I like the new version, but it doesn't feel like 'Riven' to me. It feels like an extremely good facsimile. I just hope the original assets to the 1997 version are found one day, as i'd love a 'Riven: Masterpiece Edition' like Myst, where it was the original art, but encoded better and in higher quality.

I have no faith in the AAA studios. Too frequently have they proven their products are simply not worth the price they charge and every instance of a AAA release suggests the consumer will be better off waiting a year for a better price and a better game. What exactly is my inscentive to pay for a AAA game at launch? If it's single player there is literally none, and if it's multiplayer, waiting one year will guarantee a better game at a better price, and you can forecast if the game will still have players should you buy in. Most recently i bought spiderman 2 at 43% off. Still not thrilled with the price i paid, but i paid 43% less than people at launch did, and i got to play the same game with all the features they added post launch. I got an objectively better experience for a lower price.

Why do new age kids who never experienced putting quarters in arcade machines always review games for us OLD SCHOOL CATS??? We don’t need you talking about “the limited wrestling experience that this game provides while charging a high cost of admission…” Bruh? This ain’t FOR YOU!!! This is for gen x, xennials and old millennials who remember wrestle fest. If I say “remember wrestle fest?” and you go “huh? Wrestlefest?” then this ain’t for you bro! Why are you even reviewing this?! I don’t like call of duty right? So if you ask me about call of duty I’ll say it sux. Meanwhile, 10 million other people are like “call of duty is great!” So does that mean call of duty sux for real or is it just not for me? Chances are it’s the latter not the former. If you’re not at LEAST 40 years of age in this year of our lord 2024, you should probably not be reviewing old school 2D games because you grew up on PlayStation basically. If you don’t remember playing games on 1 and 2 button controllers you should hush. Period.

Caveat, in the old Riven, you would need to switch between 5 CDs, so no it was not fast to travel between the Islands back in its day.

Your parallel between Gehn's shoddy attempt at the Art and the remake itself blew my mind

Great review! I had similar thoughts on Riven, and I would also recommend the original. I think I prefer the look of the original too, with its lighting and the modeling of its creatures. I think the frame-by-frame nature of it allowed it to feel more real and immersive due to more being left up to the imagination, whereas you could often tell the limits of the video game medium while playing the new one. That being said, I'm really glad they made the new one, and I'm so happy so many people at Cyan were so enthralled with the project. It was clear a lot of effort went into making a great game with meticulous attention to detail. I hope Cyan continues making games for years to come!

I took your advice and played the original 1997 Riven first. I had played it some as a teenager when Riven first came out but had never finished it. I already had it in my Steam library from a sale but chose not to play it when I learned about the original pre-Cyan remake and was waiting for it to finish. After seeing your review and reading some Reddit comments about the fire marble puzzle, I decided to install it and give it a whirl before trying the remake. Pretty early on, I realized that often finding things amounted to just clicking on everything and tediously ensuring that you exhaustively view every possible angle every time you take a step. What was and was not interactable was often unclear. And what screens would and would not contain important information was often unclear as well. Each of the following cost me a lot of time. I had to look them up and when I did, I was annoyed that they were hidden this way (⚠ spoiler alert): - The hidden staircase on the forest path down to ball #4 for the rebel sound puzzle - Clicking on the right lantern top to access the Whark mouth staircase - Ensuring you close the doors in the frog trap building and check behind them for the secret hallways - The lever you have to pull to change the bridge into a staircase to get to the fire marble puzzle You could argue that those were all just Gehn or the rebels hiding secrets and that's a fair response but within the point and click interface, they are just annoying. However, there were also puzzle solutions that I thought made no sense: - You are supposed to deduce the first animal in the rebel sound puzzle from the reflection of the cave entrance to the jungle village based on Gehn's note that he keeps finding the villagers trying to place the sound ball at the entrance. But this reflection can *only* be seen from Gehn's parascope that he uses to spy on the villagers. It makes no sense that a secret meant for the rebels is positioned in a way that it can only be deduced from Gehn's perspective, the very person they should be trying to hide the secret from. This absurdity shattered my sense of immersion in a game with otherwise narratively consistent puzzle solutions and felt very "gamey". - The symbol they chose for the frog looks like a bug and there is another symbol that looks more like a frog. I had all the animals identified in the correct order and still couldn't complete the puzzle without looking up the symbols because of this. Hitting these last 2 issues in particular made me wary about wasting more of my limited gaming time on the rest of the game because they are significant design flaws. I had already figured out on my own that I needed to know what colors were associated with the domes using their stop symbols and what those colors were, minus the broken light. And I had learned the D'ni numerals well enough to open the domes using Gehn's journal entry. Also, unfortunately, the process of evaluating which version of Riven to play by reading Reddit comments after watching your review had already spoiled for me that I needed to use a 3D viewer to locate the domes on a grid so I knew exactly what to do with that device when I found it. But after realizing there was no way for me to get to the smallest island, I started to dread another signficant design flaw. This caused me to further spoil the game by looking up the process of elimination needed to try the final 2 marbles. It wasn't a huge spoiler since I didn't go so far as to look up the final marble configuration. But it is unfortunate that I had lost so much faith in the game by that point that I looked up that final bit of logical deduction instead of discovering it myself. I will add that the process of getting the Sunners to make the noise in their sound ball further complicated the issues I had with the rebel sound puzzle. When I ran into the frog issue, I wanted to verify my other choices. I had gotten lucky enough to have the Sunners make the noise when I first saw them but the fact that they can run away on subsequent verifications if you approach without tediously waiting for the FMV to loop on each click screen was a bad choice in my opinion. Another symptom of the point and click interface. Another nit, I found Catherine's handwriting almost illegible for many words. It was very difficult to read. I looked up an online transcript for her writings to keep from straining my eyes trying to decipher them. The final straw of frustration tainted the very fire marble puzzle I had played this version for. After about an hour or so verifying all the colors, symbols, and coordinates, I carefully placed all the marbles and pulled the lever. The noise and visual feedback seemed fairly muted, so I swapped out the blue marble I'd chosen for prison island to yellow and pulled the lever again. Exact same audio and visual feedback. I triple verified all my color, symbol, and coordinate notes and screenshots and tried again. They were right. I knew they were right. Perplexed and frustrated, I finally turned to the Internet to look up screenshots of the completed marble grid only to find they were exactly the same as my very first guess. I even loaded a posted solution image on top of my own screen shot in Pixelmator, changing opacity to verify all my marbles were the same color and in the same place. I then went down to the temple island dome, tediously re-rotating the beetle chamber, and put in the dome combination to see if the book was activated. It wasn't. I wondered if my installation of the game was broken. Finally, I started blatantly, completely spoiling the entire fire marble puzzle, filled with anger and frustration that I was having to do this. After searching specifically for the scenario of having all the marbles in the right place and nothing happening, I discovered a forum post from 15 years ago pointing out that you needed to press the little circle inside of the lever housing. The little circle that looks like a painted indicator that you have pulled the lever down. The little circle that does not look like a button at all, in a spot where someone probably wouldn't put a button in a real system due to the possibility of damaging the electronics when putting mechanical stress on the shaft as you push the lever down. They had tacked another one of these stupid hidden point and click puzzles onto the hardest puzzle in the game. This was unforgivable. The fire marble puzzle is already so complicated that you are completely second guessing yourself if you are playing it straight. My conclusion on the 1997 Riven: I can forgive the hidden paths since they fit the story but I still think they are overall cheap tricks where spatial observation is hindered by the point and click interface itself. The fish and frog design flaws in the rebel sound puzzle are fatal. They caused me to lose faith in the game and spoil it more than necessary to solve the fire marble puzzle I'd chosen to play this version of the game for. The idea of the fire marble puzzle was interesting and fun to piece together when I was confident the game wasn't going to screw me over again. But then it did. With that stupid button. I hate it so much. So while I take your point that the core mechanics of the fire marble puzzle are preserved in the old game, the experience of it is tainted by the other flaws in the game. Overall, I'm surprised how well the game held up as an experience in 2024, given that it is 27 years old. But it has serious flaws and I can't recommend it without major caveats, at least arming people with the tips needed to avoid the frustrations I encountered. A final tip I wish I'd had and didn't discover until I had almost beaten the game is that you can skip a lot of the FMVs while moving around the island and operating devices by pressing escape (PC) / start (Steam Deck). Maybe the perfect remake would have been the one that removed these flaws from the game while giving it modern graphics and controls. Maybe they overcorrected in the remake. I'll report back after I've finished it (I'll need a break from puzzle games before I tackle that). I can anticipate why you would be frustrated with the remake since it sounds like they completely overhauled everything instead of tweaking out the few fatal flaws the original has, which wouldn't have required changing that much mechanically.

I wonder why they don't make a special package of all this remake games and sell them for PS4 and PS5 this puzzle games are for me the greatest.

While you make some fairly reasonable arguments, I think you probably go a bit to far with them. Certainly some of it got simplified to much, but have to say my experience with them was not as good as yours and did not derive the kind of enjoyment from it you apparently had. Maybe relief to get through it would be closer to it. In my opinion some simplification was probably warranted as it surely would trouble plenty of others like. Something Cyan probably well knew from hearing from various players over time. Though they seem to have overshot on the simplification side. A major plus I think is how one moves around the islands now though I think. This kind of way is more immersive then just clicking to each new spot, though there is no denying it makes getting around more time consuming. One could as you say make a fast travel system, but I do wonder if that would not have hurt the immersive feeling you get from the new setup. And the increased travel times I guess would have compounded the issue with certain puzzles, as going around as much would then become substantially more time consuming. Which might have contributed to them simplifying a bit far. The models are indeed unfortunately insufficient to hold up to the environments they are in, though fortunately patches did at least fix some issues like the page glitch you had in your video. Still being a relatively small team I guess some kind of compromise was inevitable here. This probably also led to some of the limits in movement, where you can only leave the path in certain places, can't wade/swim at all, or even climb trivial heights. Admittedly one could make some arguments for some of those, but still it's hard not to occasionally notice some of the limitations which is unfortunate. I think overall the story presentation was quite alright really, and having seen another review and playthrough from another person who has played Myst games far more extensively then I ever have, thinking so as well. I do think that is not an unfair view on the matter. It probably depends a bit on what preferences one has in a story though, some people like things a bit more mysterious, some people like it if there is clever logic in some of the lore and story solutions as well. To each their own to an extent. Over all I think this is indeed a Riven game in the end as such, perhaps a bit different from the previous, but it's a Riven. One that is a bit more accessible to some what more casual players, going perhaps to far there, but I guess one can always view it as the easy version. I think overall I'd rate it more towards a 4 out of 5 as such, it's pretty good. It has flaws, but quite a few are understandable or a logical outcome of a smaller team having to do a full 3D game. And in general I don't think they're actually that bad. And they are certainly outweighed quite a bit by improvements in the immersion and in modifications in layout that makes the game look more like a world people can live in then the original, something that certainly helps with the improved immersion as well. A factor I think shouldn't be underestimated, things in the past like needing to take a small sub that can only fit a few to the nearby school was certainly a bit questionable when a bridge would clearly be better. It didn't really make logical sense and made it a bit to much like people living in a puzzle world, rather then trying to understand a puzzling world. Well that's my opinion on it though.

missed the swap to a new channel :o lets go!

The new Riven you never forget that you're playing a computer game. The original Riven immerses you in a rich, overwhelming reality the happens to be rendered on your computer. In the original Riven I was embroiled in Catherine's situation and in awe of her courage. She was the ultimate damsel in distress. In the new Riven, not so much.

sad game. sad and bad

Don't listen to this guy's opinion. As hard as he tried to articulate and justify it, it's wrong. He's looking at the original game through nostalgia goggles and is unable to see how imperfect it is and can't conceptualize what it's like for a new player to play the remake. If you're curious about Riven and have never played before, trust me, just play the remake, every aspect is improved on.

"This ain't your granpappy's Riven, son" ;-P

I never played the original, lived under a rock. No plan to play the remake, don't have the brain power. The landscapes and backgrounds looked pretty.

Riven - Solve puzzles to win Civilization - Use diplomacy to win Call of Duty - Shoot your enemies to win Persona 3 - Shoot yourself to win

I’m just glad we can finally put the pin back in the door about this game.

Time for another good ol' NovaCritique. Thanks for continuing to put these out, Adam!

Had a chance to play the original Riven or this remake? What did you think? Thanks for watching!

There were a whole lot of words in this video, some of them even English!

It's no Dark Souls 2

Big stick energy

the only thing too hard was my clitoris. And i don't even have one.

I still remember that one guy posting: "Sekiro revealed me as a fraud. I am and never was good at soulslikes, i just out-leveled every enemy. This is not possible in Sekiro." And now you have the same in SotE. Guys, you need to go explore and gather those scudatree-shards. Makes you more durable and deal more damage, giving you more room for error and less hits needed to win.

What fromsoft needs to do is fix the camera in boss fights. Nothing is more annoying than dealing with a difficult boss that you cannot see because of the terrible camera.

If people can beat these kind of games without leveling up, no summons, no blessings, no getting hit then surely one should be able to complete the game with all available resources. This quick satisfication with low effort attitude can be compared to real life, people just want the easy way in life which is understandable but without struggle there is no growth and only stagnation.

If everthing was easy then what joy would be left after completing a game? None, because there was no challenge

I suck at souls games but still loved shadow of the erdtree. Just beat putrescent knight last night and made my way to the abyssal woods. The world is beautiful, my favorite area has to be the cerulean coast. The blue flowers contrast so well with the surrounding landscape. Miyazaki said its not outside the realm of possibility for an Elden Ring movie, would be curious to hear your thoughts on the lore/story of Elden Ring and how that can translate to a movie.

I am yet to start the DLC, but I am excited to start and explore it, even more so after seeing you play through it. Was also not expecting such a quick review considering it hasn't been 24h since you finished it.

Erdtree to you sir

I have to beat Elden ring. I took a year or so break and cannot remember what I was doing. It’s a struggle.

The people complaining just need to get gud.

Played Elden Ring an/or the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC yet? What are your thoughts? Is it too hard? Let me know in the comments below!

is that 3/5 stars or 3/4? I assume out of 5.

Too much to hope that we'd call these "Quickies" or "Nooners", eh

Nice recap. The only one I actually watched.

24:50 that aged like milk turns out chasing the AAA dream of making games into 80$ movies. isn't working. it's a Singularity they will never catch, sinking more money then they make. and the "adaption" that is needed is to go back to roots. where games favored Substance over style. Nuance over Spectacle. Good Games made with minimalism.

I have mixed feelings with Good Ol’ Phil

I reached this in the morning

The diablo 4 expansion trailer made me physically recoil. So glad they're going back for more of a horror vibe rather than Saturday morning cartoon atmosphere vibe with the series now.

Rad content for work. I hope Microsoft finds a way to be competitive in the console market because Sony definitely needs something to keep them in check with their business practices.

I would have only mentioned the studio closures once Since the announcement of the studio closures, have other studios expressed concerns about their future?

More content to listen to at work! Appreciate it Adam 🙏

its still the morning for me

Holy moly, almost 1hr and 30min. Pretty much a solo podcast lol

Holy mother... 88 minutes...

hour+ CritiqalHiting

For the Algorithm! And good evening!

Trailer for the Veil guard please?

How about a running commentary on that interview