Once again, the Myst book opens up to original, magnificent, unexpected horizons. The reader / player can only marvel at this new opus. But he will be surprised to read such "pluses" and "minuses": this opus stands out greatly from the series. On the good news side, the surprise lies in the technique. Admittedly, the series has always buried all the Cryo games of the time, with fairly similar precalculated movements. But there, Myst V: End of Ages borders on perfection. The characters that we meet can compete in quality with those of Half-Life 2. The comparison remains of course audacious, Valve's hit using a real-time engine with free movement. Here, we stay in the box-by-box genre. Moreover, just like for the first Myst, you will not feel especially in an atmosphere of the Spanish Camp Nou one night of the final, but more in the confessional of an abandoned church. Too bad, the two characters that we meet have very natural movements, clothes that fly in the wind in a realistic way and facial motion capture expressing as many emotions as the man with the suitcase. The sets also have textures to make the creators of the latest and most anticipated FPSs green with envy. On the other hand, on the entertainment side, things are already moving a lot more across the Adibou range. A butterfly here, a pebble rolling there, we can't even talk about a union minimum. In short, if Myst causes you the same lethargic crises as a tsetse fly or Derrick, no need to consult, it's normal. But there, no surprise, it's been like this since the first one.
All good things come to an end
On the other hand, what changes enormously is the distribution between exploration and reflection, the puzzles strictly speaking. We find the first after half an hour of play to come across an ersatz IQ test consisting of pressing two buttons and then another, in the center of the large room. Where are the puzzles that made us get up in the middle of the night fifteen years ago after two hours of reflection in the bed? Instead of rediscovering these joys, we also find ourselves fifteen years ago, facing the first exercise of the army intelligence test! Of course, everything gets a little complicated from halfway through the game. Does Myst V: End of Ages really mark the end of the series? It would be a shame not to do a little back to basics, in the style of one enigma per room, with dozens of enigmatic machines before closing the last book.
