Syberia

Its an amazing game with a great story.

When I was 15, I saw this game get reviewed in the TV, and I was very fascinated by the serious but also thoughtful look of the game, it was art I was not used to at all. The game is all about immersive storytelling and wonderful locales to visit and explore, and the characters are so full of life it's absurd. It inspired me so much that I wrote a short-stort inspired by the game and was praised by my teacher for it. Be sure to play the first 30 minutes with the lights off.

Syberia is probably one of the best, if not the best adventure game ever written. Each step of the game is like descending into a dream world, like our own and yet just strange and different enough to be enchanting. The game follows the story of a young lawyer who is sent to get the last surviving heir of a famous toy and automaton factory to sign it over to a large corporation. This chase leads her across the country in a clockwork train, following an elusive and brilliant adventurer searching for the last living Mammoths on Earth. The voice acting is superb, the puzzles both challenging and logical and the scenery breath taking. If you missed Syberia the first time, as so many people did, you missed out. This game is well worth your time.

For me, Syberia has the most amazing and the most beautiful lore in the history of videogames. So simple, but full of sincere magic, tenderness and childlish playfulness. There is a lot of sadness in the lore, there is also a lot of hapiness in the lore. There is this "autumn" atmosphere that I will not ever forget. Thank you Master Benoît Sokal for this! The story is very simple, but also very effective. You are a lawyer Kate Walker from New York who came to a small village situated somewhere in French Alps to make a business contract. Her boss is expecting great results and Kate is determined to fullfil them at all costs. But the more she gets deeper into the new "world" she came to, the more she moves away from her job and also her personal life. She is constantly changing. It is fascinating how the creators managed to write a mature story without any cutscenes. There are just small interruptions in the form of phone calls. Behind those calls dramatic situations are happening due to which the characters are developing throughout the whole game. Well, gameplay-wise, Syberia is a bit of letdown. Hm, that was maybe a too much. No, no letdown. The game´s gameplay is just too streamlined for its own good. When you need something to continue, you usually find it nearby your problem. Real puzzles are basically non-existent, 99% of the game consists of talking to NPCs and using items that you found next to your "problematic" passage. It is not terrible at all, it somehow fits the mood and the style of playing, but more interesting problems and puzzles would definitely be more pleasing for me (This was fulfilled in Syberia 2 by the way). I love the ending of the game. What an unchained beauty! The music is so good as if composed by angels themselves in the heaven! 78%

I was pretty impressed with this game having never played any of the point and click games during the genres dying days of the early 2000s. Its Art Nouveau/clockpunk style is an interesting contrast to Grim Fandango's Art Deco/noir style. There's also just something about the pre-rendered backgrounds that still holds up in the way it was able to frame perspective, as opposed to today's live 3D rendering and moving camera that just seems too busy sometimes. The story for the most part is a kind of "cozy mystery" with bits of humor which is a nice change of pace. Characters and their development are pretty sparse but I thought the dialogue and voice acting was good for an independent release at the time. The puzzles are fairly simplistic and unfortunately if you get stuck at a certain point it's because you haven't explored all areas or found an item/talked to someone again rather than any puzzle being difficult. This was however a problem with the genre in general especially with the pre-rendered backgrounds.