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Myst Revelations: Platypus Nostalgia

My wife and I have been playing through the Myst series of games over the past few years.  We recently finished Revelations.  Revelations takes up the story of Atrus' exiled children, Sirus and Achenar.  Over the course of the game, we learn what has become of them and the awful plot they were hatching right before they were ensnared in the two prison books their father left on Myst.

The worlds of Revelations are almost all beautiful and as intricately rendered as I would expect from prior games.  Serenia's "new agey" culture seems a bit thin (like some sort of pre-teen calendar from the 90s with flying whales), but that doesn't detract from the overall experience.  The puzzles are do-able and move nicely up the scale from easy to mid-numbingly difficult.  I was more than a little exasperated with tuning the mechanism on Spire -but whatever.  What really impressed me about this particular edition of the Myst saga was its sad ending.  I don't think I've ever played a game before that ends with a Pyrrhic victory.  Even though we did everything right, we can't save everyone.  That made for an unusual and powerful ending.  The Myst games have always pushed the envelope, but this was something I didn't expect.  Bravo.  

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