Riven: An Incredible Game and a Perfect Sequel

Riven is one of the best games I have ever played. As you might expect, I talk about it in this video.

[@Rivenworld]

Love this, Riven summed up beautifully, over 20 years on and I still play it.

[@LamborghiniReven1000]

I can't wait for the remake. It looks incredible.

[@jamespeterson1630]

FINALLY someone perfectly articulating why Riven is WAY better than Myst and deserves even more accolades than Myst got. Also heck I kinda wish you touched on the soundtrack during the games atmosphere section and that you didn't have to spoil the key puzzles to make a great structure for the video but it is what it is The OST of this game is the most iconic ever in terms of atmosphere Anyway fantastic video cheers from a fellow person who's childhood revolved around this game (and Exile)

[@tiksman17]

ofc riven is better than myst, no question abt that

[@TronSAHeroXYZ]

Just get Riven Remake out.

[@jinxmetwice420]

I remember having this when i was too young to understand much that was going on, I do recall the world being beautifully crafted, I think I'm going to find me a copy of this game again!

[@Jebugandhi]

It's like five bucks on Steam and goes on sale pretty regularly. Well worth it in my opinion.

[@AngryShooter]

I had this has a kid too, my mom bought it in second hand because people kept returning the game to the store for being too complicated. I didn't understand it either but I was immediately absorbed by the world so I kept the game.

[@dan.w.2432]

Riven is getting an HD remake from the ground up right now!

[@sirrando]

This is a great video. Dripping with that cyan atmosphere. Solid writing too. Keep it up. Quality shines through

[@Jebugandhi]

Thanks!! It means a lot.

[@n00b1n8R]

This is a very cool video, hope it gets views

[@Elviolli]

I’ll never forget how accomplished I felt after beating this game back in the day with zero help. The dome marble puzzle and the animal noise puzzle were particularly satisfying. Games just aren’t made like this anymore.

[@Flyingtart]

I think the talos pinciple 2 is a great, recent puzzle game, but it's more straight to the point: you enter a room, solve the puzzle, exit the room. However the puzzles are very creative, and sometimes after you solved it you're like "how are the creators of this puzzle this smart?". I recommend it!

[@Faxie83]

Yep, same here. Felt really smart when I suddenly noticed the animal shapes.

[@MrBorisRoo]

Godamn man! I wanted to do a retrospective, but never mind. You done excelent job!

[@Yoctopory]

Please do it anyway! I would be the first to watch it.

[@VolatileSupernova]

My mom is to blame for getting me hooked on games, I used to watch her play Myst when I was a kid, watching over her shoulder and being astounded by the insane level of graphics, lol. Then we both played Riven so we could talk about it together and it blew me away.

[@bigbootros4362]

A love letter to a video game 😊

[@JollyGoodThen]

Beautiful and terrifying

[@nabollo]

The numbers that you refer to as Rivenese are actually D’ni numerals. The Rivenese numerals are the ones with the wedges rotating around a central point. (Yes, I liked the video ❤)

[@augustomunoz6138]

That difference is only made in the 2024 remake. In the original (and by the time this video was uploaded), there was no circular numbers in th game, only the ones in squares, later revealed to be D'ni and only to differentiate them from the Rivenese circular numeric system. I loved the addition of this layer in the remake.

[@hassledvania]

Brilliant video, displaying a deep understanding of what makes Riven such a one-of-a-kind experience.

[@SilverWolf09100]

My dad used to play this game, he would hook his laptop up to the living room tv and all us kids would watch and try our best to help him solve the puzzles.

[@Jebugandhi]

That's really sweet. One of my first gaming memories was sitting on my dad's lap and watching him play through it. I think I thought I was helping him but uhh in retrospect I doubt my input was very useful

[@alexissercho]

Best game ever.

[@Synthonym]

The trailer for the remake is like a distilled summation of everything you talked about here. I feel like I could reach out and run my fingers over the rough sandstone watching it

[@hurdad]

riven remaster in the works!

[@NeViKble]

I do hope Cyan nails exactly that Riven feeling with the remake!

[@Jebugandhi]

I think the real-time 3D remake will be really cool but something about the fixed camera angles actually enhances the atmosphere for me. I think it adds to that feeling of isolation when you can't even choose the perspective you see the world from. Plus, I think the fixed camera allowed Cyan to make a lot of really beautiful, iconic shots (like the one in the thumbnail and the ones I talk about in the video). Obviously still super excited though.

[@NeViKble]

@@Jebugandhi I took a few dozen cool pictures in Firmament. You can get great visual moments in 3D and Cyan is trying to keep the environment as close as possible to Riven. So fingers crossed! I am still curious about the integration of the people in 3D. In Obduction they kind of cheated by only showing people behind windows/screens. Maybe they'll force the people to a certain perspective to show filmed actors. Just pls don't make crappy 3d animations like in Myst 5 or (even worse) in the recent Myst remake 🙈

[@ArmTheCreative]

The ORIGINAL Escape Room

[@ICountFrom0]

Another key thing about Riven. A puzzle solved once, is a puzzle solved once. Myst. 59 volts. You know that forever. Riven... *shrug* some of those things, are gonna shift on you.

[@Jayy997]

Only started playing this a few days ago for the first time in 2024 and it still feels so vivid, so fresh and so captivating. I can see what the praise is all about.

[@tonyallen4265]

Watching Twitch streams of Riven with the live chat enables me to play Riven again for the first vicariously through the streamer. Love it.

[@Welther47]

5:48 So Gehn really is a God when it come to writing Ages, better than Atrus, at least. That's what you are kinda saying ;)

[@RoarMcRipHelmet]

And somehow, in the 2024 remake they made the puzzle design even better! This game is a gem.

[@atimholt]

Until recently, I'd last played it a couple decades ago. I just played it again in VR, and it was fantastic.

[@muaddibles]

I think a better word to describe Riven is alienation.

[@grandmoffporkins]

I love Riven for reasons that are so hard to articulate. But you did a bang up job!

[@TheExileFox]

Might be time to revisit this topic now that Riven can be played in 3d.

[@valuemastery]

I played this when it first came out and was blown away. It's the one game that I enjoyed playing most, it was such a novel and great experience. For me, it was the greatest game of all time. Now more than two decades later, the game itself hasn't changed. But was has changed, is how I perceive the graphics. While world design is still the best that I know, it seems too pixelated and low quality today, while in 1997 graphics blew me away. For me, it takes away a little bit from replay value. I wish they had rendered the same scenes in higher resolution back then to be prepared for a modern variant when computers have evolved. But they didn't, and as I understand they cannot do it anymore since they have lost important data to just start a new redering. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the Riven remake. I hope they manage to keep the unique look and feel of the game, keeping original video and sound recordings - not like in the Myst remake , where they at first tried to replace videos of Sirrus and Achenar with super weird 3D renderings.

[@Welther47]

There is just nothing like it.

[@JoeKawano]

Whoa.

[@sizzlehound6327]

A lot of the things you talk about loving in riven, like the lived in world and the natural puzzles, really reminded me of outer wilds.

[@Jebugandhi]

love that game too. in all likelihood that’s a future video

[@BarrieFaire]

Very well made video. Never played the game but I remember Myst and enjoyed the explanation.

[@Mwuhahaha]

Very nice video! I think when I played Riven it was just a bit too much for me. Had never even seen anything like it before, and was fascinated. Definitely changed how I thought about video games.

[@KingLich451]

Love the videos mate. Keep em up!

[@epicfox567]

Fantastic video! Hope to see more Myst content from you!

[@wallyman292]

Still waiting for the new version to be released. . .

[@Overlordsen]

Sorry to tell you this, but as a hardcore fan of cyan and especially riven, I was really dissapointed by the new 3D version of the game. Not that it wasnt very well done, its just, by playing it through I realized that I was missing exactly those feelings that were described in this video. Also they made the difficulty significantly more easy. So I wouldnt call it a bad game but I would allways recomend to play the old 2D version instead.

[@NoahSties]

amazing

[@JamesMadisonsSpiritAnimal]

Myst was the very first PC game I ever played. I was like 8, I got frustrated and never played it again. Same thing happened again when I was like 11 and my sister bought me a game called "Morrowind" Lol it took me like 10 years to realize my fruit fly attention span really handicapped my PC gaming experience as a kid. As soon as I retried Morrowind after having played oblivion on Xbox and now having ADHD meds I felt like a total fool for throwing both Myst and Morrowind in the junk drawer lol I of course retried myst once I was like 25 and as dated as it was even then it had an incredible atmosphere that to this day I have never seen it's like. I always wondered about the sequel. I might have to grab it now.

[@AHouser86]

Heard of this game and Myst back in the day. was too young to figure out Myst so I swore off these games. However, today I saw remake trailer for Riven so now going down the rabbit hole and checking out videos. Looks so immersive and can't wait to try these games out! Great video

[@Wip3ou7]

This is a very romantic review. I just came in hot from my first playthrough of MYST, feeling pretty pumped about playing RIVEN, and about 12 hours in the game is starting to wear thin. I've gained access to every island that I know of and I'm stuck at the part where you have to learn the numbers for the golden globes and i still cant solve it after spending hours trying to figure out what the fucking number system and language means.... simultaneously stuck at the part with the animal headstones. I can tell the part with the headstones is a sound related puzzle having to do with the marker stones but I still cant solve it. So yeah I'm at two puzzles in which I know how they're supposed to be solved and yet i still cant piece it together. I'm not sure what my problem is, MAYBE IM A DUMBASS... or maybe the design of this game just isn't that good in the sense that its simply too obtuse to be ENTERTAINING once the exploration has been mostly done and all that's left is literal work that most people probably cant do. I'm in that camp, i guess. Great game if you don't have anything better to do with your time than translate the lost language of a fictional civilization. MYST was fairly straightforward for me and I'm no stranger to point and click adventure games. I'm just giving my honest opinion as someone who isn't looking at this game through nostalgia goggles. The exploration and graphics are great, the final sets of "puzzles" are not "fun". I'm gonna have to put this game in the "not recommended" pile for 99% of gamers, which is a fucking tragedy because MYST was so fun and its terrible to have such a hurdle (Riven) in the series. Personally unless this somehow clicks with me soon, it's gonna get to a point where I put it down forever, skip it, or use a guide. Once it gets to that point I honestly won't be able to say Riven was a "good" game.

[@EliotLash]

It's a difficult game, if you're not enjoying it anymore I'd say just look at a few UHS hints. I definitely used a hint guide when I played it as a kid. There's so much more cool stuff in the game after the point you're at IMO.