A so-so end to an uneven series...
The puzzles are a mixture of easy and difficult. I did not find any as insanely difficult as in some past chapters of the series. I never found myself completely stumped, although a few puzzles did leave me a bit confused for a bit.
The character models, done in-engine, are excellent. Amazing, even. It appears as though they did motion capture for the character animations, which was an excellent idea. Except for the fact that the characters are a bit over-animated. Their hand motions and movements are smooth and very life-like, but they are constantly moving. Real people don't do that. So the movements were very good (and the animation of the face and clothes was fantastic). But it was if they had this brilliant idea and over did it. It ended up a beautiful looking but irritating distraction. The voice acting was excellent, for Esher. The Yeesha voice acting was far to melodramatic and, I thought, goofy. Another distraction.
Which brings me to my other complaint. The 3D engine. It's simply not up to snuff for a Myst game. It looked wonderful, really, for a fully 3D world. I still think that the Myst IV engine was far more detailed. I can do without the full 3D in an adventure game, to tell you the truth. Being able to walk around in the game like in an FPS was interesting, but in the end I opted to use the node system. In FPS games, moving around is rather simple because the levels tend to be designed linearly. But not Myst, and other adventure games. The node system keeps you focused. Being able to walk around too freely just made the game seem aimless. I wish they had stuck to high resolution, panning stills and other animations. The result of their decision was that the game is simply not immersive at all.
I've always found the Myst plot to be a bit weak, and this game was the same. From the first few minutes of the game I knew where it was all going. The designers tried to make the initial introductions and dialogue (monologue, really, since you, the character, never say a word throughout the entire series) sound mysterious and strange. But their direction is very obvious. There are no real surprises. And the ending is no different from any other Myst ending, really, where you know exactly what will happen anyway.
Still, as adventure games go, Myst V is certainly worth playing, though it seems to me that this series has gone out with a whimper rather than a bang.