Syberia 3: The Complete Journey

Syberia 3 could have become a great continuation of the series, but awful game design and critical technical issues ruined all chances. It is a true adventure game ( not a mix of genres ) which offers challenging and original puzzles. Story is interesting and complete, however writers left a room for a possible sequel. Artwork and soundtrack create a magnificent atmosphere. This game indeed has a vibe of the first two Syberias. So, what's wrong? Syberia 3 has a check-point saving system with a single save at a time. If file somehow has become corrupt, your game progress is lost entirely. There are a lot of points-of-no-return, many of them are unexpected. If you have missed an optional content, you cannot load the previous save. And there are optional areas in Syberia 3 which you will not want to miss. Pause does not work during dialogues and cutscenes. If you were distracted and the game was saved after a scene... Sorry, friend. ;) An ability to interact with hot-spots sometimes disappears. You have to wait until it’s back, or perform additional actions ( observing items in the inventory ) to return the cursor. An idea to mimic games with pre-rendered graphics using stationary cameras is controversial. Some camera-positions are not chosen well. And in some locations point-and-click movement fails. You are not even able to leave one area: an exit hot-spot just does not appear ( WASD + Enter solves the problem ). Interactions with most of objects are not point-and-click. They are movement-based, which is very annoying using mouse cursor ( keyboard arrows provide much better usability ). However, it makes some puzzles more interesting. But the worst problem of all: Syberia 3 may not work on Windows. And it's not only me: several people on GOG forums reported the same issue. I solved it running Syberia 3 on Linux using Wine with DXVK. Would I recommend anyone to play Syberia 3? Probably yes, but you should clearly understand what you are signing for. ;)

I'm a big fan of adventure games. My favorite adventure game series has always been the Myst series, but I've enjoyed many other games, even mediocre ones, in the point and click genre. I played Syberia I and II, and while they weren't anywhere near the top of my list of favorite adventure games, I did enjoy the games for the atmosphere and puzzle solving they offered. So when Syberia 3 was announced, I was glad to be able to play another game in the series, even if it's not my favorrte series, as I thought I would enjoy it as much as the first 2 games, at least. I wish I had listened to the negative reviews. Syberia 3 is a complete disappointment. The controls are absolutely terrible, the game is tedious, and the save system is awful. On top of that, the game is very buggy, and I often found myself not knowing what to do, not because I couldn't figure it out, but because the interactive nature of some puzzles didn't actually work like it was supposed to. There were times I would try to interact with an object that I was sure I was supposed to do something with, but the cursor would not change to allow me to interact, so I'd move on thinking the answer was somewhere else. After giving up, and reading a walkthrough, which I never do for adventure games, I'd find out that I was actually trying the right thing, but the game just wouldn't let me due to the cursor not changing. I'd go back to try several times and eventually get it to work. This completely took the fun out of the game, since I had to check a walkthrough to find out I was on the right track, but the game just wasn't working properly. I really wish I'd skipped this one. It really is one of the worst adventure games I've purchased since starting to play these types of games in the late 80s. And I'm actually usually far more forgiving on games, and find a way to enjoy mediocre games when others criticize the, but this one truly is a stinker.

I'll write a few words, just to vent my frustration at this disaster. It takes the legacy of the first two games, and throws it in the trash! Technically, the game is inept: stuttering despite unexceptional looks (with no real options, by the way, and nothing you can do to get a better experience), bad controls (wonky on a controller, worse on mouse and keyboard), graphical glitches and bugs galore even after all this time, horrible camera angles (which also don't fit the control scheme), slow inventory to navigate through, a single autosave available, no saving manually, no ways to skip dialogues, etc. The game is worse in basically all respects to the games in the same series that were made more than a decade ago. The puzzles are a mixed bag, with highs and lows. The visuals are one of the less negative notes. Despite not being high fidelity (and having terrible lip-sync), the game shows good art direction (although it has some very questionable camera angles), and interesting environments. They are a downgrade compared to the pre-rendered joys in the previous games however. The music is atmospheric, if sparse, and does a good job dressing up the events as they unfold. The english dub is quite bad, with a lot of characters speaking without emotions (and some having voices that do not fit the character). The script doesn't help, either, with convoluted, stiff lines. Even the french dub didn't seem smooth, in my opinion. The worst betrayals are the story and the atmosphere. Gone are the whimsical/melancholic characters and ambients, replaced with downright depressing and insufferable characters and situations. The story is worse than the previous chapters (which weren't particularly impressive), but the way the plot unfolds is what ruins everything. Never a spark of imagination beyond the premise, and plenty of dull, hateful moments. Throw in unclear motives, contrivances and repetitive plot points and exposition dumps, and you have the recipe for a disaster.

I played for like 3h and can't bring myself to play further. The game is a mess. Sound glitches and the controls. Oh the controls are so bad with the horrible camera they make a perfect couple. I played 1 and 2 and LOVED them. This. No. Don't. And do not listen to others that say it ain't THAT bad. Do not listen! I did and now look at me!

If you have enjoyed Syberia 1 & 2 and haven't played third one yet, this review is for you. You probably understand that this game is flawed already. But you might be thinking, "oh, how bad can it be?" or "I'd like to catch up with story before 4th comes out". Well, don't. I will focus on bugs first, because it is really the vital part of this game. Let's divide them into two categories: Bugs: there is a lot of minor annoyances. Mostly camera related. And path finding. Many times when camera changes it's looking on the character from the front. So you might enter big hall, but camera centers on Kate in the door and moving anywhere takes dozens of micro steps until you get a larger view. Often Kate runs in circles when you click somewhere or starts running in the opposite direction. There's no point in going into details, there is a lot of issues related to camera and navigation, but in the end this would be tolerable. But then there are.. BUGS: game breaking, progress blocking issues. Unfortunately there is a lot of these and they are horrible. Sometimes you do everything right, you solve the task and the final action won't happen. For example coal door won't open. You're stuck. You can load the save and retry with slightly different sequence. This works sometimes. In other case you enter a door and get infinite loading screen. Oh and my favorite, after cut-scene finishes you can't return back to game, you just see the last frame forever and the only option is to kill the game (alt+F4). And you're out of luck! You can try getting save games from the internet, if you care enough. Eventually I gave up. To be absolutely clear, there are bugs which will prevent you from completing the game! Music is great, sound is fine. Graphics is solid. Story is weaker than the first two, puzzles are too simple mostly. Summary: if you're a fan go watch a walk through video on youtube. Others avoid this, I repeat, avoid this. All this is valid for the GOG version as of 4/4/2021.