Because of course Full Throttle, Curse of Monkey Island, The Dig, Grim Fandango and Escape From Monkey Island all came out before Myst. Right.
That's only LucasArts games, there were a lot of other wonderful adventure games that weren't Myst clones, too bad you apparently missed them (narrowly avoided spelling that as myst there).

I liked being abandoned in a steampunk world, left to fend for myself and take my chances with believing or not believing what some random stranger on a blurry vid was telling me. Myst made me a gamer for life!

I wouldn't call Simon the Sorcerer a graphical masterpiece, either. It's a personal favorite, but it's still a bunch of colored bricks. I never really got into LucasArts games, though I made it through Full Throttle, but has the OP tried Syberia, Still Life, or TLJ? Those are environmental puzzles in quirky worlds with interesting characters, and they're all post-Myst.

Think of Myst as the first in a new sub-genre, the first person immersive adventure game. It's different from the other style of adventure game. Just like any genre, some will find it appealing and some won't. Don't blame the one genre for harming the other though. The popularity of TellTale games should tell you that the original type of adventure game is still very much alive and well.

You'd think with two decades of hindsight this stupid myth would die, but nope, it still persists somehow.

Adventure games "died" (they've always been around) for a period of time because their dominance on storytelling and graphical prowess (and make no mistake, adventure games were the Crysis-es of their era) fell to the wayside as other genres made huge strides, and they've seen a resurgence over the past few years thanks to nostalgia, their perfect fit for casual gaming, Telltale making episodic releases work for them, and the sudden and rather odd interest in Japanese visual novels thanks to the Phoenix Wright series.

Yeah... I just hope not too many people read this review. I understand if the OP doesn't like Myst, but blaming Myst for killing adventure games is just wrong.

Agreed. There is a natural evolution in games. Blaming Myst for killing Adventure would be like giving Caesar 3 all of the credit for the beautiful graphics and play in current games like Anno 1404/Venice. Tastes and capabilities change over time.

Myst is kind of a cross between an adventure game and a puzzle game. You have to travel around to keep the story going but along the way you solve thinking puzzles where you might have to do math or discover a pattern unlike other adventure game where it would be try *item* with *item* and hope you get a result.

If Myst killed the adventure game genre just because it was innovative and different from other games of its genre, then Quake killed the first-person shooter genre just because it had a multiplayer component.

I am not saying that your statement is false and you are ignorant (even though that is my opinion,because no game kills a genre and Myst > All), but rather that you shouldn't waste your time posting a thread like this.

If you think your opinion will change the way history played out, you should play Civilization.

First of all, it has to be understood that what Myst did was create an entirely new sub-genre of adventure game. Its first-person, environment focused gameplay is fundamentally different from the third-person, dialogue focused gameplay of Monkey Island. The two are as different from each other as Doom is from Splinter Cell, or even Civilization from Warcraft.

And if I may say, the "LucasArts" graphical style was already becoming tapped out. After all, it's not as if they stopped making Monkey Island games after Myst. They just stopped being good - mainly by becoming tired and formulaic. Far from killing the genre, Myst suggested a new direction which gave it another decade of life. Unfortunately, that new direction was not one the original fans were interested in, so we frequently have to hear them complain that adventure games "died" - by which they really mean that they died for them. Which I sympathize with - the same thing has happened to me in other contexts. But for adventure games, I thought Myst is when they started to get good.

And if you're in to the LucasArts style, The Longest Journey gave it a blockbuster final bow... long after Myst.

+1
The Longest Journey is fantastic, as is Grim Fandango (which I consider the last LucasArts adventure, Monkey 4 did NOT happen).

Troll harder.

Wow, that's a HUGE leap in judgement you've taken there. There have been many great adventure games since Myst and Myst itself helped usher in the new sub-genre to adventure games. The impact on game-play design made by Myst was huge, nothing before it had been that immersive and nowdays immersion is all the rage.

Perhaps you didn't like Myst but there are hundreds of people who have and the games POSITIVE influence on the industry is easily seen.

Never mind that Myst was one of the only series to continue on long after the crash of the genre. Myst V came out in 2005, a year after the release of Half-Life 2.

If anything, Cyan and Myst have been the only things keeping the genre alive.

Funcom and "The Longest Journey" & "Dreamfall", as well as Telltale Games with anything they've ever made would like a few words with you.