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Unique, fun, and short.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 81 / 81
Date: November 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game starts you off on a remote island where you are lost. You have to eat, which is a puzzle in itself. Then you explore the island, trying to find a way home. Most of the puzzles in this game are logical, except 2 or 3 which involve you tinkering with it until you get it. I had to look at a walkthrough for 1 such puzzle, because the clue they gave didn't make sense.

The graphics are beautiful - and they are not still shots like in many other adventure games. Each shot has something moving in it -- anything from a butterfly to a monkey hurling rocks at you.

A couple of scenes involve your quick thinking. Hang around too long and you're dead. But rest assured, if you die, it resets to just before that scene (so no worries if you forgot to save).

Another great thing about this game is that there are multiple ways to do almost every puzzle. You can assemble things and make different chemicals, weapons, foods, etc. It's nice to have some flexibility in the game, especially if you didn't find an object that's needed to make something.

The ending is quick and sudden, but exactly what I expected. The surprises came in the middle of the game. The game is based on a Jules Verne novel -- but don't expect the same quality of story line. It's good, but not a classic novel by any means.

The real downfall of this game is the length. It is considerably shorter than many other adventure games - even shorter than Syberia. Still, the price tag makes up for that fact. The game's price debuted at a mere $20 list, whereas other games are $40+.

For this price, you might as well pick it up and play this good, though short game.

Fine game, what there is of it

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 71 / 73
Date: December 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

A sweet and engaging little game, with just enough challenge to keep your brain working and some cool places to explore. If the plot is a little far-fetched, well, that's a computer game, right? Graphics are excellent, and the music is lovely; acting and writing both work very well. Puzzles are of the constructing-a-battery-out-of-lemon-juice variety. There are very few timed puzzles, and those aren't difficult, even for fumble-fingered players like me. No violence or anything else objectionable, but some of the puzzles might be a little challenging for kids under 12 or so.

The only real drawback to the game is its brevity. This is one of the fastest games I've played in a long time. There are multiple routes to reach the end, but that doesn't increase playability to the point where you'll want to play the game more than about twice. It's a shame, because the environment is so attractive and the characters so much fun that I wanted to explore it more.

Going to keep my eyes on these guys and see what they come up with next!

Short But Worth the $$$

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: March 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

As many other reviewers have noted, this game is very short. However, I found it compelling, easy to navigate, and in short, a lot of fun to play. To give you some context, I was a big fan of adventure games back in the Sierra and Monkey Island days, but haven't played any in the past 5-6 years (ever since first-person gore-fests took over the world).

These days I like the Nancy Drew series, but Return to Mysterious Island was a really nice break from the Nancy Drew format. RtMI is pleasing to look at, has great music, and not too much pixel-hunting: most items are in plain view, and the ones that are "hidden" usually require looking up at the sky or down on the ground, as opposed to scanning the area in front of you in super-slo-mo.

The inventory puzzles are fun and at times challenging. You can definitely finish the game without figuring out uses for a lot of your inventory items, but according to one walk-through I read after I finished the game (and was still being haunted by questions like "what the heck was I supposed to use X for?"), all items in the game are useful ones.

I think it's great that there are many different ways to attack the same problem. For example - how to start a fire? So far I have found around 9 different ways to do so, using different combinations of my inventory.

In summary, I only paid $10 for this game, but thoroughly enjoyed the 10 hours I spent playing it.

Somewhere between Myst and Monkey Island

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: September 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The graphics and music are first rate. The story is engaging and the puzzles are fun. Now I think the game is long enough for the price. Granted since it is a fun game for most the family, you want more. Consider though when Myst came out it ran fifty plus dollars. This twenty dollar game is well worth it. In fact I hope to see more like this one from this company. My wife and I love this type game as we did Myst and more cartoonish ones like the Monkey Island series. I'm sure this will keep children occupied for hours. It kept us busy for several days. I am sure it is one that we will stick on the shelf and come back to from time to time.

Using a Jules Verne story that even has a couple movies about it may lead to some preconceptions, but this game does not follow any in detail, after all it is a puzzle game. What you mostly have is the atmosphere of Mysterious Island, but not all the danger. The good news is that makes it appropriate for smaller children. It has enough of the settings from the books and movies to interest adults. Puzzling together how to use things together is fun for the whole family. I recommend this game to anyone that enjoys beautiful graphics and music and loves to work puzzles.

Our heroine is a modern day young lady stranded off a yacht in a storm. She has a cell phone but no battery and even once she works out a battery she must find why the signal can't get out. Fortunately she will gain the assistance from an inhabitant of the island. If you get stumped to bad there is a walkthrough available at http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/returntomysteriousisland/hints.html that should keep you from getting frustrated. Most puzzles are a matter of putting things together. I highly recommend this game for the family to play together.

Great Game, But Extremely Short!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: January 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This was the shortest game I have ever played! The ending came abruptly and was unexpected. It was sort of like, "Oh? Is that all?"

The graphics in the game are absolutely gorgeous! The sound effects are minimal, but what exists are great.

The game is very inventory-heavy. This is the first game I've played that is like this. Many inventory items can be combined to make other items. Some combinations involve combining six or more items! For all the combining I did in the game, I used very little of the resulting items.

The game did crash my system a couple of times -- I don't know why. I am running Windows XP on a one-year old computer with 160 GB hard drive, 256 MB video card, and 512 MB RAM.

The puzzles ranged from easy to hard. Nothing really new or ground-breaking in the puzzles.

There were several parts of the island that were "dead ends" -- you couldn't explore them at all. Also, the cell phone/PDA feature that is built into the game was hardly utilized at all.
With all of these "unused" features combined with the game's extreme shortness, I feel the manufacturer might have had more planned for this game but cut it short in the end.

The abrupt ending combined with all of the unused inventory items, all the unused combined inventory items, and the unexplorable areas made this game a sort of letdown. That's why I only gave it three stars.

Really fun game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: March 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I liked this game a lot. It was fun to find and combine inventory items to make new items. The game was easy enough to play and the puzzles related to the game and were fun. I didn't give it 5 stars because it was just too short. I finished the game in about 6 hours. I would have liked to have had another 10+ hours of game play. The graphics are great and the story is really fun.

Good graphics, bad play

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: May 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I borrowed this game from my sister and pretty much did it all in a few hours. Thus, first off, this game is short, it is a series of actions you must figure out and complete in a semi-certain order. Not a lot of room for independence or exploration. This game also is limited - it takes place on a small island with too few screens. Finally, I couldn't even finish it, because at the very end (I won't spoil!) it was basically impossible for me to be fast enough to do one of the required tasks. So I stopped and uninstalled.

Great graphics, but probably not worth the money. I think this is a Myst wanna-be.

Tightly constructed, decently executed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: April 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Similar engine to the other Jules Verne game "Voyage", this game also places emphasis on item finding and management, offering a ton of things to search for and fiddle around with to come uup with the solutions..Unlike voyage, it seemed to make a little more sense and have a little more releveance to the plot of the game...Nice design, but not designed enough, as you finish up too soon for a proper game's value.. The little time that you do get to spend on this mysterious island does have it's upsides however, and is well worth it for the hardcore adventure gamer.

Way too short

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game starts really well- you wake up in an seemingly abandoned island and have to survive eating coconuts and that kind of stuff. Later on, you explore a bit more the island and begin to settle there, repairing and reconstructing the rests of civilization that were there, seeing & hearing strange things... What had happened in this island?

The game goes downhill from there. What had happened? Well, nothing. There's no mistery to solve. The game seems cut in half, with a obviously very rushed sci fi ending and a shortage of places to explore. The last puzzles consist of clicking buttons until you get it right, because you are not provided any clues or even a hint of why the puzzle is there.

I finished this game the same day I bought it, and I was very dissapointed for the price I paid. Some alternative endings (Or alternative ways to escape) along with more interaction with non-playable characters, more exploration, more "What had happened here?", and a mystery to solve instead of run-around-randomly-combining-items, would have made this the best puzzle-solving game ever.

My advice? Keep searching, you'll find something better.

Many puzzle solutions to a well-rendered game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a bit prejudiced toward "lost on a deserted island" scenarios. Thus, I took an immediate liking to this game. The graphic rendering was magnificent. The puzzles ranged from simple to moderately difficult. I learned the basics of making many componets and compound with this game which is not the sort of thing most people would know offhand. This game was a bit short and I am looking forward to Mysterious Island II.

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