Customer Reviews

Realms of Illusion

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is not a new game, it is "Sentinel: Descendants in Time" renamed. The Adventure Company has done this with other games as well.

Having just endured Myst V, I was looking for something to take my mind off the last Myst game and redeem my faith in puzzle software. Realms of Illusion has done just that.

The graphics are very wonderful and, with a minor hitch or two, have run very well on my two year old Dell. I'm the type who will stop every few feet just to look out over the scenery or just pause to enjoy the view, and I must say I've enjoyed Realms immensely. Since I live in a tropical climate, snow scenes are always my favorites and Realms has a lovely one I can wander through, pretending the AC isn't humming away.

The puzzles are a good mix of hard and "easy," and you have to use logic and reasoning. I don't hesitate to use online hints when stuck, but I've not had to do that often with Realms. My teenage sons would look over my shoulder and ask about the puzzles in Myst...then say "And that's supposed to make sense?" With Realms, they say "That's cool."

The voice work is not the best and the rendering of the woman you match wits with is passable, but not memorable. (She's still MUCH better than the Bahro in Myst 5) Neither of these detract much from the game, however.

Overall, very enjoyable!

Aug 2010 note: I recently replayed this game and wish I could tack on a few extra stars. This is one of my favorites and I thoroughly enjoyed every part of it. The graphics, even though several years old now, are still fantastic. The puzzles are clever but just hard enough to make you think (or take a peek at a walkthrough.) A classic!

I ordered this game on-line without realizing The Adventure Company just reissued their "Sentinel: Descendants in Time" under this new title. Amazon and all who sell it should state this in promos or adds. I ended up cancelling the order, but did enjoy the original - Sentinel very much; so, I still recommend the game to puzzlers.

Realms of Ilussion is the same as Sentinel Descendants in time, the change was done because of some copyright issues. But the game is very good doing a challenge mind. The hard puzzles (to me) are the sound based. You will get worlds over the sky, with snow, a under sea city and many other places with fantastic landscapes. The puzzle style is similar to Schizm, and you will need write details to solve them.

I had such high hopes for this game based on what the screen shots looked like. When I got into the game, I found out that they were misleading. For a typical Myst clone, it's got several things that are very unlike Myst. For starters:
1. Too many puzzles for the sake of puzzles. At least in Myst, they all made sense in the larger framework of the story. Here they just get in the way.
In one world, there were 4 puzzles for an area that was smaller than half the original Myst island. That's another problem.
2. Small worlds. Unlike Myst, you have these tiny areas that are artificially prolonged due to excessive puzzles. Literally, it was two steps, puzzle, take elevator, another puzzle, go across small bridge, puzzle. Then to get down the last elevator, yet another puzzle. And then, that's it for that world. You can't even go back and explore later, because many visible areas are just inaccessible. You can see them, but Invisible Wall keeps you from stepping out into them. You have literally spent hours solving puzzles just to get back to the starting out point in the game. At least with Myst, you knew the puzzles paid off. It didn't just open two more steps to another puzzle.
3. In-game hint guide. You know when they do this, they know there are too many obscure puzzles. Frankly, the over amount of puzzles and tiny worlds are what make this game frustrating. Some are easy, some just plain stumped me and I had to go to a walkthrough for help. The in-game hint system only goes so far, and some of the solutions are way out there. You would literally never think of it on your own, or worse yet, you know what you have to do, but the sheer size of the task is overwhelming. Like one puzzle in a teeny world in which you have to somehow memorize the sounds coming from these colored foghorns. And they are all so similar that you just finally get to the point you want to move on and not spend hours memorizing all these sounds just to go up a set of stairs to- you guessed it, another puzzle and then out of this microscopic if beautiful world. There is literally no pay off, unless you count the hideous voice acting and awkward characters. Dormouse? I'm not sure I get what they were after here.
The game is maybe a great beta that they could have refined and made about twice as large to do it justice. The little bit of the worlds that I saw were gorgeous and just about at the time you'd get into one, it was over.
Like this game for instance. Only for serious puzzle lovers.

I thought the game might be a little dated but I thoroughly enjoyed it on my Win 7 machine. Great graphics and stimulating puzzles.

The graphics are gorgeous, the worlds imaginative. The puzzles are terrific, even if a couple of them sent me to a walkthrough. Good integration of plot ideas. The story doesn't have the depth and organic thrust of the earlier Myst games, but then they were the best. Pretty good nevertheless.

The puzzles on this game are way too difficult, grapics are bad, and its not in the least bit exciting.