WHAT’S HOT

   Why the stroll down memory lane? I wanted to see if Green Myste had all those intangibles that make RPGs fun to play. It lacks the graphics of Diablo, but RPG is fun just to play. RPGs don’t *have* to blow you away with eye-popping graphics. I have played Green Myste for *hours*. It’s fun and offers a lot of play-time.

SETUP

    Green Myste uses a standard InstallShield-type Wizard to install the program on your Pocket PC. Setup is simple and straight-forward. I experienced no issues in installing and setting up the program. According to everything I’ve read, I should have been able to install Green Myste to my storage card, but was unable. Oh, well. What I did was install it to my main memory and then copied it to my storage card. When I wasn’t playing it, I just deleted it from the main memory. When I wanted to play again, I would copy it over from the storage card (for some reason, it wouldn’t just run from the location on the storage card). I am using a Sandisk card, so that may be the problem.

PROGRAM FEATURES

   When you first start Green Myste, some guy will start speaking to you and give you a quick introduction to the story behind the game (the “Why” of the game). Then the credits. Here is where you will be introduced to the glaring weakness of the game: the controls. They are horrible. You can do absolutely nothing with the touchscreen. As far as I can tell, there are two buttons used: one for ‘action’ and one for ‘cancel’. These two buttons do different things at different times, but that’s the basic notion. The D-pad also works, but only while moving around, not in the menus.

He talks!

Start a new game

   For example, take a look at the ‘menu’ in the above screenshot. That is what the menus in Green Myste look like. As you can see, the menu has three options: Load, Begin, Quit. ‘Load’ is the currently selected option. If you want to ‘Begin’ a new game, you have to press the D-pad to the right (you can’t just press down because up and down don’t work in the menus). On my iPAQ 4150, if you want to activate the current selection, press one of the two buttons below the D-pad (as you hold it landscaped). If you want to cancel the menu, press one of the two buttons above the D-pad. These controls take some getting used to. It’s a bit better once you get used to it, but they really could have been made better.

   A couple of comments here are in order. First, the map will only show you as much as you have explored, as it should in any respectable RPG. Second, there are only two options available for you to change. You can toggle the automatic drinking of potions (I just left it on — why not?). You can also toggle whether or not turning will turn you 90 degrees. If you have this off, you can roam freely. I suggest leaving this off. The graphics are not good enough that you can get enough distinction to know where you are, so I left this one off. Third, notice that when the in-game menu is activated, the game is paused. This is important for gameplay. This means that you can drink healing potions, etc., and the monsters will stop bashing you while you do this.

In Game menu

View Inventory

   Here is the inventory screen. I didn’t notice until I was looking at the screenshots I took that there is probably 10-20 percent of screen space that is unused by the game. That wouldn’t be much of a problem, except notice how much information they are having to cram into the Inventory screen. If you can see the number next to ‘Meals’, it’s a ’9′ and not a ’4′. The map in the lower right of the screen is your best friend in this game! Notice the white arrow at the ‘North’ position? That tells you where you are facing – an invaluable touch. The items you are carrying are shown in the upper right. Unfortunately, when you have an item highlighted, you only know what it is if you can recognize the little icon for it. Can you tell what those four items are? They are, clockwise from top-left: ring, crowbar, sling, lock-pick. You could also tell what it is by selecting the item with the action button after it is highlighted. I seem to have been able to carry everything I would want, and selling items in town is not an option.

Town Map

View Window is kind of small

   The Pocket PC screen is small enough, but Green Myste could utilize it better, I think. Notice how small the actual view window is. But it really is sufficient to play the game. It would have been nice to be able to adjust the size of the feedback window. Pressing the action button will automatically attack the monster. After you take a shot at the monster, you have to wait to recover before you can hit again. You can improve your attack speed by adding points to ‘Speed’ when you level-up.

Battling a Rat

Action Menus

   Pressing the action menu when nothing is attacking you will bring up the action menu. This menu is a context sensitive menu that changes based upon what is near you. Here, the action menu gives me options on what to do with the Treasure chest in front of me. Unlike other RPGs, *every* monster leaves a treasure chest. Some have little in them, others have a lot. Many are trapped. On the initial levels, you don’t get much treasure…but then, this is what makes RPGs fun, right? You struggle just to survive on the initial levels until you get strong enough that you think, “How could I have had such a hard time on this?” And you take out your frustration and revenge on those monsters that were giving you a hard time before. What’s more fun than that?

Every monster leaves a chest

In-game options

HELP SUPPORT