Syberia II

Syberia 2 is not that sequence that improves everything that the first game brought that we all expected, at least in technical terms, but with regard to the story and the characters shown here, this game is much better. Mechanically its gameplay is still well dated, even for 2004 when this adventure game was released, but the quality of Benoit Sokal's writing makes up for most of the frustrations you will have when playing Syberia 2, and these frustrations will often be with Regarding the innumerable puzzles in the game, some are well thought out and others are simply trial and error taken to exhaustion, impairing immersion a little and frustrating players who are not used to having patience in games with these mechanics. In addition this game has relatively beautiful graphics and its ending is certainly one of the most beautiful in any adventure game you try. I only advance that to play and enjoy Syberia 2, you will need to have patience and dedication to continue until the end, all this will be worth it.

I love the art style and voice acting in particular, but the whole game is put together masterfully. The puzzles are pretty good, and the only drawback of the story is that it's basically part 2 of the story that started in the first game. This is one of the few games whose ending made me cry, but I love it all the more for it.

Still a five star. Although it's a slight downgrade, this game is 100% worth playing, just like the first game.

This is a direct sequel to the first game, and my review will assume you've played the first one. So let me begin by stating what this game does better. Now, when you move your icon over the map, it is clearly stated which interaction points will take you to a new screen. That's it. Sadly, the list of things that were done worse is somewhat longer. For gameplay, there's not too much difference between the games. Yhey're both classic adventure games, which means puzzles that might not make much sense even in retrospect. It's forgiving, with no fail state that I'm aware of and the puzzles aren't too bad. But, in the first game I generally had an idea what I was doing, what I needed to do next, and how it connected. I felt things were much less well connected here; I was more often just doing things randomly to see what happened. Worse, there were some very annoying examples of tediousness in the design, particularly later on. The ice tunnel puzzle with the rodent is a good example; every new attempt requires slowly walking back several screens to get more water. It wasn't long before I just gave up and used a walkthrough on that one. The real problems with this game are with the story. The first game didn't really have an antagonist. Maybe they took that as far as they could, and needed to do something new. But you don't solve that with some shallow, cliched, and incompetent villains. Then there was the stuff going on back in America, which seemed to be setting up some conflict only to go nowhere. The killer issue is with our "heroes". Late in the story, our heroine and her companion do something that destroyed what sympathy I had left. Instead of a tale of an old man's last wish, this became the story of a selfish jerk doing what he wants without consideration for others. It not only ruined this game, but the first one in retrospect.

I didn't play the original, so I can't compare the two. Syberia 2 is a rather sad story of an old man trying to fulfil his dreams. Our heroine, Kate Walker, chooses to make it happen. The gameplay is straight forward with no "against the clock" puzzles that require a high degree of dexterity. The Solutions are sometimes a bit obtuse and it is advisable to have a pencil and paper to hand to make notes and sketches as the game progresses as sometimes things that are seen are not required straight away. I think in retrospect, I should have bought and played Syberia before playing this one as it introduces many of the characters. The phone scenes with the office people did not have any purpose and were therefore superfluous to gameplay. The ending snuck up on me like a 20 ton mammoth and was a bit abrupt. All in all though, I enjoyed the game and would recommend it to anyone with a love of puzzle solving.