The bad reviews are just scaring me away, sorry.

Most reviews were written before the game was patched. It's still being patched and improved. The story is just not as good as the first 2 games though, but I still think the game is a must buy for fans of the series.

That sounds promising. Would you be able to provide a list of the fixes present in the GOG version of the game?

I have nearly reached the end of the game and I was playing the GOG version. After I played for about a few hours I even contacted the devs because I could NOT believe they would sell this broken mess of a game as a finished release. I got my reply today which was:

"Hello, please update your game, normally everything is fixed"

Unfortunately I have to say that that is not true. Even though GOG obviously has the newest release of the game (only on the newest release the recently released DLC is available) it still has many technical glitches:

1) At least in German (don't know if it is the same with English) lip syncing mostly is completely off and voices are cutt off or paused mid-scentence.

2) Loading times are extremely long in most aeras. It is so extreme that I would say that I spebt a certain time playing the game waiting for it.

3) Mouse pointer is vanishing sometimes - this game was in fact designed to be played with a controller (no joke).

4) Gameplay is far from being fluid - still experiencing stuttering especially in area changes when the game is trying to load new stuff while running.

5) I experienced one freeze and one crash - but I played for 14 hours and I can live with this.

Still - even with all these technical flaws (and some few puzzles with bad design) I would recommend the game to true fans of the series. It is just nice to see back Kate Walker and continuing her story. The game is different from its predecessors but it still has a certain chatrme of its own and it still has mechanical things in it. I would not suggest you to buy the game full price - at least not with these flaws - but the actual price on GOG is all right. The OST is really beautiful as well.

Seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about how recently new games are handled...there's no difference--none--between the GOG version and the Steam version. It's exactly like buying a shrink-wrapped game at Best Buy's or Game Depot--the game is the same regardless of which online service you use. The game originates with the same developer, as do all of its patches and updates.

GOG games, however, provide the customer with his own installable copy of the game--Steam does not (you have to re-download the game each time you reinstall a Steam game.) Additionally, GOG games all ship without DRM; Steam games ship with, or without, DRM, depending on the whims of the developer. Indeed, some people regard the absolute necessity of using the Steamworks interface as a form of DRM in and of itself--and it's hard to argue with them.

Additionally, now that Galaxy is out of beta @ GOG, no game purchased through GOG will take any longer than Steam games to patch/update, so long as the GOG customer elects to use Galaxy for his updates, a Steam-like GUI-driven front end for the customer. There should be no difference in the update times for new games for GOG and Steam. But, if you don't wish to use Galaxy for updating/patching, and I'm not sure why anyone would choose not to, you can always wait a few days for GOG to format the update and distribute it via the manual patch update process the company has used since its beginning.

GOG gives you the choice of using the automatic GUI interface, or not, as you may desire. Steam gives you no choice at all in that regard--it's one size fits all at Steam. Or you can do as I do--I download the games manually for my storage library, and play the games through their own native executables. But I use Galaxy for new-game updates as it is faster--much faster--than updating strictly through the manual interface.

Because I value the things that GOG gives me that Steam does not, I would like nothing better than to move my entire library to GOG eventually--I own 272 GOG games presently, but there are still a couple of dozen games I own on Steam that I cannot buy through GOG at all, presently.

As for Syberia 3, it is *definitely worth* $15...;) No question about that at all. It certainly isn't worth $60, imo, but at $15 it's a no-brainer. Just bought and installed it--seems to run fine with mouse and keyboard under Win10x64 @ 2560x1440.

If this would be a perfect world then I would agree. Unfortunately more often than not developers tend to "forget" to patch GOG versions because they don't think that GOG is important enough. However when the game is released here for the first time GOG is probably using the most updated version (which is the case here as I already confirmed). Don't want to advertize Steam here but you will still be able to pack the installed files on steam as well and after restoring them Steam is just verifying the files it finds. But of course the self contained installer GOG is offering is always superior. Again: don't want to advertize Steam here but I never understood the thinking of those people. If there is no additional DRM in a steam game you'll have to login to your account to download the game. After that you can uninstall Steam in the case of those games. If you buy a game on GOG you also have to login to download it. I fail to see the difference why people are calling the process of having to log in on a site just to download the game (like it is on GOG as well) DRM. If it is DRM there than it is here DRM as well. Again - I am only talking about games that don't need Steam to run at all and that only need Steam for downloading the game. I so wished what you said here would be true. Yes, that was exactly what GOG said when they were introducing Galaxy however the reality looks different. Galaxy made this process faster but not as fast as Steam. Developers cannot update their games as they like they always have to pass GOGs QA. Just wait until your mouse pointer is starting to vanish, just wait until you notice the many moments were lip syncing is completely off and just wait until you'll experience the first loading cycles which will lead to stuttering. The game is far from being optimized and I played it for 14 hours so I guess I have enough experience to be sure about that.

Like I said: I would recommend this game to fans of the series only and only at this pricetag.

Have seen no example of this as of yet...;) I followed the D:OS2 Steam forum releases, for instance--every time they posted about a new Steam patch--I fired up Galaxy and got every single one--immediately. AAA developers aren't going to "forget" anything like that--subpar developers--like for instance the current Reality Pump--might. But it has nothing to do with GOG. As we agree that GOG does it better, I wouldn't be concerned with advertising for Steam...;) I suppose the point is the choices available for downloading and patching--Steam simply doesn't give you as many. Some people are confused by more choices, I can certainly agree that much. I saw no evidence of this when updating D:OS 2. That's the only reality I know about...;) Mouse pointer has yet to disappear and the lip-syncing isn't the best--but at least I've yet to see lips moving and no speech, and then hear the speech after they've stopped...;) Or vice-versa, thank Goodness...;) Appreciate the warnings and I'll be sure and watch out for these things...! I still think the game is worth $15, however.

A DLC addition that went for $10 and was probably worth $2--or, really, should have been donated free of charge because it is so very *bad*--is the TWII Call of the Tenebrae...! Ha-ha...;) Now that's a worthless game! So far, S3 is nowhere near that poorly made. (Heck, I've seen many mod far superior to the mess of CoT...;)) Also, Reality Pump is proving to be very unreliable as a developer thus far--when the company used to be pretty darn good! Oh, well, people change within companies--but the company name rarely does, unfortunately.

Thank you for that rather in-depth view, MarkoH01, I really appreciate it.

I had looked into reviews for Syberia 3 in September when I bought parts 1 & 2 - because I would hate to start a series that would end in a dumpster fire swarming with wasps. Reading and listening through those pretty much every single one agreed that the OST was great, but they also agreed on a lot of the other things that still seem to be... not as great.

Some reported that lip-synching in the English version was so out of synch that the voice actors would still speak when a character stopped moving its mouth and the next one began to speak. My guess would be that they optimized their lip-synching for the French speaking market and called it a day, but I haven't read reviews for the French version.

Some reviewers mentioned loading screens for every little screen change (even within zones). Are the loading screens plentiful as well as long or did this later version reduce loading screens within a zone to mere stuttering? (It seems I'm having a bit of trouble understanding points #2 & #4.)

This is the first time I heard of a vanishing mouse pointer in this game. Maybe it's a GOG exclusive... If that's the case there might at least a slim chance that this could be fixed later along the line.

I guess from what I've gathered that I'll probably buy this one on a hefty sale if, and only if, I become a fan after I finally found the time to play the first two parts. (That GOG-backlog... Damn them and their cheap prices for classic games! ;) )


You've mentioned the clockworks and they were what made me notice the Syberia series in the first place. Since you were so forthcoming with sharing your experience I'd like to recommend a black and white comic book about another clockwork-rich society: Avigon: Gods And Demons by Jimmie Robinson and Ché Gilson. I read it again every now an then, which I can't say about many comics I own. (There's also a version from 2000 with 56 pages named Avigon - you'll want the 2005 version Avigon: Gods And Demons which officially has 184 or 192 pages, depending on who you ask. [I would link you a review, but all the pages I find are either shops or make me want to tear my eyes out. My ISBN# was 1-58240-503-4])

I have to ask: what is "D:OS2"? But to give you a few examples: it took me 6 months to get the Blackguards patch here that was game breaking. Darksiders 2 (missing controller prompts) wasn't patched here on GOG for several months as well. In addition to this there is a long thread that is mentioning several games that still are missing updates (I will see if I can dind the link to it). No matter if you are a AAA publisher or just a small indie one - money comes first and updating a game always costs money and time so it's not really a moral dilemma when devs/publishers don't update games on GOG it's a financial one which will be less the more important GOG gets. Still does not explain at all how a game without any DRM can be considered to be DRM'd just because it has to be downloaded through the Steam-Client rather than the GOG website. Of course it could be that people would say that needing to install a client would be the problem - that would be an explanation for me since afaik it's not possible to download steam games without client. Just one example of many:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1486613649674517639/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/606710/discussions/0/1483235412217796201/

As you can see the devs don't update the game by themselves - it still runs through GOG by their publishers. Since I own the game I can also assure you that it has not been updated on GOG yet - neither on Galaxy nor offline - but it has already received an update on steam. It's no biggie. I am used to wait one or two days for patches to arrive here on GOG but unfortunately it's just not the rainbow and unicorn situation you are painting ;) I wish it was. Several people are complaining about updates that do arrive later on GOG and one of the reason is GOGs QA which basically ias a good thing.

Edit: Here you can see the changlog for the game in question
Notice the date the patch was released on steam (patchdate) and the date when GOG released it. GOG released all patches today. The mouse pointer vanishing did not happen all the time but it did happen and then it was annoying. Same goes for stuttering scene changes and missing voice over parts. Those things unfortunately gives the game a feeling of being unfinished. But I was most frustrated by the excruciating long loading times sometimes. Like I said I am a big fan of the series and so I still enjoy my ride with Kate a lot. But I don't know if I would recommend the game at this state to anybody who is not a fan. No, it's probably not but remember Syberia 1 and 2. They were technical masterpieces in their time and so it's a bit sad that though the story still works and the characters still are likeable they delivered such poor release on the technical side. This game is running on Unity and it's a point and click with a character running from A to B plus some mini games and cutscenes. So it's a bit similar to "Life is Strange - before the Storm" which also is running on UNity and it does not have that long loading times and it does not stutter at all. It just feels finished.

Again: I love the Syberia series and I still really enjoy continuing my journey with Kate. Maybe that is one of the reason I am so disappointed that they did not optimize this a lot more and that is the reason I hope they still will do.

You're welcome :) To make it easy. Syberia 2 offers kind of an ending to the story but Syberia 3 imo finds a good way to keep it going. I haven't finished it yet but for the story alone I guess you would miss out in case you enjoyed Syberia 1 + 2 and did not buy Syberia 3. Might be. Unfortunately I can confirm the same for the German version. The problem is that you often have close ups of the talking persons so it's hard to not notice this. Again: it's possible to live with it but there is much room for improvement. Especially when you are entering a new bigger room or activating a longer cutscene you can expect a loading screen for nearly a minute (at least using a normal HDD). That's #2. With #4 I meant the way the game was streaming when entering new parts of an area. While moving on certain roads in the beginning the game has to load while you are running which of course leads to extreme fps drops. I will link you to a German let's play where you can see what I mean.

Edit: Start from 3:08 min (no spoilers there) and you can see what I mean with loading while running therefore fps drops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb9CDNuVgCY&index=6&list=PLq3E5fIn7hvzPrBScSKbK7zuXjsmuU6RB&t=212s I doubt it. You have to remember that tis game was meant to be used with controller. So they offerend the possibility to play it completely with mouse only after release (it was one of many patches so far). I guess several people either played it with controller or still used the old keyboard and mouse combination. The problem is that looking at the original price this already IS a hefty discount. Of course it can alwaysget cheaper but so far I don't know. It might as well be that the devs are optimizing this game and after doing that they don't want to drop the price again. Thank you for the recomendation but even though I know that Benoit Sokal is a comic book writer I normally don't read much at all. So I doubt I will read those but if I should change my mind I will remember this.

Just an important addition: I just finished the game and unfortunately it has not a real ending. Everything seems to lead to Syberia 4 but with the bad critics this third one got I doubt that Syberia 4 will actually happen.

My impression was that it was put together rather heartlessly...the graphics are nice for an adventure, but that's about the only redeeming quality. Why exactly are clicheé russian bad guys chasing after Kate? We'll never know...

Stay tuned for Syberia 4 .... yes, one of the questions I was asking myself in the end. So far I thought they just wanted to get the Youkol but this cannot be anymore (have to be careful not to spoil the ending).