Myst harks back to the beginning of the glory days of PC point-and-click adventures. Actually, you might say that it kick started the whole genre. When it first debuted, it featured top of the line visuals (mostly viewable in still frames, but with animated movies that would often tie scenes together), as well as a spooky, ambient soundtrack and a terrifically weird mystery combining elements of both science fiction and fantasy. In Myst, you travel through magical books to different "ages," which are islands with their own puzzles and lore to uncover the greater mystery. With two screens and a stylus, the DS seems to be the best possible pick for the latest port of this classic, but it fails to impress or mystify the way it did over a decade ago.
The problem with older games is, well, they're old. We've come a long way in audio and visual fidelity in the last 10 years, even if the DS isn't the most powerful handheld. It appears that the developers put little effort into cleaning up the source material to take advantage of the system, and the result is sloppy. The opening music is filled with hideous compression static and the still images look grainy. Moreover, in grand Myst fashion, you won't have the slightest clue what to do.
You should peruse the gameplay manual before setting out on your journey, because once you're in the game, you're on your own. Due to the lack of an in-game cursor, you will literally click all over the screen trying to navigate the world or interact with items. Even though the manual recommends against this kind of random clicking, the game leaves you little choice in the matter. Because some items are clickable and others not, without a cursor indication of one or the other, there are no obvious visual cues as to how to proceed. Granted, Myst is notorious for its obscure and brain-bending puzzles, but the difficulty gets bumped up several notches because of the sloppy design.
Having dual screens is a nice bonus, however, allowing things like maps, magnified images and other important menus displayed at the top while you continue to explore. Myst for DS also allows you to take notes with an on-screen typewriter (no handwriting recognition), something you'll need to do quite often if you want to keep your wits about you. The screens are both a curse and a blessing, however, thanks to small items that are difficult to find. You'll also spend ample time skimming through many of the books littered throughout the game's islands. Using the magnifying glass, you can read these, but this too will take much longer than it would on a full-sized PC screen.
This latest (and possibly last) reincarnation of Myst also features a new age called Rime to visit. It originated in Real Myst, a much better and fully 3-D re-imagining of the original, but has been toned down into 2-D for your DS consumption. Whether or not this extra content warrants a purchase is up to your own personal enjoyment of the experience as a whole, for Myst has always been a love-it-or-hate-it affair.
It's a real shame that Myst doesn't take better advantage of the DS' abilities. If you've never played Myst before, and don't want to dig up an old PC copy, there might be reason for you to check this out, but expect to leave the game feeling more thankful at how far the adventure genre has progressed.
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