Great Game, Horrid Use of the DS Control Scheme
Playing this version on the DS however, wasn't challenging because of the puzzles, but rather the control scheme that was used for the DS.
The note taking scheme is laughable and the added ability to take pictures is next to useless. I actually ended up having to go back to the pencil and paper note taking method I used when I played the original Myst on PC.
The images were extremely grainy and hard to make out sometimes. This can make solving puzzles extremely difficult.
The point-and-click controls show up again in this version of the game. The only difference is you don't know exactly what you can and can't click on. So, you're forced to randomly start tapping the screen until something happens. There's no cursor that changes on the screen to tell you whether or not something can be clicked on like there was in the PC version. This can make solving puzzles difficult when you don' t know what to click on. You may miss important clues to solving the puzzle keeping you from finishing the game.
I also couldn't seem to pick up more than one page at a time. This means that I was forced to pick up either the red or blue page and then repeat the age again to pick up the second page. Fortunately at that point I had already solved all the puzzles and traveling back to Myst Island was easy.
The only thing this game had going for it was that it was exactly like the original. The puzzles were the same so I already knew exactly what I had to do in order to solve them. Someone who's never played the game will most likely get frustrated with it and quit playing after half an hour and never pick it up again.
I still love the Myst series. I just wish they had done this one right instead of royally messing it up. If they ever came out with Riven or Exile, I hope they learn from their mistakes with this one.
Reasons for my scoring:
Very Hard: The control scheme combined with the difficulty of some of the puzzles can make this near impossible for some people.
10 to 20 hours: I was able to solve the puzzles quickly because I had played the game before. Other people who have never played before may have difficulty again based on the complexity of the puzzles and the control scheme.
Disastrous: It just plain was.
3.0/10: Glad that the story and puzzles were exactly like the original, but the fact that the controls were horrid, the visuals were grainy, and the inability to do certain things that you could in the original drastically takes away the fun from this game.