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an unfortunate let-down

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: May 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I was excited when I found out that Myst was going to be ported to DS. Within a few minutes of playing, I was already disappointed. It was as if the developers had never played any DS games to see what kinds of things the DS can do. If I were to port this game all over again, here's what I would change:

Pull-down Menus - right now, all the icons are on the main play screen (bottom screen), taking up about 1/3 of valuable real estate. The graphics already had to be made smaller for the DS screens, and then they made it worse by adding icons. I think tabs or a menu button that could open and close the menu would have been better.

Zoom and Pan - There is currently a zoom tool, but all it does is display the exact same image, just a hair larger, onto the top screen. It's not very useful at all. In fact, things are so small I have to use a magnifying glass that I normally use for embroidery. :P

Better Use of the Dual Screens - Perhaps the perpetual icons wouldn't have been so bad if you could swap between screens. But the top screen is hardly used. You can display the "magnified" version of what you are looking at (but if you turn or walk forward it flips back to the title screen) and it used for displaying a map that has text that are about 2 pixels big. The only time in the game you can pan is when you are reading a journal. The journal panning is pretty decent, but on someone else's review they said they should have made it so you read the journals sideways like a book (like how Brain Age is oriented.) I like that idea.

A Better Note Taking Feature - You can take notes using a little keyboard but it's limited. If you've made a mistake typing two lines up, there is no way for you to tap and place your cursor there - you have to delete everything in between! I think a better note taking feature is one where you can use your own handwriting, like on Zelda.

More Screenshots - You can take screenshots of clues, but you can only save one at a time.

I've read several reviews where people complained about the sound. To be fair, the sound is actually pretty good if you have headphones on. It definitely does not sound as good coming out of the DS speakers.

I was finally able to enjoy the game after A.) I used a magnifying glass B.) used headphones C.) took notes with pen and paper instead of the in-game tools. I would not recommend the DS version unless you are willing to put up with all that. However, Myst itself is a great game which is why I gave it a fun rating of 4 stars. If you have never played it before, try the PC or console version.

Some things just never change

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: May 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Myst. The title alone will bring you memories of joy or pure frustration if you were around when the game originally hit PC's years ago. Since then, there have been numerous sequels and spin-off's, with the original Myst being ported to countless systems as well. Now, all these years later, Myst comes to the DS for some odd reason. One may think that the game may be reconfigured and really put the DS' technical capabilities to use, but alas, it doesn't. What we get here is the same game of yesteryear, with the only difference being that Myst has not aged well at all. The once pretty still visuals have become dated and stale, and the fact that the game has been cropped and shrunk down makes things harder to see than ever before. Not to mention that the point and click style of gameplay, which would seem to be something that work on the DS, just seem less interactive than before. Myst as a whole is still a chore to get through as well, but those who enjoyed the game back in the day will find that most of the original's audio quality is here, and there is a bonus island to play as well. Whether or not you get that far however is another question entirely. All in all, if you enjoyed Myst way back when and you own a DS, this may be worth a look; but for those uninitiated with the Myst series or the old point and clicker genre, avoid like the plague.

Glitches galore!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: May 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Myst is a wonderful puzzle game, I am having much fun playing it on the ds, but there are certainly some drawbacks. The screen is to small for this game, but I can make do with it. The biggest problem is the multitude of glitches. This is the first ds game I have ever had glitch up on me. If you like Myst, get it. But if otherwise, consider a different puzzle game if you can't tolerate glitches.

The developers of Myst for DS have massacred a great game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: May 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Myst is a great game, but I suggest you find another platform to play it on. This port is riddled with bugs. When flipping through the books, the pages skip around, the upper screen has become distorted, the touch screen controls are finicky, you can't read anything without using the zoom feature, and the screen capture tool (used as a form of note taking) flips books back to page one before taking the shot. I've only played it for about an hour and I can't believe Nintendo let them release the game in this state. Bottom line, don't buy this version of Myst. The developer who ported this doesn't deserve your money.

You're better off with the PC version

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Pros: This game still has the same great puzzles you remember, along with some updated features we always wished they'd had in the original, such as the ability to take screen shots and a way to take in-game notes instead of mucking about with notebooks and pencils.

Cons: They've shoehorned the original game onto a tiny DS screen instead of reworking it in a way that might have been more effective. The itty bitty controls are difficult to work in some places, and the dark graphics that looked so great on your monitor are hard to make out on the small DS screen if there's any other light in the room to cast a glare. You'll find your frustration with this game has less to do with the puzzles, and more to do with the cramped game play.

Bottom line: Go ahead and get this if you specifically need a version of the game that's portable (I bought it for a 7-hour flight), but if you want the full enveloping puzzle experience, go for the PC version.

I should have listended

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Like most others I was excited to see Myst coming to the DS. I should have listend to the reviews. This game did not transfer well to the DS. It is extremly hard to nagivate and the screen is very little. The zoom feature may as well not be there it does nothing to help you look at things. If you love this game and own a DS DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY! I would highly recommend you try it out from a game rental site before you buy it. I plan to trade mine in with only an hour played.

Bummer

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: May 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I love the Myst series...I've read the books and I've played all the PC games. When i saw it was coming out for the DS, I was psyched! I've been playing it for the past few days, and I've got to say, I'm disappointed. Glitches abound in this game! My DS has locked up a number of times, the screen freezes up or blacks out...I mean, the game play is good and all, but the glitches make it a nuisance to play. This last time, I lost some serious game play because it locked up so bad I had to shut off my DS. I'll keep playing it through just because I love the game so much, but I don't think I'd ever recommend it to a friend.

DS Myst is a miss!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: May 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard that Myst was coming out for DS, I was ecstatic. Quicktime is the worst media software I have ever experienced, and Myst is still getting buggier by the minute as new OS's come out for the PC (thanks Apple, once again). I pre-ordered the game and all that was left was to wait.

Since I had played the game before, I pretty much knew the general feel and most of the solutions to the puzzles. The only puzzle I really had trouble with / forgot how to solve was the one on the Stoneship Age with the hidden compass (no spoilers here).

I was delightfully surprised to find that there was actual speech in the game, something I had never experienced on a Nintendo hand held before. The graphics, too, were not so bad at all. Overall, the gameplay, besides the size of everything, was very satisfying.

Unfortunately, this is a game that is played once and then sits on the shelf gathering dust for the most part. Other games, though not as classic, can probably be re-played over and over and not lose their intrigue for a while. All in all, nice try but this was just merely okay for me.

As painful as ever

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: June 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game when it came out on the PC, but then, after playing games like EverQuest II and even Dungeon Siege, I began to realize how poor the controls on Myst were.

I thought the Nintendo DS version of Myst was going to have some improvements, but it is actually worse than the PC version. Navigating is very limited--you can only move to two or three spots on each screen. The screen is small, naturally, and the zoom feature does little to clarify the scene, so it is sometimes difficult to determine what you are looking at (and if you try to move closer you switch to another area completely).

This game is very aggravating.

Disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I am a huge fan of the PS version of this game and was very excited to see they were making it available for the DS. I read the reviews on here and thought it couldn't possibly be as disappointing as the reviews showed. Well, don't kid yourself. The reviews are right. The graphics are pretty bad, the screen is too small making you nearly squint to see the finer details and there are some glitches. It's not worth it. Not even buying a used one is worth it. Sad.

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