Riven: The Sequel to Myst

aka: Myst 2, Riven: A Sequência de Myst, Riven: Il Seguito Di Myst, Riven: La Suite De Myst
Moby ID: 1262
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

After the Stranger has rescued Atrus, the master of "linking books", from the imprisonment caused by his sons, a new task awaits the hero. Atrus's wife, Catherine, has been taken by Gehn, his own father. Gehn has appointed himself as the one to rule the Age of Riven, and has driven his world to collapse. Now he holds Catherine hostage on Riven, hoping that his son will restore the book link to the Age and free him from there. The Stranger is requested by Atrus to travel to Riven and find a way to rescue Catherine.

Riven is a sequel to Myst, and is very similar to its predecessor in gameplay style, controls, and visual presentation. The game world is presented as a series of computer-generated still screens; the player explores it in a point-and-click fashion. Interaction with the environment is possible only when said environment is highlighted as a "hot spot", and is also performed by simple clicking. Like its predecessor, Riven is heavy on puzzles, which rarely include using inventory items, but usually involve understanding and manipulating the complex environments and machinery of the game world.

Spellings

  • リヴン  ザ シークェル トゥー ミスト - Japanese spelling
  • 神秘岛II - 星空断层 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
  • 迷霧之島II - Chinese spelling (traditional)

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Credits (Windows version)

243 People (174 developers, 69 thanks) · View all

Lead Programmers
Application Programmers
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Senior Production Manager
Production Manager
Assistant Production Manager
Executive Publisher
Lead Sound Designer
Additional Sound Designer
Sound Processing
Video Processing
QuickTime Programmer
Systems Programmers
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 42 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 153 ratings with 10 reviews)

The most difficult game of the trilogy... But oh, so rewarding!

The Good
First, the generic graphics-and-sound review:

Riven, as is to be expected, featured stunning graphics and sound effects for its time. But even by today's standards, exploring the islands of Riven is still a very pleasant experience. For the most part, the video sequences integrate with the pre-rendered backgrounds nearly seamlessly, with only minimal choppiness. I have a few problems with the graphics, however, which I'll outline in the next section.

Alright. With that standard stuff out of the way, lemme tell you a story.

I first played Riven back in '97 or '98, around when it was released. The game world was a blast to explore, but I quickly became frustrated by all of the puzzles. Very few of them seemed to make any sense; they were even worse than Myst's arbitrary puzzles.

I solved a number of puzzles, but none of the "major" ones. I didn't even know where to begin figuring out the Fire Marble puzzle (which, in fact, I stumbled upon by accident long before I was supposed to), and I had no clue whatsoever about the wooden eyeballs.

I shelved the game in frustration. Many years passed, bringing us to present day.

A couple of weeks ago, I re-installed Riven. I wandered about exploring, as I did before, solving the occasional puzzle. Then I started finding things I must have overlooked before. A notebook here, some symbolic images there, and entire areas I've never explored before. Then, suddenly, everything clicked. Everything started to make sense!

So this time around, I took copious notes. If I saw something that looked like a symbolic image, I sketched it out, whereas before I just thought "Neat graphic!" and moved on. Being older and wiser now, I had realised that it probably took hours to painstakingly arrange and render each individual screen in the game; the developers wouldn't put more textured polygons in the camera's field of view if the object didn't mean something. Armed with this new perspective, I proceeded to look at my surroundings with a lot more care, and proceed to bulldoze my way through the game's puzzles, many of which I never grasped before. I then went on to complete the game in short order.

Lemme tell ya, as I walked up to the Fire Marble puzzle again, knowing precisely what to do this time, I had a great feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. BOOYAH!

The Bad
As you've gathered by now, the puzzles in this game are HARD, much more so than Myst, or Myst III. Single puzzles are sometimes spread out all over the landscape too, which makes things even more frustrating. Take the wooden-eyeball puzzle, for example: you'll see these things all over the place, but unless you look around them very, very carefully you'll never figure out what to do with them. I practically figured them out by accident, when I accidently turned around and saw... The Symbol. "Oh, hey, so that's how this works! Neat!"

Additionally, as I've mentioned earlier, while the video usually integrates well with the backgrounds, it fails spectacularly when there's any large animation going on. For example, a switch or a lever moving won't cause any noticeable display artifacts. But when you're riding around in the inter-island transport system, your screen will turn into a washed-out, pixellated mess. You can sortof tell where you're moving, but the quality goes way down. Still, this is a very minor part of the game, since you don't really see video sequences of that size very often.

And finally, puzzles and video aside, my biggest gripe with this game is:

Please insert disc 2. Please insert disc 1. Please insert disc 3. Please insert disc 2. Please insert disc 4. Please insert disc 3. Please insert disc 2.

The game ships on five CDs, one for each island in Riven. However, since you tend to move around from island to island, you end up swapping CDs fairly often. There is no way to install the entire game to your hard drive, either - it's explicitly designed to look for actual CDs. However, there is... or perhaps, there was a DVD-ROM version of this game. I'd recommend tracking it down instead of the CD version, if anyone wants to play this old game on a modern system.

The Bottom Line
This game requires an enormous amount of patience. The way the puzzles are structured, you don't just need to know how to put two and two together to get four -- you need the ability to put one and two and five and negative three and six together, and get eleven.

Along your journey, you'll need to learn an alien numbering system, an alien system of color representation, learn the meanings of sounds, and analytically observe everything you come across.

Now that I've completed this game, everything in it makes sense (in its own way). The workings of the world are explained through notebooks you find as you progress. But it certainly doesn't start out that way; nothing in Riven is readily explained until you find your first notebook, which doesn't happen until some time into the game.

To summarise: die-hard puzzle-lovers will undoubtedly love this game, but I wouldn't really recommend it for the casual gamer. It's a brain-breaker, to be sure.

Windows · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2003

Let's get sucked up by a world so beautiful, it's creepy.

The Good
The graphics! Everything is much more detailed and realistic that Myst. You just want to be there and that's exactly how you should play (or experience) this game. It's still the pointing, clicking, exploring and puzzle solving. You need to look very carefully and learn to think in a special way to enjoy this and solve the mysteries of Riven. If you like thinking and exploring this is a gem for you, if not stop reading this. The game starts were Myst left of. Your friend Atrus sends you to the Riven age to rescue his beloved wife Catherine who is held captive on one of Riven's islands by Gehn, Atrus' evil father. You also need to trap Gehn with a prison book. However, if you make a mistake you may have a wrong ending. There are ten (!) different endings to Riven. The story from Myst continues and gets even more complex which is great. The sound is also great and plays a good part in gameplay.

The Bad
Pointing and clicking can sometimes be confusing and the disc-swapping really works badly on your nerves. If you want to buy this look for the DVD version first that doesn't have this problem. Some puzzles are too hard. Myst had this but here it's even worse.

The Bottom Line
A brilliant game that is very beautiful. If you enjoyed Myst or similar games you simply love this. Everything has been vastly improved from Myst. If you are more the action type and don't like thinking leave this !

Windows · by Rensch (203) · 2005

A wonderful game that should be in every gamers shelf

The Good
Beautiful graphics, great sound and CHALLENGING puzzles. Even if you don't have I clue of where you are going you are still going to be amazed of the beautiful environment. If you didn't play Myst yet it doesn't matter you won't be confused at all and in riven there is people you can have contact with unlike Myst. Riven comes pact with 5 cd's.

The Bad
The game is very difficult and the puzzles are unrelated to the plot.

The Bottom Line
You gotta give this game a try but if your the kinda guy that doesn't like thinking stay away from this game if not then your in for a good time.

Windows · by Djinn (11) · 2000

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Trivia

Saturn version

While the Mac, Windows and Playstation versions were released on five CDs, the Sega Saturn version was released on only four. The layout is as follows:

Disc 1: Intro, Temple Island

Disc 2: Jungle Island, Tay

Disc 3: Book Assembly Island, Survey Island

Disc 4: Prison Island, 233rd Age

The bad endings originally on Disc 5 are now on every disc.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for this game was composed and performed by Robyn Miller. Also, this soundtrack contains recently recovered d'ni archaeological information. Release date is 1998.

Tracklist: 1. Link 2. Atrus Theme 3. Gateroom 4. Jungle Totem 5. Survey Island Theme 6. Temple 7. Village Entrance Theme 8. Moeity Caves 9. Moeity Theme 10. Boat Ride 11. Moeity Prison 12. The Red Cave 13. Wahrk Room 14. Catherine's Prelude 15. Catherine's Theme 16. Catherine's Freedom 17. Gehn Speaks 18. Gehn's Theme 19. Fissure 20. Bonus Track

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #12 Top Vaporware Title in Computer Game History

Information also contributed by MAT and Techademus

Analytics

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Related Games

Myst
Released 1994 on Windows 3.x, Windows, 1995 on PlayStation...
Myst Trilogy
Released 2002 on Windows, Macintosh
Myst IV: Revelation
Released 2004 on Windows, Macintosh, Xbox
Myst III: Exile
Released 2001 on Windows, 2002 on Xbox, PlayStation 2
Myst: Masterpiece Edition
Released 1999 on Windows, 2000 on Macintosh
Myst V: End of Ages
Released 2005 on Windows, Macintosh
Myst: The Collection
Released 2006 on Windows, 2007 on Macintosh
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Released 2003 on Windows
Myst (Desktop Edition)
Released 1998 on Windows, Windows 3.x

Related Sites +

  • Acclaim website
    Official Acclaim site for Riven.
  • GameFAQs
    Walkthroughs and tips for Riven.
  • Riven EPK (archived)
    Electronic press kit for the game featuring in game footage, behind the scenes look and more.
  • Riven UHS Hints
    A collection of hints for the game provided by the Universal Hint System (UHS). UHS hints are structured in such a way as not to give away the answer immediately but, instead, to provide the player with increasingly more revealing hints before finally providing a complete solution.
  • Riven X (archived)
    An open source project that allows Macintosh users to run both the CD and DVD versions of Riven on their modern operating systems.
  • The Myst Guidebook
    The Riven subsection of the Guidebook fansite that provides information about the game and a brief background on the game's production in addition to game hints and a walkthrough.
  • The Starry Expanse Project
    A fan-organized project attempting re-create Riven as a realtime 3D game in a fashion similar to realMYST. The project is currently still active.
  • Zarf's Review
    An unscored review of the Macintosh version of Riven by IF-creator Andrew Plotkin (November, 1997)."

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 1262
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MAT.

iPhone added by Techademus. SEGA Saturn added by Kohler 86. Windows Mobile added by Kabushi. Macintosh added by Xoleras. PlayStation added by Grant McLellan. iPad added by me3D31337.

Additional contributors: Swordmaster, Jeanne, Apogee IV, chirinea, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Nightson Blaze, Techademus, HelloMrKearns.

Game added April 2, 2000. Last modified March 20, 2024.