izigame.me

I was sorely disappointed in this game. Speaking as a fan of Cyan's work from the original incarnation of Myst, I've become accustomed to their interesting world design, their mind-teasing puzzles, and their interesting characters. Sadly, the only bit of quality that has survived is their world design, and only just; it's pretty, but not altogether interesting. Each "realm" is an Earth-like sandbox that's incredibly limited in scope and focuses on a gimmick or two.
The puzzles are very few and far between; the bulk of interactions can hardly be called "puzzles". Rather, you look for a slot to jam your tool into, give it a twist, and away you go. The interaction points are glaringly obvious and there are scant few instances when the answer isn't "find your way to plug that slot over there". When you find something more involved, it's all blind grasping at things without much feedback to tell you if you're on the right track or not, and in many case, you simply cannot see what you're moving around because you're stuck in a hole, tethered to a half-enclosed tower, or some other location that leaves you half-blind as you stumble through it.
Of the three tool "enhancements", one is completely useless; it's impossible to tell which plugs need more 'torque', because they all appear the same. The enhanced length mod is just a gatekeeper to ward you away from the second half's puzzles. The "chaining" enhancement is the only one that actually makes things moderately interesting, but the number of times you need it for a non-obvious solution can be counted on one hand, with fingers to spare.
The most egregious sin of all is the cast. I use the term lightly because there really is no cast. Like any good Myst-alike, you don't really run into people. And yet, like a fart that just continues to linger, you have a voice going on and on in your ear that thinks they're the most important thing in the room. The dialogue is hollow and banal, the acting itself is miserable, and the models are...passable, I suppose. Not good, of course; don't get me wrong. Nothing about this game can be considered "good" except for many of the visuals. The story was so awful that I was actively committed to pushing it out of my experience as much as possible; I turned the dialogue volume to 0 and let the subtitles fill me in on the important details. If I had to listen to that smug acting through the whole game, it would have resulted in a quick refund. Having finished it, that would have been the much smarter path.
Cyan, you used to excel at blending art with wonder and wit. If this is what you feel proud of releasing after all this time, then I beg you: move on. Don't make me hate the company that gave me so much fun with the D'ni story.