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
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
4 Comments
@FallenGrace Thanks. Yeah, I wouldn't say other media didn't have problems with female protagonists, but the game industry clearly was too male dominated for a long time. If you listen to interviews, how they invented Pac-Man to address girls, because the only thing the designer would match as an attribute was that women like food, there's not much room for a discussion. It also often made me sad that playing the female character out of a party often was sort of "hard mode", because the woman was a weaker figure compared to the male counterparts. They may have a different physique, but it works in a game like Windjammers 2 for instance, where that just leads to different stats, making the women being faster, having other advantages. I don't think Kate Walker as a protagonist does rely too much on gender, like there would probably be ways to address more of her individual situation with clever writing, but they decided to have her even more dedicated to the quest in part two. On the other hand this doesn't have to be a weakness, because it doesn't pin her down to her role as a female. If it would, that might have ended up in "she can do it, even as a woman" and that's luckily not the case in my opinion. It's an adventure and it so happens the protagonist is female.
I'm looking forward to your review, especially for a second opinion on that perspective. Have fun!
I'm looking forward to your review, especially for a second opinion on that perspective. Have fun!
It still is very male dominated though things have gotten better in recent years with diversity generally. I always play as a female if I have the option and am enjoying that more games give it as either an option or have female leads even if it still leans heavily towards male dominated characters. I had no idea about that regarding Pac Man but at the same time I'm not entirely surprised. I'm playing Legend of Dragoon on and off at the moment and the blatant misogyny of constantly implying one of the female characters is weak or that the way she should help is by cooking for the men is just painful.
@FallenGrace Yeah, could be male designers too often just can't come up with more relevant stories. I'm not even sure I could write something relevant for women, even though I consume media made by women and like them to be independent individuals. But like for instance Delores in Thimbleweed Park, in the end she's written by a male and though she's not a heroine, she's kind of a nerd and I don't know if that just in another way makes her appealing to guys or if her mind of her own makes her a figure of identification to women as well. And as much as I like to learn more about an interesting character's story and I also have a heart for broken male characters in other media, in games it occured to me as if weakness is a thing for girls or it's maybe even an instrument like Little Misfortune, you know, as a girl the protagonist might be seen more fragile than as a boy. It's probably a balance that has to grow over time. Things are changing. It's just not everything all at once.
FallenGrace
1 year ago
Excellent review.