History YMMV / Riven

** There's a door on "Temple Island", where you start - it's locked, but you can crawl underneath it. What's behind it? Nothing, except a small peephole into the temple.
*** [[spoiler: When the temple is rotated properly, the door gives access to the valve that powers the Star Fissure scope. The reason it's locked is that Gehn probably didn't want anyone else using the scope.]]

** There's a periscope in the middle of the lake on Jungle Island, which turns out to be connected to another hidden surveillance room. Fortunately, when you're out wandering around the lake, it's not used. However, Cyan originally intended to have the periscope ''pointed at you the entire time'', but it was too complex to render in every shot.

* RealismInducedHorror: Unlike Myst, the player character's vulnerability is made apparent. At one point, you are tranquilized by a Moiety trio soon after arriving in their age as they aren't taking risks with unusual visitors. Gehn is also more than willing to shoot you dead, should you blow your cover, or try his patience. Also, the Stranger is a NonActionGuy and can't just battle his way to victory like an action hero.

* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Creator/JohnKeston, the actor who plays Gehn, has a cult following. This is mainly thanks to his well received acting ability in the game. In fact, it is safe to assume that he is one of the best actors in the ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' series[[note]]to the point where some fans wish he had been cast as Tarkin in Film/RogueOne, rather than digitizing Peter Cushing[[/note]].

** In a bad-ending,[[spoiler:evidence that Gehn truly wants to kill his son is revealed, when he does fatally shoot Atrus. Then he commands his partner to [[ItsAWonderfulFailure shoot you too]] as he casually walks away with the linking book back to D'ni.]]

* RealismInducedHorror: Unlike Myst, the player character's vulnerability is made apparent. At one point, you are tranquilized by a Moiety soon after arriving in their age as they aren't taking risks with unusual visitors. Gehn is also more than willing to shoot you dead, should you blow your cover or try his patience. Also, the Stranger is a NonActionGuy and can't just battle his way to victory like an action hero.

* RealismInducedHorror: Unlike Myst, the player character's vulnerability is made apparent. At one point, you are tranquilized by a Moiety soon after arriving in their age as they aren't taking risks with unusual visitors. Gehn is also more than willing to shoot you dead, should you blow your cover or try his patience.

** There's the moment where you read one of Gehn's journals. He's crying about his deceased wife, Keta, and unlike the neat and ordered previous pages, the writing for this entry is shaky, and the pages are stained with tears. [[spoiler:The worst part is is that you have to trap him before you can learn about this. And if you free him out of sympathy, he'll still kill you.]]

* ThatOnePuzzle: The marble puzzle, sometimes given the FanNickname "the waffle iron from Hell." It's extremely tedious to solve, as not only do you have to pinpoint every dome on a hard-to-see 3D map of each island, you also have to physically go to each of those domes, look at the switch that opens them, have a ''very'' close eye on which symbol is yellow (they strobe by very quick), then match that symbol to a corresponding color in ''another'' room way far and off, then place that corresponding colored marble where it corresponds to map-wise on the waffle iron. To figure all of this out at once is incredibly unintuitive, but the amount of trekking you have to do just to piece together all the right information to get ''one'' marble is insane, let alone five! Oh, and if you're playing the original five-disc release, that also means the game brings out the worst of the disc swapping during this puzzle. The game's plot almost completely stops dead in its tracks when you hit this part, and is widely considered the worst part of what is otherwise an EvenBetterSequel. The only saving grace is you can skip the entire back-and-forth trek if you simply look up the solution.

** There's a periscope in the middle of the lake on Village Island, which turns out to be connected to another hidden surveillance room. Fortunately, when you're out wandering around the lake, it's not used. However, Cyan originally intended to have the periscope ''pointed at you the entire time'', but it was too complex to render in every shot.

* ThatOnePuzzle: The marble puzzle, sometimes given the FanNickname "the waffle iron from Hell." It's extremely tedious to solve, as not only do you have to pinpoint every dome on a hard-to-see 3D map of each island, you also have to physically go to each of those domes, look at the switch that opens them, have a ''very'' close eye on which symbol is yellow (they strobe by very quick), then match that symbol to a corresponding color in ''another'' room way far and off, then place that corresponding colored marble where it corresponds to map-wise on the waffle iron. To figure all of this out at once is incredibly unintuitive, but the amount of trekking you have to do just to piece together all the right information to get ''one'' marble is insane, let alone five! Oh, and if you're playing the original five-disc release, that also means the game brings out the worst of the disc swapping during this puzzle. The game's plot almost completely stops dead in its tracks when you hit this part, and is widely considered the worst part of what is otherwise an EvenBetterSequel.

* ThatOnePuzzle: The marble puzzle, sometimes given the FanNickname "the waffle iron from Hell." It's extremely tedious to solve, as not only do you have to pinpoint every dome on a hard-to-see 3D map of each island, you also have to physically go to each of those domes, look at the switch that opens them, have a ''very'' close eye on which symbol is yellow (they strobe by very quick), then match that symbol to a corresponding color in ''another'' room way far and off, then place that corresponding colored marble where it corresponds to map-wise on the waffle iron. To figure all of this out at once is incredibly unintuitive, but the amount of trekking you have to do just to piece together all the right information to get ''one'' marble is insane, let alone five! Oh, and if you're playing the original five-disc release, that also means the game brings out the worst of the disc swapping during this puzzle. The game's plot almost completely stops dead in its tracks when you hit this part, and is widely considered the worst part of what is otherwise an EvenBetterSequel.

* ThatOnePuzzle: The marble puzzle, sometimes given the FanNickname "the waffle iron from Hell." It's extremely tedious to solve, as not only do you have to pinpoint every dome on a hard-to-see 3D map of each island, you also have to physically go to each of those domes, look at the switch that opens them, have a ''very'' close eye on which symbol is yellow (they strobe by very quick), then match that symbol to a corresponding color in ''another'' room way far and off, then place that corresponding colored marble where it corresponds to map-wise on the waffle iron. To figure all of this out at once is incredibly unintuitive, but the amount of trekking you have to do just to piece together all the right information to get ''one'' marble is insane, let alone five! Oh, and if you're playing the original five-disc release, that also means the game brings out the worst of the disc swapping during this puzzle. The game's plot almost completely stops dead in its tracks when you hit this part, and is widely considered the worst part of what is otherwise an EvenBetterSequel.
* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Creator/JohnKeston, the actor who plays Gehn, has a cult following. This is mainly thanks to his well received acting ability in the game. In fact, it is safe to assume that he is one of the best actors in the ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' series[[note]]to the point where some fans wish he had been cast as Tarkin in Film/RogueOne, rather than digitizing Peter Cushing[[/note]].

* BetterOnDVD: The digital version is ''much'' smoother than the original version, which came on a whopping five CD-ROM's that required you to swap them every time you went to another of Riven's five islands. In fact, ''Riven'' was one of the earliest PC games to receive a DVD release for this reason.
* EvenBetterSequel: ''Riven'' was a major overhaul in terms of SceneryPorn and followed up on the promise of a foe greater than Atrus's sons could imagine; Atrus's tyrannical father is played like a professional by the Shakespearean-actor Creator/JohnKeston. ''Riven'' is near universally considered the best game in the series.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The Age of Tay is shown on the box art, but in-game, your only exploration of it is the shoreline, and a small prison cell, where you can look out into the Age's inner village, but never explore it.

* EvenBetterSequel: Riven was a major overhaul in terms of SceneryPorn and followed up on the promise of a foe greater than Atrus's sons could imagine; Atrus's tyrannical father is played like a professional by the Shakespearean-actor Creator/JohnKeston.

* PlayerPunch: There's the moment where you read one of Gehn's journals. He's crying about his deceased wife, Keta, and unlike the neat and ordered previous pages, the writing for this entry is shaky, and the pages are stained with tears. [[spoiler:The worst part is is that you have to trap him before you can learn about this. And if you free him out of sympathy, he'll still kill you.]]

* EvenBetterSequel: Riven was a major overhaul in terms of SceneryPorn and followed up on the promise of a foe greater than Atrus's sons could imagine; Atrus's tyrannical father is played like a professional by the Shakespearean-actor Creator\JohnKeston.