Syberia 3: The Complete Journey

After playing the first two games back-to-back and enjoying them greatly, this came as a punch in the face. I'm playing with a mouse and keyboard, and boy the controls SUCK big time. This isn't a 'point-and-click' game anymore. This is a 'point-and-drag' torture game because it's not enough to figure out the puzzle, you have to simulate the exact motions with the mouse for some puzzles (i.e. unscrewing a screw = circular motion etc.), which feels like a really evil way to increase difficulty of a primitive puzzle. Just... why? Controlling Kate's movements is just as annoying in 3D, sometimes due to camera angle I can't get her through a door for example and she'll keep running into walls. It would be useful if you could switch to an overhead view at least, or something. Interacting with unimportant NPCs is ridiculous, they won't even turn or look your way when talking to you. Graphics are mediocre, especially for 2017 -- even with 'beautiful' graphics setting a lot of stuff is extremely low-resolution, like it was made in the early 2000s at best. Animations also feel like they're unfinished half the time. It's generally lacking the charm and mystery of the first two games, and NPCs are lacking any personality whatsoever. Overall, can't well recommend unless you're a completionist and fan of the series.

If you only look at screenshots, this is a pretty game. It has a nice atmosphere, it has its own visual style and the puzzles are mostly good. But when you play it, its many flaws are obvious. The fixed camera that worked well in the previous games is far too often annoying or even stupid. The game would problably be better if it was played in first- or third-person view. The UI disappearing at times is one such flaw. Then the entire story feels like there are all these people who want something done but are too lazy to do it themselves, and so ask Kate Walker to do whatever needs to be done. The Youkols feel like some sort of Eskimo parody. The villains seem like they were added as an afterthought, and their motives are unclear for the entire game. I said earlier that the puzzles are mostly good. There is one big exception. It requires you to do several things in quick succession. If you fail you must start over. That puzzle is the worst in the entire game. This could have been a good game, But there are many little things that add up to make it terrible.

As a fan of the Syberia series, I was excited to dive into Syberia 3, but boy, was I in for a frosty disappointment. Zero stars, folks. Zero. The icebreaker puzzle. It's the point where my patience hit an iceberg and sank faster than the Titanic. The game expects you to switch gears on a machine using either a mouse or a gamepad. Easy, right? Wrong. The cursor disappeared more often than my motivation to keep playing. On the gamepad, the lag was so bad I couldn't react in time. I gave up and uninstalled the game. There are better ways to waste time, like watching paint dry. The puzzles are an absolute joke. Manipulating the mouse to open a door? Whose brilliant idea was that? Or how about twirling the mouse around like a DJ to unscrew something? Really? In a point-and-click game? It's like the developers decided to throw logic out the window and replace it with a sadistic mini-game marathon. And the story? Infantilizing. Instead of an engaging narrative, we're stuck performing tasks that are directly told to us and often make no sense (dive to open the gate? Really?). Most puzzles have their solutions lying around in the same room or nearby, which is just lazy design. Predictable and boring. Overall, Syberia 3 is a colossal waste of time and nerves. The puzzles are terrible, the controls are infuriating, the game is unoptimized and lags on an RTX 3080 (laptop), and the story is as deep as a puddle. Save yourself the frustration and steer clear. This game is an iceberg of disappointment.

Good game. Would've been a great game if it wasn't so buggy. The controls leaves much to be desired. The graphics are okay, but the animations are pretty bad, especially the facial ones (not on par with other 2017 games). The puzzles are weak and can be frustrating due to buggy controls (e.g. The mouse cursor will just disappear and clicking on anything becomes impossible. This happens way too often.) Voice acting was good for some characters, while others were pretty bad. One of the characters is supposed to be a young fella, but he sounds like a 50 year old dude with lung cancer. Overall, the story is interesting at most, but the gameplay could use some polishing. If you want to buy it to see Kate Walker's latest adventure and enjoy the somewhat pretty graphics and landscapes, wait for it to go on sale. I bought it when it was at around $12, but I've seen it go as low as $10.49; it might even go lower.

I'm really sad because this could have been a really great game. The story installed in the first two is solid, Kate is an interesting character with a good development and i was looking forward this third episode. Musics are nice, and voice acting is well done. I liked the story, at least for the part i could play (i will comme back on that point later). Serious theme are approached : racism, alcoholism, our morden life style. The first part of the game is cool. You wake up in a clinic, and try to escape and then explore a new village : valsembor. Doing so you will team up with a young youkol and other protagonists. But this game suffer one major problem : it's buggy. When you interact with object to resolve puzzle, the game zoom on them. One in two the mouse dissapear and you can't left click anywere. So you have to go back by dezooming (right click) and click everywere to make the mouse reappers. This is really annoying and make even more harder to resolve puzzle. Sometimes animations don't start and you're stuck and have to restart your game. After 3 hours of game, i was stuck on a cinematic, with no way to unstuck myself. So i had to restart the game form the beginning,.. i was frustrated but i wanted to know more about the story. But after 5 hours, stuck again at the end of a cinematics, I can't play, i'm stuck in the cinematics who doesn't want to end. I really don't wan't to restart the game another time, replay 8 hours and getting stuck again. Don't get me wrong i love Syberia and the first two games, and i really wanted to love this one. But the weak gameplay, the lack of fluidity and the bugs i met make it really painfull to play and for me impossible to finish. I hope with the next game : Syberia: The World Before Prologue, the dev will learn of their mistakes and make the great game they could have done with this one. I you're a fan of syberia i recomand you buy it on sale. If you don't know the licence i don't recommand you this game.