admittedly 4 years old) that had no problems running Myst 1-4 + Uru seemed to screech to a halt when running Myst V; in the large Age with the canal, for instance, I was getting a frame rate of about 3 frames per second while moving along the beach, even at the lowest graphics settings.

The graphics are good, but they didn't blow me away. As another reviewer pointed out, the environments were bland and boring, full of grays and browns. Many of the Ages bore striking similarities to Earth. Where are the exotic locations that we were given in the earlier games? The character animations (Esher, Yeesha, Bahro) were also awkward and unattractive.

The rewards in Myst V are almost non-existent. In earlier games in the series, if you solved a difficult puzzle, you would get to take a scenic ride, travel to an exotic Age (like Tay), get a nice scenic view, or at least watch a really cool animation. Not here. When you reach the end of an Age, that's it. You click on a stone, it slides back, and you link out.

It's not all bad news though; there were a few nice in Myst V. The game breaks with the standard nature Age / mechanical Age formula that we saw in Exile and Revelation; the Ages here all have a little bit of both. You also get to explore the Great Shaft and descend all the way to the bottom, which I thought was really nice (I was annoyed that you couldn't do anything more than a swan dive down the shaft in Uru). We finally get a snowy Age, which is something different. I can't comment on the ending because I haven't gotten there yet.

In summary: Cyan has done much better with games like Myst and Riven that rely on an interesting story, character development, rewards for progress, and logical puzzles rather than covering up poor quality puzzles and storylines with fancy graphics. If you are a die-hard fan of the Myst series, you should buy it just for completeness, but don't expect to be blown away, as it is definitely the weakest game in the series. Overall I would rank them as follows: Riven; Myst; Revelation; Uru; Exile; EoA.

Mixed Feelings

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Overall I have very mixed feelings about this game. There was a lot to like and a lot to dislike. I did not enjoy this game nearly as much as Myst Revelation and looking back I think Revelation is perhaps the best game of this type ever made.

To sum it up I would guess this game would have required at least 2 more years of development to be great. Too bad considering that the talent and skill to make a fantastic game was obviously there. Now the great game that could have been will never be made.

First I will say the game certainly had great aspects. The game started well and at first I thought End of Ages would be a truly great game. The initial story was engaging both emotionally and intellectually. The voice acting and writing were also extremely well done. Noloben and especially Toldelmer were works of art and atmosphere and they were fabulous. The puzzles in these ages were interesting and worked well into the plot.

After Noloben the game just fell apart. The story went nowhere and the game became a tedious series of hoops to jump through that had little to do with the story. The end came at what should have been the halfway point in the story. How it ended was fine but the way it ended was weak and anticlimactic. All three stories should have continued for another 20hrs of game play. Basically it was "do a few puzzles to get a slate and give it away". Even though I knew that the slate needed to go back to the Bahro at the endgame I gave it first to Yeesha and then to Esher because I never even dreamed the game was ready to end.

Esher's endgame was amusing but oh so cheap, old and cliché. Sad for a game that showed such intellectual promise. Esher didn't need to be mad and it really played against the balance between reason and emotion so carefully set up earlier in the game. I seems like a different person wrote the game after Noloben.

Besides the extremely rushed endgame, game design problems seriously reduced enjoyment of the game. The slate was a great idea but by the end of the game I dreaded writing on it because of the bad pattern recognition and errors made in Yeesha's journal. Bad pattern recognition caused me to skip to the end of both Toldelmer and Noloben without completing any of the puzzles. On Taghira I had to enter the final symbol 20-30 times, exit the game and try again a number of times before it worked. On Laki'ahn there is a very clear error in the sing symbol in Yeesha's journal that resulted in me re-entering the sing symbol at least 50x before I accidentally left out the bottom line and got it right. The fear symbol also should have worked but didn't. As a gamer I find this completely unacceptable. There was no freedom in writing on the slate as you could only enter in a few symbols without screwing up the game. The game would have been better without it.

Lack of appropriate play testing really hampered this game. There is nothing more frustrating than figuring the exact solution to a puzzle and then spending the next 2 hours trying to get it to work. Two hours of second-guessing yourself, trial and error and finally checking on-line to find out why things weren't working. This happened numerous times in End of Ages

Speaking of freedom, the game really had none and was linear. You couldn't even pick anything up. In both the arena scale/rising platform puzzle and the fighter maze elevator, I should have been able to step off the platform even though it was moving, but I couldn't because then I wouldn't be solving the puzzle the way intended.

The answer to the arena scale/rising platform puzzle (again Laki'ahn) was very poorly thought out and even the hint book said "I guessed the weight of the pedestal..." That is not a way to design a game. The correct solution was to enter the weight to exactly balance so that the platform was at the proper level and then add your weight and the tablet. ..... which of course didn't work.

The "End of Ages" really was an End of Ages for me. I have realized that I am no longer the target audience of game makers so it seems very unlikely that any developer will invest the time and money to make a great game I find both engaging and intellectually stimulating. It is just too much investment when most gamers just want to kill stuff.

Quit Crying

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

After reading all the negative reviews, I was expecting a real dud when I finally got around to "End of Ages," and considered not even bothering with it. I was actually pleasantly surprised, thank you. Granted the game is short and generally not up to the standards of the previous MYST tiles, but I enjoyed every minute, and a great deal more than most of the more recent PC puzzle games I've played. The story was compelling, the graphics stunning, and the puzzles well integrated into the plot and mostly mind boggling- par for the course from Cyan. After I finished it, I felt a pang of relief and sadness that I had completed the quest, grateful that they have all been created and made available by Cyan Worlds, but could not fault Cyan one bit for promptly closing up shop immediately after publishing their swan song.

It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Certainly, this was a step backward from Myst IV. I knew it was going to be a step back when I saw it was only 1 DVD-ROM when Myst IV was 2 DVD-ROMs.

The puzzles were there. Some of them better than others. While some were logically challenging, some of the controls were confusing, that is you could turn something, but not see any real on-screen indication of what was really going on. I didn't really get a sense of satisfaction upon completing a world, or the game for all things.

Writing on the tablets was fun, and I don't agree with the comments that the game couldn't recognize what you wrote. Even I, a really bad artist had very few instances where the game didn't accept what I had drawn.

In all, it kept me entertained and going back until I had completed it. Not my favorite in the Myst series though.

Not what I wanted to see

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have loved the Myst series since the beginning. I bought this one, hoping for another good installment. I didn't get it. In fact, I have yet to go back and finish this game.

Not for the puzzles, though the ones with the timers were VERY annoying since it always takes me a while to do those. Not even for the graphics, which were not up to previous standards. I mean, I spent hours just wandering around in Myst IV because I was so taken with the graphics, but I don't need fancy graphics to enjoy a game.

The main turn-off for me was the lack of connection to the characters. One of the main reasons I enjoyed the previous Myst games was because you get involved with the Atrus and his family. You've become his friend (well, in a way) and I personally liked the characters enough to want something good to happen to them. I even got a little choaked up at the ending of Myst IV. EoA abruptly ended that. You're left with a single depressing letter from Atrus and occasional contact with a grown-up Yeesha. All you're left with is the puzzles. Now, if all you're looking for is challenging puzzles, then I'd suggest picking it up. But part of the enjoyment of a game, book, or movie for me is caring about the characters in it, and EoA just lost that for me.

Great End.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: April 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have so much fun playing this game and sad because there will be no more Myst! It's the conclusion to Myst saga. You will go to unforgettable places with stories that will play with your emotions. You can choose the end and get the results. Yeesha is a very bitter woman with a heavy burden because of her family gift. You will be around places to find out your destiny in the game. The puzzles, once again, are not difficult, you just need to think through and pay attention to every single little thing said and written. Those are your clues. Like every Myst, the scenario is breathtaking and the end a surprise. Enjoy it. It's always a pleasure to play Myst, any of them.

A worthy end to a beautiful story

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: October 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'm a die hard Myst fan, so my opinion is biased, admittedly, but this is, after all, the 6th game (I include Uru among the titles here, because Myst V follows on its heels where story is concerned). This far into the series the die hard fans are most likely the target audience, and as far as I am concerned, Myst V was wonderful.

The Ages are beautiful as always, and a couple of them rank among my very favorites in the entire series. The graphics are indeed real time 3d, like Uru, but they surpass the quality of Uru in places. And frankly, I thought Uru looked very good. One thing Cyan has always done well is making the best of the available technology, and Myst V displays this strength well. The beauty is in the design, and there are many beautiful places to see in Myst V. Add to this the sound and music, and you have a very nicely emmersive experience.

The acting is excellent, which is good, because the story of Myst V is driven by the characters more than it has been in any previous Myst title. And yes, the characters are 3d renders rather than real people... but I don't see a problem with this. The facial expressions were done with an innovative technique devised by Cyan, and the results are extremely life like. The characters are quite expressive and the voice talent is great.

The story is also very good. I think it would make more sense to someone who has played Uru, because elements like the Bahro were first introduced in Uru and have not appeared in any of the other games. Familiarity with Uru, however, is not essential, only a plus. End of Ages takes the player to at least two locations that long time Myst fans will be very happy to see and gives us a nice conclusion to a vast and complex story that has unfolded beautifully over the years.

The puzzles are much easier in Myst V than in previous games. Early interviews with Rand Miller indicated that this would be the case. The designers hoped that players would spend more time exploring and considering the story than working through complex puzzles. If the puzzles in Myst are what you play for, you may be disappointed. However, the slate system which is one of the fundamental aspects of Myst V's puzzles is literally brilliant. It utilizes handwriting recognition software to allow you to communicate with creatures in the game. I was quite impressed by the idea and the execution of this feature.

Myst V is not perfect, but I think it ranks high among the Myst titles for all that it does right. Had Cyan more time to work on it, I have no doubt it would have been their best game. As it is, I think it is a great experience and a real gift to Myst fans.

The end of Myst is unfortunate I think, but judging from the reviews Myst V has recieved, it might have been inevitable anyway. Story driven games that require imagination and thought seem more and more to be on their way out. At least this series has recieved the closure it deserved.

Myst will be missed...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 15
Date: October 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The MYST games have been somewhat uneven in quality; games 1, 3, & 5 being decidedly "better" overall than 2 and 4. Part of this has to do with puzzle design--the puzzles in the final game are rational and not difficult, while in a couple of the games they are illogical, even with a walkthru. Related to this is the fact that the cursor motion lags behind the mouse movement by a considerable amount, leaving the cursor bobbling all over the screen. We were never able to pass the "monkey/sleeping gas" puzzle in game 4 for this reason, despite aid from a couple of walk-thrus. Nevertheless, these games are far and away the best of their genre, and we recommend them highly.

sooo disappointed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have loved all the other games very much, especially Riven, but, as others have already mentioned, this game was such a let down, especially because it was the final one.
I really miss the old Myst and Riven games.
:(

Amazon can't get this right

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 11
Date: December 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I ordered this item - twice - for Windows. Twice Amazon shipped me the MAC version, and refuses to believe that I didn't order the wrong thing. The picture and the description said Windows version when I ordered it. They can't get it right, so I can't say how good the game is or not. Just a warning, if you want to purchase this game and think you're getting what the picture shows.

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