Mysterious Journey 2

What can we say? My wife and I love puzzles! Some of our favorite adventure games have been absolutely packed with puzzles: Riven, Rhem, Schizm (the first Mysterious Journey) and Reah (the hard-to-find precursor to Schizm). We have just finished Mysterious Journey II - Chameleon, and I am glad to report that this game has puzzles in spades! We have also recently completed two other new adventure games, Uru - Ages of Myst and Journey to the Center of the Earth. In our minds, Chameleon is the best bang for the buck because it has about the same graphical *wow* as Uru, and much more logical and seamless puzzles than both Uru and Journey (check out our reviews of these other two games for more info). Obviously, a lot of comparisons can be made between this game and either its predecessor, Schizm, or its contemporary competition, Uru. In our review of Schizm, the biggest faults we gave it were that the live-acting was excruciatingly awful and it had a couple of really stinker (illogical, lateral) puzzles. However, Schizm made up for this by taking its players on an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous journey. The pre-rendered graphics of the DVD version of the game were some of the most awe-inspiring images ever put into a video game of any kind up to that point. For Chameleon, since the graphics are now constantly rendered in real time just like Uru, the level of details and lushness of the scenery has diminished just a skosh, but they are still drop-dead gorgeous. It only lacks the sheer immenseness of Uru. As a plus, the awful live acting of the Schizm has been replaced with 3D-rendered characters and more professional-sounding voice actors (although one female character near the end of the game was still painfully irritating - probably a girlfriend of one of the developers). But, you only see and hear the characters during the 3rd-person cutscenes while the rest of the game is played in the much more immersive 1st-person mode. As for the puzzles, they were some of the best we've played in quite a while. They weren't as interconnected as in some games (Riven and Rhem come to mind), but they were extremely varied in difficulty and always seamlessly integrated into the environments of the game. And, boy, were they fair puzzles, as well! Despite their difficulty at times, we only needed to get ONE hint during the entire game (on a particular puzzle that requires you to make a pretty illogical leap to come up with the solution). For all of the others, we were able to just buckle down and noodle out the answers on our own. People who do not like to work with alternate-base numbering systems or pattern observation should NOT get this game. It will frustrate you to no end. Just a couple of irritations (beyond the girl's voice). The game does not come with separate volume controls for speech, music and effects, so sometimes the background noises drowned out the critical conversations. Fortunately, they added the extremely helpful option of reading the game's transcript so you can go back and read what you missed. The music was very good but quite repetitive (hence the need for a separate control). Also, more than just a couple of the transport cutscenes were flat out missing. We were looking forward to riding some of the conveyances in the game (chairlift type devices) only to have it fade to black and then fade back in at the new location. Couldn't they have squeezed in a few more videos on the already beefy 3-CD game? Finally, these guys still cannot come up with a decent ending to their games. Like Reah and Schizm, the ending to Chameleon is pretty anti-climactic (although, as a whole, the story of the game was quite improved). In summary, we really enjoyed this episode and hope they continue to make many more Mysterious Journeys. If, like us, you were disappointed in the bloat (and puzzle cop-outs) of Uru, give this one a look.

I like puzzles that make sense and these did. You push a button, you see the result without having to hunt around for what's going on. For example, in Mysterious Journey 2, there's several puzzles where you have to form a circuit or connect one side of a grid to another by clicking on dials. )...very straight-forward puzzles. Draw the grids out and it is not difficult to work out on paper. In another, you find your way across a fog enshrouded pathway (very cool!) by plotting the path from below. While there is very little having to combine information from several sources to figure out a puzzle, it does occur once or twice druing the main part of the game and again at the end. And there's a few math-based puzzles, too, in varying degrees of difficulty. (Hey, that's what Universal Hint System is for!) Still, gamers with more experience than I might not have much problem wtih them. An earlier reviewer mentioned that 'half' the time a puzzle led to nothing- just an area to look out of. I'm not sure where the reviewer is referring to, but I did not find that to be true. You open a door and there's something to find, learn about in a cut-scene, see, or do behind it. The storyline is interesting and well developed, and the ending is satisfying. As far as graphics, I'm not a tech person, but I found them to be very pretty. I wish I could have roamed a bit more in a few places- the graphics looked just too inviting to simply view from afar! The landscape is filled with bright colors and intriguing designs. This is not click and point, so you are able to move about freely. The music is not great, but at least it does not detract from the game. The voices are fine- a cut above most games. The mechanical voices are done with a bit of special effects- a nice touch. The computer-rendered people move fairly naturally. You have little control over settings, but in my experience, the game ran fine. (Athlon 64X2, GeForce 7600GS) I wish there were more games like this. Puzzles clues that are scattered hither and yon only to make little sense is not my idea of fun. I would recommend Mysterious Journey 2 to anyone who wants an easier game that does not over-tax their brain.

I have not been able to play this game yet. It would have been nice to know that you need a video card that supports TnL before I bought it. Costing I found around 100.00 bucks. So now I have to wait till I can afford it. The company should have written somewhere that you need this, because I read the box, and the requirements before hand, and it said nothing about needing this video card. Now I am stuck with a game I can't play right away.....thanks alot!!

My husband and I are experienced puzzle game players and huge fans of the original Mysterious Journey. It was with great anticipation that we started this game, but we have officially given it up halfway through. Our biggest problem is that our machine, only one year older than the game's release date, with a decent graphics card, does not have the right setup for this game's graphics rendering. Stuff flashes in and out of visibility, the cursor comes and goes, people's arms detach from their bodies, and any prolonged animated scene completely mucks up the whole works to the point that the machine has to be rebooted (IF we can access the save screen at all). We may have been willing to fight longer if the game had drawn us in more, but the puzzles just aren't as interesting as they were in the original, except for a couple of good mathematically-based ones. Also, the puzzles were extremely linear; there was rarely a matter of collecting information in general towards solving one of several open mysteries (as one encounters in, say, Riven), but always just one puzzle you needed to solve at a time, and always of the "solve this so you can get past this door/bridge" variety, which got a bit repetitive. We moved on to a different game in our "to play" pile... and were sad to leave this one unfinished, but just couldn't take it any more.

The game plays well on windows 10. The only problem is that I found most of the puzzles to be very hard to figure out. Yes, I had to have help with several of them. If you like involved puzzles that are difficult to figure out, this is the game for you. If you like a game that has puzzles that seem logical and you have a chance to getting on your own, then keep looking, this game is not that.

This is probably the second best adventure game I've ever played (the best one being Riven). The graphics were incredible, even running low detail on an Athlon XP 1700. I had the bare minimum graphics card (hardware TnL w/64 MB RAM) so some of the more expansive areas rendered VERY slowly, but most of the game ran at a very comfortable frame rate. (If you've got a top-rate video card, this game will give you a visual feast!) The sound effects are also very immersive and are impressively detailed whether you've just got stereo speakers or a full 5.1 surround sound setup. All the technical detail in the world is just so much eye and ear candy if the gameplay isn't up to par, and MJ2 delivers logical puzzle-style gameplay in spades! As others have mentioned, the puzzles are very well integrated into the game, and while there were a few that I looked at and thought, "It wouldn't be set up like this in reality," most were very carefully placed and believably integrated into the game. The difficulty was just right, I think, with a good variety of puzzles including pattern recognition, alternate number systems, and integrational thinking, along with one or two movement-based puzzles made possible by your ability to move freely in real time (a nice addition, in my opinion). The voice acting was generally much better than in Schizm (with one notable exception near the end), but the character animation was a bit stilted (most of the characters moved like they had arthritis). The storyline was very engaging and interesting and helped move you along in the game. Also, it was very rare to find yourself in a place wondering, "What do I do/Where do I go now?" Usually, there was some clue in the last cutscene that would suggest a course of action or someplace that you hadn't gone yet that would provide a new area to explore or a puzzle to solve. The lack of subtitles was more than made up for by the inclusion of a transcript that you could review (without which I'd have had to get a cheat to solve the last puzzle) at any time throughout the game. There were inexplicable gaps in it, but they were not critical. The ending, while not spectacular, was still satisfying (and MUCH better than the one in Schizm!). Overall, I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys good, logical puzzles wrapped up in a gorgeous game. The only caveats I would offer are: 1. make sure your computer exceeds the minimum requirements in most areas (if you can invest in a good video card, DO IT!), and 2. make sure you understand and enjoy working with alternate base numbering systems (e.g. base-2, base-4, etc.). Here's looking forward to more Mysterious Journeys!

Mysterious Journey II is also called Schizm II. The original Schizm is a great game so I expect the sequel to be the same. I am at the beginning of the game and so far it is as expected. System requirements are the same for both - Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, but they play just fine on my Windows 10 machine. The original Schizm (Mysterious Journey I) is also available at a very low price so I would buy both and play them in order if new to this game.

Having finished the excellent prequel Schizm: Mysterious Journey, I thought I would give Mysterious Journey II/Chameleon a try. Was it ever worth the money! The storyline: Excellent. As you (or your character, rather) travel throughout the story, a little bit more of the plot is revealed. Prepare for a major twist at the end! Characters: Colorful, to say the least about their costumes. Both tribes have their own "special powers" and live in villages that reflect their preference to living: with technology, or living among nature. Graphics: Detailed. Especially the living ships (if you've played Schizm, you know what I'm talking about!) You are taken through so many different locations that the creators of the game must be praised for the diversity of each place. Puzzles: Last but definitely not the least. Like its predecessor, the puzzles in Chameleon are challenging but worth the effort. A guide book or hints are not necessary (though I did need help in one part with changing bases) but the rest of the problems CAN be figured out. These games aren't meant to be rushed through in a day, nor are the puzzles meant to be completed using hints for every step of the way. This is a puzzle game, not an action game. Use a piece of paper and YOUR BRAINS to solve these puzzles. For example, when you have to navigate a ship through a maze of reeds using the breath/wind of the four statues on the walls of the cliffs, try to figure out the possibilites of moving (I don't want to give away too much here...) I read the other reviews posted on this website, and I have to say, I don't understand why people are slamming this game when they either don't back up their opinion or claim it doesn't work on their computer and still give it a poor rating when they haven't even played it yet! Bottom Line: Having played the Myst series, Dark Fall 1 and 2, Schizm, Sentinel: Descedants in Time, among other notable puzzle games, this one is well worth getting. Not only will the graphics tempt the imagination, but the puzzles and the plot provide hours of entertainment and stimulation.