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Loved This Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I found this game to have a wonderful story, great graphics and the puzzles were not too hard to figure out. I thought it was refreshing and different.

It was pretty long too. The only downside is that it takes the character forever to get anywhere and she has to keep going back and forth many times. Other than that I would recommend this game.

I was so pleased with it, I couldn't wait to get Syberia 2. Unfortunately that was a big huge disappointment.

HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: November 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I actually bought this game on the suggestions left here by other people who have played it before. I will have to add to the comments of the simply BEAUTIFUL graphics that leap with texture and color and subtlety. And as interactive artwork, I cannot think of anything as sublime as "Syberia".

As for actual game play, however, it has to be the most boring, inane, futile exercise I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. It is one of those games where you have to touch EVERYTHING on the screen and use EVERYTHING in your arsenal until you finally get the opportunity to move to another screen. And heaven help you if things are not done in sequence, you will be trapped in these luxurious settings forever until you retrace every single one of your steps and repeat them in the correct order.

When I purchased this game, the seller was kind enough to also enclose printed excplicit instructions on game play, which I assume was downloaded from the net someplace. I am grateful for these instructions because without them, I would have never have figured out how to get out of SEVERAL sequences and I'm sure I would have thrown the game out of the window in frustration. There are certain sequences and puzzles I just cannot fathom someone without explicit instructions figuring out.

I have since completed the entire game and am just all in all displeased with the experience. I would have much rather read a National Geographic, it would have worn much less on my patience.

So much wasted potential

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 17
Date: March 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I decided to buy this game a while back after reading such great reviews and was sorely disappointed. While the visuals were fantasic even the character movement and transistions flowed well on my dwindling PC; overall the game was too short. I managed to play the entire game in one sitting less than 3 hours with many, many, many breaks.

I enjoyed the 3rd person perspective as welcome change from other puzzle games (ie. Myst series). Converstations with other characters were usually rambling nonsense which one had to sit through to progress, the puzzles were simplistic, and in the end there isn't very much to this game. Its like playing connect the dots with an occasion errand to run every third dot.

The story line follows a young woman (you) looking for an old toy maker. To find him you'll have to ask towns peoples and rebuild some of his old toys. When you finally do find him and the game starts to get interesting it ends. You don't even go to Syberia! They should have called it "girl plays with complicated puppets". Okay maybe that title was too long.

Graphics are great but they sacrificed gameplay and story.

Makes you wanna pull your hair out 8-O

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: June 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I first got the game Syberia, I was quite excited about playing it. I expected it to be like most 3rd person games I've played, in which you actually get to maneuver your character with the keyboard, not just "point and click" where you want it to go to. Well, I was in for quite a disappointment, as the whole game involves just the use of the mouse. It just made me feel detached from the gameplay. I hope to never come across another game like this, and if I do, that the other elements in the game make up for it.

I've read some reviews which mention the excellent graphics. Well, the pictures (yes, the pictures. The graphics consist of a static backdrop in which my character moves from designated point to designated point.) are pretty and unique, but you can't even look around in your environment. No up, down, sideways looking, as the view you get of the area is static. It reminded me too much of those old Oregon Trail games, in which all you see is the moving wagon against these unchanging backdrops. I thought the game was supposed to be 3D! The graphics are made to look 3D, but are actually flat and 2-dimensional. The only 3D things are the moving water and the animated people and animals.

There were also several glaring errors in the subtitles. I think they're last-minute changes that were made in the voice acting.

The gameplay itself is frustrating and overly simplistic. Honestly, I've found TOMB RAIDER games to be more difficult and challenging than this game. How is it frustrating? It's frustrating to be given the same missions over and over again, with the only things changing being the environment and the tasks you must perform. I don't know how many times I had to wind the train. By the third time, I was thinking, "Not this again!" Maybe the designers just ran out of ideas. It's also frustrating to have to just wait and wait for the character to make it from one point to another. Is there no faster way to get her to the other end??

I am almost halfway thru the game, yet I really don't want to go on. I rarely call things boring, as I have a high tolerance for such things, but this game is BORING, period. It's not so much the story, but the gameplay that makes it boring. The main character is also badly designed. Her body just looks wrong. Wrong, as in, it looks like a walking, shapeless pole. Her face looks too rectangular and narrow. Maybe she would have looked better if they somehow squashed her down a little? :\

The positive things I can think of are the environments' design. Sometimes you just want to stare forever at the backdrops. The architecture is astounding and imaginative. I really wish there were such places here on earth. Also, it's kind of neat that it takes place in our times. The main character even gets to use a cellphone. :D The use of it, is, in fact, essential if you want to progress. The whole feel you get from the game is sort of like a mix between the old and the new, the main character serving as our portal into the old.
Overall, 2/5 stars.

Long on looks, short on fun

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: March 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm writing this to counter-balance some of these overly enthusiastic reviews. True, Syberia has nice graphics, great sound, and good atmosphere. But where "The Longest Journey" adds an interesting story and empathetic characters, Syberia degenerates into a sequence of transportation related puzzles with goofy sub-plots involving retired opera stars and (often mentioned, but never seen) Wooly Mammoths.

I just never developed a liking for the main character and her supposed "personal development"--told via a silly cell-phone soap opera that frequently interrupts the plot. Worst of all, when the game abruptly ends, nothing is resolved and you realize that this is just part one of the story. Really shameful!

Having also subjected myself to Benoit Sokal's previous attempt at this genre ("Amerzone"), I should have been suspicious. That game was awful, pure and simple. Microids went out of their way to tie that one in to this game (at one point Kate says somthing like "Amerzone? Amerzone? What is the Amerzone?"). You don't want to go there, Kate.

The puzzles revolve mostly around winding up her mechanical train so the trip can continue to the next location. Some of the screens are so dark that I couldn't see what it was I was clicking on (no gamma adjustment either, sorry). Some items could only be found by the most painful pixel hunting--slowly trolling the cursor back and forth over the entire screen. That was enough to get me to resort to a walk-through. You know what needs to be done, but you just can't find that item dropped in the corner of a room.

The story itself is advanced by dialog fill-ins that seem shoe-horned in here and there. The voice acting of the American charaters is OK, but the dialog is full of poorly translated phrases (Kate keeps saying "I don't need to go down there" every time you try a locked door--down where?). And the accents of the European charaters are consistently terrible (the crazy industrial city commandant sounded more Scottish than Russian!).

I suppose I could play "Syberia 2" and find out where all this mess was going, but I just don't care. Think I'll wait for "The Longest Journey 2" instead.

Syberia is better than the Longest Journey.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Syberia is an amazing adventure game. The Longest Journey was wonderful but entirely too wordy. They are definitely on the same page. This game was relaxing and it had everything you could possibly want. It's like a good book you do not want to put down but I would force myself to slow down, sit back and enjoy it as well. Why rush it and then who knows how long it will take for Syberia II to appear. I recommend you buy it.

Finally!! A TRUE Adventure Game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have been a big adventure gamer for years and played many computer games. I've noticed lately that these types of games (where you have to interact with other characters to get clues for your game, etc...) are slowly fading. This game is just like all those older adventure games! There are several characters to interact with, and the puzzles aren't too hard. It leaves a lot to enjoy. One of the even more important aspects, I believe, is you can't die. It's all about finding your way to this heir of a factory and that's it. So, you don't need to worry about saving your game before a battle with anyone, because it's all about using your mind. The graphics are amazing!!

Definatly recommended for the true ADVENTURE gamers out there! Great game :)

Syberia? No, really, Syberia? Where are you?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I love me some adventure games. You know how it goes... buy nice shiny game, get immersed, then wait with bated breath until the next title from the developers/production company comes out. Unfortunately, Syberia made me want to scream. They had such a wonderful concept working with the automatons and the art direction was gorgeous [just one example: the houses in Valadilene are beautifully stylized renditions of the art-deco (?) Metro stations in Paris, almost indescribable] and then they just let it go. Pffft. As if we'd be so immersed in the visuals that story ceases to become necessary.

My main peeves with this game were the repetitive actions of Kate and Oscar, along with the really poor conversion of dialogue to English. First: Kate walking everywhere took way too long. I could read a paragraph in the time it took Kate to jog her happy Lara Croft-esque heinie somewhere. And I had to backtrack, repeat, and generally get tangled up in Kate's inability to hustle up stairs in a timely fashion. Also: please put us back in the driver's seat, DreamCatcher... having to WATCH the main character from a third person viewpoint really objectified Kate. I wasn't losing myself in the story, I was obsessing about Kate's skintight ensemble. The attempt to give Kate a motive for the endgame sequence is facilitated in part by the many cellphone conversations, where Kate is in constant contact back home. I thought that the situation between Kate and her family/friends back home was highly contrived, annoying, and demeaning. Oscar showed the most promise as a character, but I was let down by the lack of development there.

Next: Hire me, please! I could fix the NUMEROUS, CONSTANT errors in the subtitles (which I had to use in order to figure out what people were saying... swells of music should not occur when I'm going BelTone on another character). There were spelling errors, punctuation errors, and sometimes words that weren't even there on the screen. My favorite inconsistency: "Christmas" is used as an epithet, then a few minutes later we hear a more creative and true-to-life use of a curse word (trying to be G-rated here). Too funny! I truly believe this game suffered greatly from its conversion to English. The British slang ("good, that?" "bob's your uncle") was sloshed together with incorrect American slang ("put your foot on it..." do you mean "step on the gas?") and the really strange mixture of Italian and Spanish that the boss sometimes blurted out (molti dineros?) irritated me like a brillo pad being threaded through my brain. By the end of the game I was ready for my one-way ticket on that train to the loony bin!

The story line is dropped to facilitate a hasty ending. I didn't appreciate that and won't critique it here, in case some folks don't care for spoilers. Syberia is so beautiful, you might find yourself buying it. But if you're totally happy with it and satisfied with it when you're done, then let me know. I think it's highly unlikely that I would purchase a sequel to this game, and I'll be more wary of DreamCatcher in the future. It's unfortunate, simply because the concept of the automatons is the most ingenious and original use of non-human characters I've ever seen in adventure gaming. At least now I know I could use my English degrees to help a game company be more consistent and correct in their editing and development of translations!

P.S. I was very intrigued by the woolly mammoth and SIBERIA promise made by the packaging and promotional materials. It seems I will have to hie me to the library to actually learn more about them, and might have to write a story myself in order to polish off what was started and not finished in this game.

Definitely Above Average but Could Be Better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is not a bad game in any respect, but a few steps down from other recent adventure games such as The Longest Journey and Grim Fandango. Sure, the graphics are fantastic. Backgrounds are beautifully done, animations are fluid and realistic, and cutscenes are stunning. However, they seem to have been a bit too proud of their artwork because they've stuffed the game full of it, at the expense of sufficient interaction. I think more than half of all the frames are completely noninteractive (besides walking through and entering and exiting). Unlike the aforementioned games, the protagonist (Kate) will not comment on any aspect of environment except maybe once or twice. It's like walking alone through an art museum, sometimes. Not too boring, but had they included voiced "observations" from Kate, they could have made exploration a lot, lot more fun, especially given the interesting and beautiful environments they created.

In fact, limited interaction is the major flaw of this game, in my opinion. Puzzles are relatively few, and most of them involve putting little objects or pieces of machinery in their correct places to make things work. The cursor indicates when you can use or pick up something to useful effect, so often you find yourself using things and picking stuff up just because you can, yet you don't know what you're doing it for. There are no different methods of manipulation to try, and you don't even have the option of manipulating or combining objects that are not correct. Doing this in other games have often had funny consequences. In Grim Fandango, for example, tell Manny to "pick up" the car, and he'll dryly say, "Sorry, I left my tow truck in my other pants." Syberia seems awfully linear and limited due to this, and despite the beauty of the environments, they don't truly come to life. Conversations are also very limited in that they play almost like movies. You get to pick the topic, and then you sit back and watch them talk on their own. No more dialogue trees. So playing Syberia ends up being a very passive experience. Most of the time you're either watching Kate walk silently across frames (VERY SLOWLY, I might add, and it gets tedious sometimes) or watching her talk with someone without your direct input.

Lastly, the game seems altogether too short. The story itself was intriguing enough to keep me fairly interested, but it's actually very simple and straightforward, and my expectations were sort of dispelled by its abrupt and inconclusive ending, which is obviously setting up for a sequel. It doesn't have that epic feel of Grim Fandango or The Longest Journey (well I guess that's why they called it The Longest Journey...).

Notice, though, that I keep comparing Syberia to other, older adventures that I consider better. On its own, Syberia is definitely above average, for in these sad years the adventure genre hasn't had much to boast about. As I said, the 2D graphics and art design are gorgeous. The music is pretty good, but it doesn't seem to play all too often. The puzzles tend to be pretty direct and not difficult. While some involve just finding a key, others are creative and original.

Bottom line: Good (especially the brilliant graphics), but the slow pace and limited interaction results in a bit of tedium and can make the player feel somewhat excluded from any real in-depth puzzling and adventuring. Also a bit short and dangling. Even so, it's the best adventure of 2002, so if you like adventure games, it will be worth it. Though if you haven't played Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, or even the Monkey Island games, you should try those instead.

Unfulfilled promises

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well, if I didn't get it, neither did my nine-year-old son who played it with me. We knew, from the clues, that we were going to "Syberia" -- a place that was building up to be a modern Avalon, Valhala, Shangri-La, or Big Rock Candy Mountain -- and there we would meet an eccentric German genius, a legendary tribe of mammoth-tamers, a mysterious ghost-ark, and, of course, the living mammoths themselves. And we would learn the 12,000-year-old-secret -- because if one meets such things at the Arctic edge of the world, there always has to be a Secret.

Instead, we got caught in a snowstorm in a broken-down Soviet resort on the edge of Arial Sea, in the company of a dim-witted old man and a robot chaperone. We never did get to Syberia; the game simply ended.

Huh?

This game gets kudos for the biggest anticlimactic ending since the Versaille Peace Conference failed in 1919. The real mysteries here are twofold: how did the game makers manage to get away with it, and why had this game gotten such superb reviews? Going over it again, I've reached the following conclusions:

(1) There are times when the atmosphere in this game is strangely sublime. You want to believe that wonderful things are going to occur, and you keep playing to find them. "It's going to be incredible when we reach Syberia," my son kept saying. But we never did, and the "wonderful things" always remained a frame or two out of reach.

(2) The artwork is inconsistant. Some of it is extraordinary, such as the opening sequence with the drummer and the funeral cart. And some of it is pedestrian scrollwork that befits the industrial architecture of early "Doom" or "Duke Nukem" environments -- Komkolzgrad, for example. The landscapes do not have much animated depth, and a sense of three-dimensional parallax is missing as the character moves.

(3) The worst flaw, however (other than the truncated ending), is the writing, particularly the dialogue. Within the structure of the world that is created, there is no overall logic -- the game is alternatively sharply realistic and tragic, and fantastically cute or comical. It's an uneasy and sometimes insensitive mix. The dialogue is laced with malapropisms, awkwardness, and non-sequiters; you don't feel like you're listening to real characters. On the other hand, the actors are quite good.

Two stars, but only because of the excitement we felt when we thought we had learned where we were going.

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