He's the president of Nintendo of America, so it stands to reason that people will be very interested to know which video game Doug Bowser loves the most.
He's been speaking to the University of Utah's magazine, and – as well as reflecting on his time at the university, he's been listing some of his favourite things – including video games.
You might assume that Bowser's all-time best game is a Nintendo property – especially as he mentions that he used to play too much Donkey Kong at the student union and got comments such as "Where will video games ever get you?" – but that's not the case:
My favourite game of all time is Myst—a deep, immersive, problem-solving game with very little dialogue. The graphics just amazed me. I finished the first three editions. My favourite game now is Super Mario Odyssey for Nintendo Switch. I’m very close to completing it and collecting all the Moons.
Myst might seem like an odd choice, but it's worth remembering that it ultimately sold millions of copies and was hailed as something of a landmark release in the early '90s; sure, it looks and feels crude in today's era of real-time 3D, but back in 1993, there was simply nothing like Myst – and it arguably turned many non-gamers into gamers. You can check out our Making of Myst feature here.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, Bowser's favourite film is The Sound of Music and his favourite book is The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.
Thanks to Dallas Robbins for the tip!
[source magazine.utah.edu]
Comments 50
I did love that brief era of "2.5D" prerendered static-screen PC adventure games. Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor were my personal favourites of the time
@Raylax Another game from that period that nobody talks about these days was Iron Helix. It was a really gripping game of cat and house onboard a space ship with pre-rendered CGI animation sequences. It got a Mega CD port, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDULUgKSVUw
I remember playing this as a child and having no idea what was going on
Suddenly I want to be his best friend!!! I got Myst III for Christmas one year and became obsessed with the series, fantastic games that are well worth the time and effort! They were unlike anything else I had seen at the time
@Raylax Same here, those kind of games really hold up now where the early 3D games that came around the same time really don't. Magic & Mayhem was one of my favourites
Myst is still an amazing game. The puzzles are some of the best in a video game, the story is great, though of course it is a slower pace than most anything coming out today.
Bowser's a filthy casual! I'm only kidding, that's cool he used to play DK back in the day and is well into Odyssey. I wonder how he felt seeing the old DK graphics in New Donk City?
Someone please tell Bowser to port The Witness to Switch. He will love playing it, if he likes Myst.
Aaaah, Myst... Back in those days the visually best version was on Atari Jaguar. Finished it more than once.
@DrJoson I don't remember which Myst III was. The first I got was Riven then the original Myst.
I believe using «may surprise you» in a headline is one of the deadly sins.
"A deep, immersive, problem-solving game with very little dialogue"
Was enough to figure out it would be Myst.
That reminds me I should get back to and finish it someday. I was too young to make heads to tails of it back then
Myst is one of my favourite game too, I love how the narration mixes well with the puzzles. It's an absolutely brilliant games, the sequel digged the concept deeper, but I still prefer the first one for its purity.
I approve Bowser's choice. As of my favourite game ever, I don't know, there is so much variety. My top list would include Zelda Breath of the Wild, Majora's Mask, Doom, Metroid Prime 2, Perfect Dark and many more...
Have played all of then in my teenager years and bought the remastered version of all of them that was sold on Kickstarter last year. It comes with the transportation book = ]
@Wavey84 Hey... some of us love a collectathon. Honestly, 3D World is my least favourite 3D game and I barely even finished it. I adore Sunshine too and never understood why everyone hates it.
Myst was an audacious experiment in gaming. I'd like to see more off the wall concepts like this... real subversion of gaming expectations. There's too much "constructing according to genre template" these days.
NL loved it too 1/10 lol
@Damo omg I have been trying to remember what that game was called for the last 20 years - I only ever played it at a friends house (it came with their computer), so only had vague incomplete memories of it. Thank you!
Although it wasn't my first choice, when I read the subtitle or caption, whatever you want to call it, my first thought was "Myst". It's not surprising. For us who remember it was heralded as one of the best games of all time (at the time) and still remains a cult classic today.
The man's got good taste, I think NoA is in good hands!
@JTTS No, you dreamed it up.
@haydxn You're welcome! It was one of the few games I got with my CD drive (Myst, Rebel Assault, 7th Guest) and I remember playing it for hours. The production values have held up really well over time, too; the music is great, the acting is good (a rare thing for games back then) and the CGI looks decent, even if it is in a tiny window.
Myst is one of the worst games ever made.
@quinnyboy58 That score is more to do with the terrible 3DS port
Hey, my favorite all time game is Myst too. My favorite film is The Sound of Music and my favorite book is The Power of Full Engagement. Wait a minute Mr. Bowser, you're just a copy cat. Ok, maybe I am the copy cat but from now on, we are arch-enemies. We shall duel to the death. Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn!
@FragRed Myst III was Exile, it started with the puzzle with the posts that you had to turn to reflect light to each of them. The bad guy was played by the same actor who plays Grima Wormtongue in LOTR.
@setezerocinco please point me towards a link!! If it still exists!
@CairiB unfortunately it is not available anymore https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1252280491/myst-25th-anniversary-collection
I tried Myst several times in the past, but I never got into it. I think the furthest I got was the treetop realm (I think it was called).
I hated that style of game... they were just a bunch of prerendered images with half-baked interactivity. Like a bargain bin children's game.
Myst was very popular at the time, but I just didn't get the appeal aside from some pretty pictures.
Myst is an unassailable classic and is still one of the best mechanical puzzle based adventure games.
Good choice! Myst was absolutely engrossing, amazing, and adicting. Though I have to say, Riven was everything Myst was and then some. Really the pinnacle of the grenre, IMO. The rest of the series was ok, but it was kind of downhill from there. Especially with Presto handling Myst III and doing a "decent, but not quite Cyan level" job on it while Cyan withered away wasting their years on Uru, many yeas ahead of its time to be viable and arguably a bad idea in general.
Such a shame Cyan kind of ended up dabbling in obscurity. They're around, they're focusing on VR now, but most people never even know they exist at all now.
@Raylax Grand Inqisitor was simply amazing. Nemesis was just weird. Such quality...so well made...so haunting....but also so very not Zork. It sticks out in my mind as exceedingly memorable, and yet I have very mixed feelings about it in general.
Speaking of Myst, why hasn't N.L. reported on realMyst: Masterpiece Edition coming to Switch?
Edit: There is an N.L. article with an image showcasing various coming to Switch, realMyst included, but there is no direct mention of it.
I'm slightly disappointed that Mr. Doug Bowser didn't say something like Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
I need to watch a playthrough of Myst. My dad got that game and I was either too young to understand how to play it, or it was the most boring experience I have ever had gaming. I believe its a combination of both
Myst is NEVER an odd choice.
If I ever became boss of Nintendo og Europe, I'd have to tell people my favorite game was Lands of Lore, a game from the same year as Myst, and you'd probably say that was odd too, Damien, thereby breaking my heart!
I never did get to play it, but I remember it was pretty big back then. My favorite comp puzzle game was The 7th Guest.
My mom is a big musical fan. So movies like Sound of Music, The King and I, Pollyanna and Carousel got watched a lot.
His favorite film is The Sound of Music! Even though I still get kind of awkward at all the songs in there, it is still a fantastic movie with the music and story and all that.
Mad respect for the man now.
All Hail King Bowser
@QuesoCuliao Hmm. When was the last time a musical was made? (
Remember playing Myst on a Mac in the 90s and would always get stuck. I think there was a secret elevator near the start, you could go up several floors and a guy would be up there asking what you were doing there? Is that right or am I just misremembering it...
@setezerocinco thought that might be the case sadly but worth asking 😊
From the article's tag line my first thought was Riven, which I feel is better than Myst in pretty much every way, but still, it's super cool to see someone so high up at Nintendo is a big fan. Maybe there's a chance Atrus can get into Smash after all.
@quinnyboy58 Yeah that would be the fault of the awful porting job for 3DS, haha. That port has so many awful decisions it almost seems like the company that developed it actually wanted it to be a failure.
Doesn't look like a console gamer, I would say he was a PC/Amiga kinda guy.
Myst seems like a legit choice.
I've never actually played the game but was always curious about Myst as a kid. Unfortunately we didn't actually get a PC in my house until I was nearly an adult. Perhaps I should check out Myst.
I remember being excited to play Mist. It was a short phase of childhood for me and some of my friends. I remember owning a sequel years later on PS, not as good though to me.
When they were new, I always prefered The 7th Guest to Myst (since they were the two big CD-ROM rivals at the time) because it was fully animated over Myst's slideshow presentation with occasional video. Looking at them now, Myst has aged much better in its allowance for the player to draw conclusions about the setting, plus the concept of Ages and Writing linking books to/from them is just incredible.
Don't really care for Myst, I don't have the patience for it.
But i think it's wonderfull that one of his favorites games, is not one of the usual suspects.
I have had a copy of URU for 15 years now
I stil plan to play it one day.
My friend with the really good PC would have to kick me out of his house to get me off of Myst. Was nothing like it at the time. Genuinely felt like you could get sucked right into the game.
@Damo you really went full clickbait on this one... I wish you would leave this kind of titles on Facebook
Tap here to load 50 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...