Unlike a bunch of classic adventure game fans I’m not the biggest fan of Syberia 1, it still does stick with me as the writing and atmosphere are quite good, but man the puzzles are just bad, filled with utterly tedious backtracking. It’s the main reason why I skipped 2 as I always heard it’s got even worse backtracking with a less interesting setting and 3 was a genuinely bad game so I skipped that as well. World Before comes as a welcome surprise though as it is by far the best game in the series and a satisfying conclusion.
The puzzles this time around are much better as you don’t have to do much backtracking and they are just enough of them to still feel like a classic point and click adventure game like Syberia 1. The atmosphere is just as fantastic as the original game as Vahgen has a lot of wonder and charm to it. The narrative is actually a rather personal story which is cool to see as video games tend to love upping the stakes, even Syberia 1 was more of this epic trans-continental journey. The story ends up being a really emotional one too and surpasses the original game’s by a good deal. It goes into alt-history like the previous games did but this ends up rather awkwardly done this time around by turning the Nazis into the utterly goofy sounding Brown Shadow and Jewish people becoming an entirely fictional ethnicity which while seemingly was a change with the best intentions ends up feeling tone deaf and kind of diminishing of WWII/The Holocaust. Also the game feels a little too sympathetic to the closest the game has to a main antagonist to me, but it’s not a real detriment.
Overall World Before is a great conclusion and a beautifully meditative game befitting of the series' tone and themes. Definitely check it out.
The puzzles this time around are much better as you don’t have to do much backtracking and they are just enough of them to still feel like a classic point and click adventure game like Syberia 1. The atmosphere is just as fantastic as the original game as Vahgen has a lot of wonder and charm to it. The narrative is actually a rather personal story which is cool to see as video games tend to love upping the stakes, even Syberia 1 was more of this epic trans-continental journey. The story ends up being a really emotional one too and surpasses the original game’s by a good deal. It goes into alt-history like the previous games did but this ends up rather awkwardly done this time around by turning the Nazis into the utterly goofy sounding Brown Shadow and Jewish people becoming an entirely fictional ethnicity which while seemingly was a change with the best intentions ends up feeling tone deaf and kind of diminishing of WWII/The Holocaust. Also the game feels a little too sympathetic to the closest the game has to a main antagonist to me, but it’s not a real detriment.
Overall World Before is a great conclusion and a beautifully meditative game befitting of the series' tone and themes. Definitely check it out.