alt Hacker News> Curious if any superfans think it would be better experienced as the original in an emulator or similar.
(superfan checking in) -- I still believe the definitive release is the original `realMyst (2000)` (Sunsoft). https://archive.guildofarchivists.org/wiki/RealMyst . If you only ever play one version, that's the one to play. GOG maintains a beautiful version of this (that works well even on modern Windows), but Cyan de-listed it from GOG a while back, so you can't technically buy fresh copies anymore.
Don't mistake this for "Real Myst: Masterpiece Edition", which is (sorry Cyan), not very good. They imported the old assets into Unity for the re-release, and then did some random texture/asset swaps, the lighting and mood didn't survive the import and is all randomly weird -- strongly recommend ignoring this one.
The original release is good if you want the original experience - https://www.gog.com/en/game/myst_masterpiece_edition
And the new Myst (2021/VR, Unreal Engine) release is wonderful and beautiful, but is more of a re-make to modern gaming sensibilities.
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Myst is one of my favorite games, but I never could get into realMyst. The idea was great at the time, but I thought the visual fidelity was lower (despite being ... "real"), and the click-based movement never played well.
I did like Real Myst: Masterpiece Edition a lot (though it ran terribly on my powerful-at-the-time system). But I'd argue for the OP to play Myst: Masterpiece Edition first. IMO the interface is just as important to Myst as everything else.
> Don't mistake this for "Real Myst: Masterpiece Edition", which is (sorry Cyan), not very good.
I know you link it further down, but there are two Masterpiece Editions, one for Myst (1999) and one for realMyst (2014). The one you link is the MPE of Myst, and technically not the original 1993 game, though as far as I can tell, it's just an upgrade of graphics and sound, whilst remaining faithful to the original.
I couldn't get realMyst to work back when I got it on GOG, so I'll admit I haven't tried it (nor its Masterpiece Edition), but I did enjoy the 2021 remake, although I noticed that even though it had been over a decade, I sped through that game (I mention this, because I actually visited it after having played the 2024 Riven remake, where the changes to the puzzles did stump me from time to time). Though, personally, I am more of a Riven fan.