[b]TLDR[/b] A potentially interesting spin-off of the Myst series, plagued by poor controls, ill-designed puzzles, and having its development cut short. [8/20⭐, 34h🏅, 5/5💡]
[b]Context[/b] Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is a spin-off of the [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/macwh/recommended/63660/]Myst[/url] series, being the first in the series to introduce free-roaming (except for the [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/macwh/recommended/244430/]realMyst[/url] remake) and thus being heavier on action-based puzzles. The Complete Chronicles contain the main game and two expansions, To D’ni and Path of the Shell. It is widely known that the game was developed to be multiplayer but that development was cut short and it was converted into single player version. So the game feels incomplete and empty. Surprisingly, that’s not the main issue with the game: that honor goes to the atrocious controls and the commitment to design action-based puzzles based on it.
[b]Writing[/b] In the world of Myst, certain people - the D’ni - have the ability to create and visit worlds (Ages) by writing “linking books”. By the time of the Myst series events, this civilization has fallen and there are only a few descendants left. The plot of Uru takes an interesting twist from other games: a company from the “real world” has discovered the Ages and is restoring them and exploring them for visitors. At the same time, Yeesha - who you might remember as Atrus’ daughter that you had to rescue in [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/macwh/recommended/925940/]Myst IV[/url] - is sending these outside explorers on a quest to learn more about the corruption of the D’ni people and join her on fixing some of these wrongs. You are one of these outside explorers. In To D’ni, you mainly explore the remains of the D’ni fallen city and the habits of its inhabitants, while in Path to the Shell you again embark on a Yeesha quest through different Ages.
Of course, this is a Myst game, so don’t expect any of this to be laid out to you or to find actual answers for some of the mysteries. The plot is exposed through - often excessively long - journals and recorded messages by Yeesha. Myst always had a spiritual and mystical tone to it, but perhaps because of the overlap with the real world in Uru, Yeesha’s dialogs sounds particularly pretentious and heavy-laden. [spoiler]I still don’t know who are the Bahro and why I should care.[/spoiler]
[b]Aesthetics[/b] The game moves from the pre-processed scenarios of previous Myst entries to real-time 3D graphics with free roaming. The Ages are still as varied and rich as you’d expect, and I guess it looks decent for a 2005 game. But looking at it from 2024, it feels like a downgrade from previous entries, as it fails to capture the mystical and eerie tone, as well of the level of detail, that we expect from Myst games. The soundtrack is one of the best features, non-intrusive and suitable for each Age. Voice acting is limited to Yeesha’s messages, it’s decent given the cliché dialogs.
[b]Gameplay[/b] As expected from a Myst game, there are many logic and exploration puzzles, but with the introduction of free movement there are also more action-based puzzles. Which is unfortunate, because the controls are atrocious. So you can’t properly control the character (either in first- or third-person perspective) but there are puzzles that require jumping, path-following and object-kicking, which are so ill-conceived that it would be funny if I didn’t had to suffer through them. In To D’ni, you’re essentially just walking around [spoiler]looking for waypoints with a radar[/spoiler]. And in Path of the Shell there are 3 puzzles that [spoiler]just require you to wait[/spoiler]. Myst puzzles are already famously hard, but this made Uru even more difficult for all the bad reasons. So, although most Ages actually started with interesting and challenging puzzles, every single one was eventually ruined by some badly designed one. To make thing worse, it’s also affected by bugs that make you second-guess your puzzle solutions (once I couldn’t climb some stairs after I was sure I had solved the puzzle, had to restart the game to fix it).
Another consequence of the free movement is that there is a lot of walking and transitions involved, since as is typical for Myst games, you’re required to travel all over the place looking for clues. And if you die (usually when you fall, because, well, lousy controls), you get ported back to the world hub (there are no gameovers). There are checkpoints in the Ages, but you can only ever have one active at a time, meaning even more walking if you need to backtrack (this seems to have been by design, since some puzzles rely on this limitation).
The incomplete nature of the game often breaks the immersion. Some features were clearly made with the multiplayer mode in mind that are now just legacy, like the character/home customisation, or large empty hubs with visitor logs and slide shows. [spoiler]When you finish the main game, Yeesha - the spiritual guide - tells you she’s giving you a shirt with her mystical quest’s logo, which is just awkward.[/spoiler]
In terms of QoS, there are some nice features, like the built-in camera and diary for notes. And all progress is auto-saved, including the state of the puzzles even if you port out of an Age. For some reason, there are no subtitles.
[b]Value[/b] Steam didn’t register my playtime, but it should be around 16h for the main game, 7h for To D’ni and 11h for Path of the Shell. The main game revolves around 5 main Ages, in To D’ni you mainly explore a city, and Path of the Shell has 2 additional Ages. You can always revisit previous Ages, but often the puzzles remain solved. The game is mostly non-linear, including the expansions (which means it’s not always easy to identify some dependencies that do exist). There are multiple player progress profiles. There are no achievements. I admit that the game may be interesting for a Myst fan, if nothing else for expanding the lore, but as a standalone game, it’s just not an experience I’d want to revisit.
PS: Uru seems to use its own launcher and Steam integration is particularly bad. Playtime is not counted, and cloud saves constantly fail to synchronize. At some point it reverted my save game to a previous version which cost me a couple of hours.
[quote][i]For more puzzle-game reviews and curated lists check out the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43326007-The-Clueless-Adventurer-Puzzle-Trove/]Puzzle Trove[/url].[/i][/quote]
