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Riven: The Sequel to Myst: The Official Strategy Guide
Mend all that is Riven.
This book before you is a powerful tome--make it serve you to find Gehn, free Catherine, and rescue Riven's natives before it's too late. Get Riven: The Official Strategy Guide for:
• Clear, step-by-step walkthroughs
• Detailed visual aids for exact guidance
• Easy to find solutions to every imaginable puzzle
• In-depth instructions via the Complete Riven Journal
• Exclusive full-color poster and map
• and Ages, upon Ages more!
Get the best that any Age has to offer. Get the only book that Atrus can never tear apart! Get Riven: The Official Strategy Guide so you can act while there is still time!
This book before you is a powerful tome--make it serve you to find Gehn, free Catherine, and rescue Riven's natives before it's too late. Get Riven: The Official Strategy Guide for:
• Clear, step-by-step walkthroughs
• Detailed visual aids for exact guidance
• Easy to find solutions to every imaginable puzzle
• In-depth instructions via the Complete Riven Journal
• Exclusive full-color poster and map
• and Ages, upon Ages more!
Get the best that any Age has to offer. Get the only book that Atrus can never tear apart! Get Riven: The Official Strategy Guide so you can act while there is still time!
208 pages, Paperback
First published November 12, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 21, 2019
First, a bit of history: I came across the MYST computer games back in the late 1990’s, a few years after they came out. They were problem-solving games, with a back story to make any fantasy author proud, appealing characters (even the bad guys), little to no violence, lush graphics, and insanely complex and at times extremely difficult puzzles, which built on each other. I really had to rely on the Strategy Guides to get me through them. They consist of a combination of “hints” and “walk-throughs,” with the player going to the latter only after going bonkers using the former.
I ordered the first three games online, as well as their corresponding Strategy Guides and made it through the first two (MYST, RIVEN) and part way through the third (EXILE) when my laptop shot craps and wouldn’t continue the game as well as any other programs (a word of caution; don’t spill coffee on your laptop’s keyboard, nothing good comes of that). When I got a new computer, I found it wouldn’t play EXILE. I came to find out, through my cousin Joel, a fellow gamer of MYST, that Windows 10 isn’t compatible with the programming for these games because they were so old. By that time, I had gotten rid of MYST and RIVEN. So, tears in my eyes, I packed up the “Special Edition” of EXILE (which came with the Strategy Guide and a little pewter marsupial called a “squee” from the game; I had also obtained figures of the protagonist, Atrus, and his nemesis Saavedo at the Dollar Store). More about those in my review of EXILE.
Fast forward to 2018, when my stepdaughter Katie informed me that Cyan, the games’ developer, had a Kickstarter campaign to update all the MYST games to be compatible with Windows 10, and for a contribution of $100 I could, eventually, receive contemporary/updated versions of them (MYST, RIVEN, EXILE, REVELATION, END OF AGES, and UDU, as well as a 3-D version of MYST). My retirement was set!
So, a number of months later, I received said package and decided to replay MYST and RIVEN first. My memory being what it is, I quickly forgot many if not most of the strategic steps, so went online and got a walkthrough of MYST, which came back slowly, but was a very satisfying experience. (If I had gotten the Strategy Guide, you’d be seeing the above paragraph and a review of it before this one) When it came to RIVEN, which is a more complicated game, I decided to reorder the Strategy Guide to get me through. Even with said Guide, these games take several months to play, at least at my level of sophistication.
This brings us to my review of the RIVEN Strategy Guide, which I have found extremely valuable and helpful in remembering both the overall game and the details of the various puzzles. The Guide also provides printouts of the various journals by Atrus, which make it convenient to return to for hints, drawings and a running narrative. Part I consists of the hints, of increasing depth, and Part II is a walkthrough, noting every little detail one can possibly expect. RIVEN is a series of islands, each one of which has a spinning dome which one must find as well as determine how to open each of them. The connections among the islands’ domes and among related icons that one must interpret regarding sounds and visual images is quite complex and – did I say maddening? Each chapter of the walkthrough part starts with a map of the island that one arrives in, but there is also a fold-out full-color map of all of the islands one travels to (the videos of the use of a sort of tram one uses to get between islands are spectacular and breathtaking!). Incidentally, all of the other illustrations are in black-and-white.
Another aspect which I liked is that the narratives for both parts are in the form of a sort of journal written in the first person by a supposed previous game player, although my version of said journal would have many more frustration-based colorful terms and phrases in it…
All in all, superbly put together, as is the EXILE guide I’m currently consulting. Review of that coming, God knows when. Five stars for RIVEN!
I ordered the first three games online, as well as their corresponding Strategy Guides and made it through the first two (MYST, RIVEN) and part way through the third (EXILE) when my laptop shot craps and wouldn’t continue the game as well as any other programs (a word of caution; don’t spill coffee on your laptop’s keyboard, nothing good comes of that). When I got a new computer, I found it wouldn’t play EXILE. I came to find out, through my cousin Joel, a fellow gamer of MYST, that Windows 10 isn’t compatible with the programming for these games because they were so old. By that time, I had gotten rid of MYST and RIVEN. So, tears in my eyes, I packed up the “Special Edition” of EXILE (which came with the Strategy Guide and a little pewter marsupial called a “squee” from the game; I had also obtained figures of the protagonist, Atrus, and his nemesis Saavedo at the Dollar Store). More about those in my review of EXILE.
Fast forward to 2018, when my stepdaughter Katie informed me that Cyan, the games’ developer, had a Kickstarter campaign to update all the MYST games to be compatible with Windows 10, and for a contribution of $100 I could, eventually, receive contemporary/updated versions of them (MYST, RIVEN, EXILE, REVELATION, END OF AGES, and UDU, as well as a 3-D version of MYST). My retirement was set!
So, a number of months later, I received said package and decided to replay MYST and RIVEN first. My memory being what it is, I quickly forgot many if not most of the strategic steps, so went online and got a walkthrough of MYST, which came back slowly, but was a very satisfying experience. (If I had gotten the Strategy Guide, you’d be seeing the above paragraph and a review of it before this one) When it came to RIVEN, which is a more complicated game, I decided to reorder the Strategy Guide to get me through. Even with said Guide, these games take several months to play, at least at my level of sophistication.
This brings us to my review of the RIVEN Strategy Guide, which I have found extremely valuable and helpful in remembering both the overall game and the details of the various puzzles. The Guide also provides printouts of the various journals by Atrus, which make it convenient to return to for hints, drawings and a running narrative. Part I consists of the hints, of increasing depth, and Part II is a walkthrough, noting every little detail one can possibly expect. RIVEN is a series of islands, each one of which has a spinning dome which one must find as well as determine how to open each of them. The connections among the islands’ domes and among related icons that one must interpret regarding sounds and visual images is quite complex and – did I say maddening? Each chapter of the walkthrough part starts with a map of the island that one arrives in, but there is also a fold-out full-color map of all of the islands one travels to (the videos of the use of a sort of tram one uses to get between islands are spectacular and breathtaking!). Incidentally, all of the other illustrations are in black-and-white.
Another aspect which I liked is that the narratives for both parts are in the form of a sort of journal written in the first person by a supposed previous game player, although my version of said journal would have many more frustration-based colorful terms and phrases in it…
All in all, superbly put together, as is the EXILE guide I’m currently consulting. Review of that coming, God knows when. Five stars for RIVEN!
September 8, 2015
Like the guide for its prequel, Myst, this guide has two sections: the "journal" guide (a soft guide using fictional journal entries) and a hard-hitting, step-by-step, typical game guide. The commentary in both guides is pretty hilarious, and will make you chuckle as you try and maneuver your way through this incredibly difficult game series.
September 15, 2016
I'd probably would have liked this one better had I been able to finish the game itself. Also, if the author's writing style hadn't changed so abruptly from the first book to this one. It's incredibly choppy. The character gets to where he's going, then explains how he got there. Repeatedly. It got annoying really quickly and ruined the story he told equally as fast.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews