Life is Strange and Syberia are both the best games with a female protagonist I've ever played: showing a real personality with its lights and shadows, its complexes and its progression towards a strong and self-sufficient personality.

Two great examples of how a female character should be.

Besides this, Syberia has an immersive atmosphere with an interesting steampunk universe.

I'm not a fan of the mechanics of graphic adventures but this game has some merits than make it shine with its own light.

Probably its biggest flaw is that its story ends abruptly, seeming to be incomplete so it seems compelled to play the second part (which I haven't played yet).

How has this game been missing from my life for the last nineteen years?!?

As a fan of adventure games it's unbelievable to me that I've never played this before. Right from the start Syberia had me hooked with its great story, lovely art and sumptuous soundtrack. Rarely do I care that much about videogame stories, even in adventures, but this game made me really CARE about the story and the characters, so much that I was genuinely sad to see the ending.

Syberia has now become one of my all-time favourites, a real classic that I'm so glad I have experienced.

This is my second-favorite game in the classic Tomb Raider series. I highly respect the developers for choosing not to rely on the brand name, and for switching to a top-down adventure style, as well as calling the protagonist Kate Walker instead of Lara Croft… ok, so obviously these are unrelated franchises, but Syberia actually does tap into the magic that characterises Tomb Raider, maybe even to a greater degree. What may seem like a straightforward adventure slowly pulls you into a world that has a subtle fantasy to it, as if fairy tales were real, but most people had forgotten to take notice. Our protagonist Kate is the exact sort of person that description would apply to, being a lawyer from New York whose call to adventure was to settle a corporate buyout and act as an estate executor. As that dry description may suggest, this is a game that’s not afraid of a slow pace, and wants to encourage players to take their time, think about what people are saying, and fully take stock of every room before running off unprepared. That’s why, in addition to the similar settings and protagonists, I’m reminded of the classic Tomb Raider games. It would have been easy to let Lara do long jumps from a standstill and instantly grab ledges, or to let Kate sprint from place to place and highlight any useful objects she sees, but these changes would have reduced the satisfying quality that makes these games what they are. Of course, there are times where the slowness can be particularly irritating, and my biggest gripe is how the game loves to hide mission-critical details, but by the end I was thankful for the time I had to ruminate on what was being wordlessly communicated. The message slowly unfolds as the adventure grows to be much more than it was at the start, even if it’s in the quiet sort of way where it never feels like anything’s changed. That to me is what makes a journey feel real, like the sort of growth you experience day by day, only to look back a year later and realize everything’s changed. For a game to capture that feeling makes it something truly special, and an adventure that’s still definitely worth taking.

"A Solid Beginning To A Journey In Search Of A Forgotten Ancient Land"

Syberia is a fairly quaint game with an unusual story behind it. You are Kate Walker, a New York lawyer looking to close the purchase of an automaton factory in the French Alps. But when the owner suddenly passes away, it is up to you to locate a mysterious yet influential heir to the fortune in order to finish the job. Along the way, you'll uncover knowledge about this particularly intriguing person, as well as information about his quest to uncover a lost civilization known to have domesticated the last of the living mammoths.

The story of the first title in this series ended up being pretty good, and the detail was fairly substantial for such a linear game. The developers clearly wanted the player to follow a set storyline, so there is little secrecy in side content for the player to uncover. The characters are pretty interesting, and you learn a good bit about who they are and what their lives have been like. Kate herself is given a nice little character arc within the game that, albeit being a bit predictable, serves as a fairly good structure for a main character. I had one major complaint with the story, along with one minor one.

My biggest complaint with the narrative in the first game is that what you are doing takes much longer than needed, and it seems to be a bit of padding at the hands of the developers. While the second act makes some sense in terms of why you end up in the location, the third act's plotline is very forced and unrealistic. In fact, you already have the item that allows you to complete you objective, yet the game makes you continue onwards without the option of doing so. While the payoff was marginally entertaining, as you meet a few charming characters in the last few areas, it didn't really make a lot of sense as to why Kate blindly follows directions without bending some rules. My second, and smaller complaint, is that the end of the game is extremely sudden and unrewarding. It really comes out of nowhere, and there isn't much emotional catharsis that makes it more dramatic, so it left me feeling lost. The sequel most likely will pick up from where this game left off, but the ending could have done more with a closing theme/lesson that the player could be left with.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward and actually has some nice simplicity for an older adventure title. The actions weren't too confusing, and a majority of the puzzles I encountered were logical in construction. There were only a handful of illogical solutions/ways to progress that left me dumbfounded, but it was overall much better than many other adventure games. There was a good amount of texts to read, which I wish were more abundant as it helped to create the world surrounding the journey. I will say that Kate's movement speed is much too slow, and there were a bunch of unnecessary animations that dragged on for way too long (characters getting up and walking across a room ton talk to you, watching a character completely walk out of a location before dialogue continues and/or control is returned to the player). These were frustrating, but didn't ruin much of the experience other than serving as occasional annoyances.

Voice acting is fairly well done, with a good amount of character and tone thrown in. However, there are moments where I wish Kate made a breakthrough in character that just didn't quite happen, which really let me down. Additionally, the accents of many characters do not make sense, as the location of Western/Eastern Europe and the voices fail to match. One of the professors in the second acts university is dreadfully awkward sounding, as it sounded much different in recording quality and vocal tone than any other character in the title. Still, it was solid throughout for the most part.

The music was pretty good, if a bit limited and repetitive in areas. The art design is great, and shows a very good amount of scale and character for many of the locations, but the colors could have been more diverse/enriched. Everything is sort of gray, brown, green, white, and black, with very little else that pops out visually.

Overall, Syberia was a pretty good time. I think some aspects have aged not quite as well as intended, but the story and characters kept me playing till the end. I can Recommend checking this title out if you're a fan of adventure games and can put up with some old mechanics. I look forward to playing the sequel and seeing where the narrative progresses!

Final Verdict: 7/10 (Good)

Point'n'Clicks lost me for a while in late 90s, partly because they started out following the polygonal 3D trend and of course other priorities in early adulthood. Syberia wouldn't have caught my attention when it was released in 2002, but since my return to the genre and a free giveaway of Syberia Part 1 and 2 for PC from Gog later, I've learned it isn't all that bad after all and I picked up the three games on Switch to complete.

Of course I could have finished Syberia on my Laptop easily and that was the plan anyway, having just bought the additional part 3 on sale for Switch. Having the chance to get the combined parts 1 and 2 on sale for about two Euros (so look for these games on a discount!) lead to the decision to complete any Syberia part on my recently favourite bed time device and that has some pro's and con's actually.

But enough bragging, designed by acclaimed and sadly now deceased comic book artist Benoît Sokal Syberia draws a lot from the integral design putting sort of a steampunk fairytale into an antiquated vision of modern Europe and Russia. That robots are rather called Automatons should tell quite a bit about the attention to detail. American lawyer Kate Walker has to learn as fast it's not just a regular toy factory she's helping to buy as she finds out the owner passed away, though there's a lost inheritant she's got to find so she can close that bloody deal.

The characters are 3D which would usually be a turn off for me, but the textures merge well enough with the beautiful yet digital 2D backdrops and as the decent story unfolds, I'm hooked by the atmosphere. As soon as finding an automaton compagnon that certainly could be seen as a steampunk C-3PO equivalent and starting into the adventure on a clockwork train the game fully got me.

If it wasn't for some minor flaws to add up though. I've been playing into third chapter on PC and mouse controls were fine, except for hotspots into new scenes that sometimes were hard to find or even hard to tell from each other. Cost me some time, because I just didn't see there's another scene in the factory to get the needed puzzle going.
On the other hand, there have been plenty of dead end hot spots that never would get relevant throughout the game. I miss exploring those details even if it's just for some random information instead of finding out it's just a useless action. The Switch version cut down on that massively, increasing the impression of sterile scenery though, that you just pass to waste time. Switch version also seems to omit at least one small chunk of dialogue that, even though it did not consist of lots of relevant information, helped to create an image of what's going on in that little french place.

Since I did not read the PC instructions properly, hence didn't know double clicking the exit makes you run, walking around was rather slow, especially when you bounce around to find your information. And it's not you don't have to. The moment you're tired of clicking the same dialogue triggers over and over, you're gonna find out maybe that one time it's crucial to be persistent.

On Nintendo Switch you move through the screens with your left stick, probably reminding of Monkey Island's fourth installment or Grim Fandango, coming with the same disadvantages more or less. There's a "run" button I kept constantly pressing to work on a decent speed. But it seems the game wasn't actually designed for these type of controls. Further into the game it gets sloppier, getting stuck at design elements or unlocking secret clipping errors nobody expected. Worst of all, changing one scene into another, there's a twist in direction, so if you keep pushing the stick that way, whoops, you're back where you just came from. It's just frustrating after a while.

Having said that, it's probably good the game doesn't rely so much on using items and except for few, there's not much need to be very precise. Overall, I've seen Point'n'Click ports being way worse than Syberia.

There's plenty of dialogue to work through and being German, I tried the localized dub on Switch, but returned to the superior English dub I knew from PC swiftly. They did a great job on that and, having a well developed dubbing culture in Germany, it surprised me how unemotional the characters spoke in the German version. It's still good you can skip the dialogue though, not only if you hear it again, but also if you read the subs and just want to finally pass.

It confused me a little, that after a while the great atmospheric soundtrack got repetitive too much, so I put on a Spotify playlist and turned the in-game music volume down. Call me barbaric, but I've spent enough time finding the last clue in some cases, that I needed some change.

That I did only need to look up minor details in a walkthrough that I basically knew but couldn't locate (actually only three situations connected to technical issues I had with the PC version) can be seen good or bad. The puzzles are not insane and you could say it's designed well enough to let you pass on your own. But if you're used to ace your adventure anyway, you might find Syberia a bit on the easy side, having to find just what you're told to mostly.

It's about the experience in the end and there's enough tension while the story unfolds. That's also what let's me endure the procedure. On the plus side, it's more grown up content putting the female protagonist on a journey from the filthy capitalist US law firm on the tracks of an infantile mastermind being lost in the remains of communist Russia cornered by a connection home via mobile phone, it's 2002, remember? Not all calls are useless. Some help solving a puzzle and some the character development leading to a final decision right on peak of the action. With that kind of cliffhanger, you should at least be prepared with Syberia 2 to continue the trip. Part 3, well that's another decision to be worked out in a review.

Anyway, if you're willing to accept some tech flaws on their own, both PC and Nintendo Switch versions of Syberia are a good addition to your growing Point'n'Click collection. Even being first released a while back, the Switch version could easily cut away the save slots and rely on the last autosave, cause it's well enough designed to not have you die or get stuck in a dead end at all. Sure, there are better games, the first two Broken Sword issues come to mind, but that kinda story in that particular environment with lots of dubbed dialogue and cut scenes appears to be quite rare. That was a lot of chitchat for saying "you can find it cheap enough to be entertained if you're into the genre."

Would you like to read more of my backloggd adventure reviews?
Syberia II
Syberia 3
One Night Stand
The Little Acre
The Wardrobe - Even Better Edition

Mechanics didn't age well, you will waste a lot of time in annoying travel time if you don't follow a walkthrough or a guide.

The story is still pretty interesting, the characters are compelling and the ambientation is nice.

So sad that some dated mechanics drag this down so much.

Durante meses fiquei pensando em como criar uma análise para esse jogo, pois apesar de não ser o meu favorito da franquia, Syberia é um clássico valioso, e sendo sincera, ainda acho que essa análise não chega ao que deveria ser, principalmente pela minha dificuldade em transmitir sentimentos pelas palavras, mas tudo começa com certa dificuldade não é mesmo?

Comecei minha aventura em jogos digitais ainda bem jovem e por isso sempre preferi jogos que tivessem possibilidades de controle direto como FPS, RPG e MMORPG, por algum motivo que não consigo recordar eu acreditei por vários anos que jogos point and click eram o fundo do poço para qualquer um, pois qual era a graça de ficar procurando pistas e outras coisas enquanto me apresentam só uma história? Na verdade, poderia resumir minha opinião com uma das discussões recentes na internet: “Como gameplay consegue sustentar um enredo ruim, mas um enredo bom não consegue sustentar uma gameplay?”

Pode parecer besteira para os mais antigos, contudo muitos acreditavam e ainda acreditam nisso. Hoje consigo perceber que isso é inocência e burrice, pois no fim das contas o que vale é a consideração de cada um, mas gostaria de ter feito algum comentário na internet durante o auge desses meus pensamentos em relação a isso, pois em minha opinião é muito importante reconhecer erros e observar mudanças ao longo do tempo, mesmo sendo algo bem recente.

Conheci Syberia através da DEMO de The World Before e decidi comprar e esperar o lançamento mesmo sem ter jogado qualquer coisa da franquia. Encarei isso como um desafio para zerar todos os jogos antes do lançamento de TWB e confesso que por vários momentos pensei em desistir, mas sempre fui bastante competitiva então continuei e ainda bem que não desisti.

Benoît Sokal foi um gênio e espero que ele tenha sentido muito orgulho do que construiu, podemos dizer que ele marcou e revolucionou muitas coisas, uma pena não existir reconhecimento suficiente. Mas assim como Mendel, existem pessoas que só se tornam valiosas após a morte e ainda acredito que algum dia desse nosso instável universo, as obras desse homem ainda serão consideradas um clássico revolucionário. Pensar sobre a morte de Sokal ainda me deixa triste, pois gostaria de ter conhecido mais do trabalho dele em vida, mas o mundo não é fácil e por isso espero de coração que ele tenha muita paz no descanso eterno.

A ideia inicial da franquia vem da possibilidade de um mundo influenciado por uma família bastante proeminente na indústria, que ao invés de criar máquinas optou por criar automatons e isso mudou grande parte da história. Contudo, após a Segunda Guerra Mundial e o início da Guerra Fria, esse mercado passou a olhar para essas invenções como desperdício e antiguidade, o que culminou na falência da empresa Voralberg.

É aqui que nossa protagonista Kate Walker entra em destaque, formada em advocacia ela tem como objetivo finalizar a venda da empresa para uma fábrica de brinquedos e teoricamente, tudo seria bem rápido. A obrigação da Kate era só mandar a antiga dona assinar a documentação e voltar para casa onde um noivo, mãe e amiga a esperavam. Porém, como sabemos, nem tudo é como desejamos e rapidamente ela se encontra em uma gigante teia com tempo determinado para colapsar.

O principal motivo desse colapso tem relação com a antiga dona, Anna Voralberg que faleceu poucos dias antes da chegada da Walker, e que por algum motivo, tinha um irmão mais novo morto que agora estava supostamente vivo. Com isso, Kate tinha um novo objetivo: achar Hans Voralberg e finalizar a venda da empresa.

Quando falamos em protagonista feminina de impacto, muitos pensam em personagens heroínas, aquelas que lutam contra tudo e todos, mas Kate Walker é diferente de todas que eu já vi (e olha que grande parte dos meus jogos são protagonistas mulheres). Não jogue Syberia acreditando estar com uma heroína, vilã, donzela em perigo ou qualquer coisa desse tipo, pois Kate é apenas uma pessoa entrando em um mundo absurdamente desconhecido, e diferente dos clichês, não existe um motivo cósmico ou especial que a fez ir atrás disso, na realidade tudo o que temos é uma trabalhadora que necessita sobreviver, assim como você e eu. Kate não foi ao lugar errado na hora errada, ela só fez o que o chefe pediu e, talvez, essa escolha de caracterização tenha feito a personagem ser tão icônica para quem já jogou.

A exploração e puzzles podem ser bem confusos no início, principalmente com a influência da falta de desenvolvimento para sistemas mais recentes. Contudo, a forma como Sokal introduziu toda a franquia foi tão meticulosamente cuidadosa e impressionante que vale a pena quebrar um pouco a cabeça e aguentar a resolução horrível.

Como já era de se esperar, sua ambientação e soundtrack se casam muito bem, passando a sensação de realmente estar em locais antigos e ricos em história. É incrível como conseguiram passar a idade, cultura e o tempo de cada ambiente, o que chega a ser absurdo quando paramos para pensar em quantos locais a família Voralberg se infiltrou e estabeleceu um mundo promissor.

Os personagens ao redor também não deixam a desejar, principalmente Oscar, o automaton amigo da Kate. É incrível como esse personagem me cativou, toda vez que lembro dele é como lembrar de um melhor amigo, alguém que eu gostaria de realmente ter ao lado em momentos felizes e tristes.

A relação da Kate com o Oscar é como o de duas crianças se conhecendo, a inocência e pureza de Oscar em relação as coisas humanas e a falta de compreendimento da Kate em relação ao mundo industrial criam um clima tão agradável que chega a ser triste pensar que esses dois não existem. Um outro ponto essencial na relação vem da devoção que ambos têm um pelo outro, não estou dizendo isso de forma romântica (e nunca vou querer) mas da amizade e dependência, pois durante toda a aventura a única certeza que ambos possuem é que eles estão juntos nisso tudo.

Na minha visão, Oscar e os puzzles representam o mundo desconhecido de Syberia, eles são a ponte de ligação entre nosso mundo e algo perdido, já Kate é uma representação nossa, nós somos Kate Walker durante os momentos de dúvidas, pesquisa e demonstração.

Uma coisa que amei em relação a tudo isso foi observar como a protagonista tem uma ligação fervorosa entre os “dois mundos”, o primeiro com Oscar e toda a tecnologia antiga e o segundo com sua mãe, amiga e noivo. É muito interessante como pouco a pouco a Kate vai percebendo que existem problemas no nosso mundo, e em como as vezes tudo o que precisamos é de um pouco de coragem para sair das repetições e alcançar o início de uma aventura.

Para mim, Syberia representa a nossa infância e como gostaríamos de ter coisas absurdas para presenciar, é como olhar para os meus sonhos e pensar em como gostaria de voltar para aquela época, mas ao mesmo tempo também representa o lado adulto da vida e em como temos várias coisas incríveis ao nosso redor que ignoramos por falta de interesse.

Falar dessa franquia nunca vai deixar de me emocionar, principalmente por ter me observado por vários momentos na protagonista. Algumas vezes a sensação foi tão forte que eu tive que parar e pensar nas decisões da minha vida, pois queria ser corajosa e louca igual a Walker, mas o medo da instabilidade ainda me rodeia e, por isso, espero algum dia conseguir tomar coragem necessária e quebrar essas amarras, espero conseguir olhar para o meu passado e encontrar um pouco do meu futuro.