The third chapter in Benoît Sokal’s adventure series has finally arrived.
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It’s been about 13 years since Benoît Sokal’s Syberia sequel, Syberia 2 was released and cherished by point and click fans the world over. That’s a long time for fans to wait for a sequel, particularly given the cliffhanger nature of its ending. The long wait has split fans into two camps. There are those who, as they’ve been made to wait, have elevated their expectations with every year and thus have come to expect a next-gen entry of the highest calibre. On the other hand, there are those who are content with an adventure that cleanses the nostalgic thirst, something along the lines of the previous two games. The former camp may want to stay away from Syberia 3, as Benoît Sokal’s latest game, could just as well have been released in 2005. And that’s both a positive and a negative.
Syberia 3 starts off after Hans Vogelberg’s goodbye from the back of a mammoth and the death of tinman Oscar. Many Syberia fans felt the second game left a lot of questions unanswered and you won’t find many of those answers in Syberia 2. After a short introduction sequence explains that Kate Walker was saved from a sure death by Youkols, you wake up in a hospital bed in what seems more like a torture chamber than a place of healing. One of the Youkols who rescued Miss Walker is sitting next to her, strapped down into a wheelchair that seems to have been taken straight out of Hostel, with a recently amputated leg. He introduces himself as Kurk, leader of his people, and he’s feeling alright given the circumstances. Kurk must, however, reunite with his people who are waiting in a nearby village as soon as possible. After all, this one-legged patient is the chosen leader and his one calling in life is to lead his people and the snow ostriches to new pastures.
The players first objective is then to exit the room, sort out a prosthesis for Kurk, and head for greener pastures on an ostrich. Unfortunately, but hardly to anyone’s surprise, she’s not exactly in your typical hospital. It seems as though the Russian military has assumed control over the facility, and Kate Walker quickly becomes a target.
One thing that’s very different compared to its predecessors is that Syberia 3 really isn’t a standard point and click. While you controlled Kate indirectly in previous games through clicking where you wanted her to walk, she is now controlled using WASD on the keyboard. The mentioned control scheme takes some getting used to, and even then it still feels really stiff. As the camera uses fixed positions and these switch constantly, at times it’s hard to get the hang of controlling Kate, and we’d say that overall it’s best played with a controller, even if it is fully playable on keyboard. As well as controlling your character, you can of course fiddle about with objects, and these menus are easy to comprehend and use.
The plot is interesting enough to keep one immersed and the various puzzles are wonderfully nostalgic and challenging. That said, there are a number of problems that we need to address. For starters, there are not nearly enough puzzles. This fact became clear only partway into the game, but when it did it was made painfully clear. Most of your time is spent finding the various pieces of the puzzles, not actually solving them, which is frustrating. The environments are far too “open” to primarily focus on finding items, and it’s easy to overlook the things needed to progress the narrative.
What’s worse is the fact that you sometimes have to speak to an individual one or more times before you can interact with key objects, so even if you’re dead sure what is needed to solve a puzzle, and you stand right in front of the object, you can’t simply pick it up and progress the story until you’ve spoken to the right person once or, at times, even several times. It happened all too often that we found ourselves hunting for an object only to, hours later, accidentally unlock the item after a seemingly unnecessary conversation.
Syberia 3 is hardly a technical masterpiece, the visuals are less than stellar and the voice acting incredibly forced. That said, the player is taken to a wide range of environments, gets to solve fun puzzles, and experience an exciting plot, all along to the tunes of a great soundtrack from none other than Inon Zur. It’s obvious that Syberia 3 is a game for those looking to sate a thirst for old school adventures, and we think a lot of fans will enjoy this third game in the series, that is if they can ignore its dated presentation. Those who were hoping for an up-to-date big budget sequel will be disappointed.
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Keyword: Syberia 3