During the great slump of the adventure genre, the 00s, good adventure games were few and far between. While calling the adventure genre dead during that time is a bit of an exaggeration, only a couple of truly memorable games were released during that period, Syberia being one of them.
Syberia is the first part of now 4 game series coined by Benoît Sokal, who was better known as a comic artist, but who also dabbled in the interactive medium of games. Perhaps, as he was a storyteller, adventure games were the genre he chose over everything else. The genre was, perhaps, the best suited for his brand of storytelling.
The story of Syberia begins in the small town of Valadilén in France, where a young American lawyer Kate Walker arrives to tie up a purchase of a local factory manufacturing mechanical toys, automatons of intricate quality. She learns, that the owner of the factory, Anna Voralberg, has died, a matter that brings new troubles to completing the purchase. She also learns, that Anna has a brother, Hans, who is still alive and thus her heir. The problem is, Hans is nowhere to be seen.
After following clues, he figures that Hans is heading towards east, Siberia, to find a mysterious island of Syberia, where mammoths still roam. Mammoths have been Hans' obsession since childhood and he left his home long ago to find them. Kate gears up a mechanical train, built after Hans's instructions, originally meant to unite the siblings. Conducted by Oscar, another automaton of Hans's design, the train begins its journey through former soviet lands, where people still live almost detached from time itself.
When Kate finally finds Hans, she finds herself at a crossroad: will he go back home or will she continue her journey with the old man and his fabulous contraptions. Obviously, the choice isn't that surprising, as Kate has found her true self during the journey. She now knows what she wants and needs, so together the duo goes on, to the sequel.
Syberia is a very slow-paced adventure in a world, that relies more on visual rather than spoken or voiced storytelling, at least as far as what comes to the locations Kate visits. The main story is about Hans and his past and these events we do get to know through letters and such, but of the locations themselves we don't really learn that much beyond a couple of discussions. There's no means of examining or looking at any of the intriguing details, they just are there in the world, giving us flavour. It's fine by itself, but it's also very far removed from adventure games, that allow you to truly examine your surroundings, providing both visual and verbal responses. As such, the gameplay mechanics are very simplified, as you can only use and interact, which is something that makes puzzles pretty simplistic as well.
All the locations and characters are based on Sokol's sketches, finely executed as pre-rendered backdrops. The world it has manages to feel lived in and intriguing because of the visuals as well as the melancholic atmosphere that drips through the locations and the people who live in them. It's a slowly decaying world, that is very far removed from the posh and polished past there might once have been.
There is deliberate slowness in the gameplay and in how the story opens up. Location after location, Kate has to spend some time exploring her surroundings before she gets caught in yet another task brought to her by the people, who see a solution to their own issues in Kate. And Kate, at each stop she ends up at, has to find the means of winding up her automaton train so that she can continue, but many times the people around her are an obstacle she has to tackle with her smarts.
To tie up my previous remark on the lack of the ability to actually examine the surroundings to a more proper criticism, the many fluff scenes of the game become exactly that, fluff, when you from the get-go understand, that the only interaction you can do in those screens is to walk in and walk out. It's always nice to have extra colour in a game, but that colour should serve other purposes beyond mere filler, which many of these scenes end up as.
When Syberia originally came out, I absolutely loved it. While it wasn't as great as The Longest Journey, which I still consider to be the last truly great adventure game of the era, Syberia still managed to be far above any other offerings of the time. It was a very different kind of adventure in comparison to the dimension-hopping mixture of fantasy and sci-fi that is Ragnar Thornquist's masterpiece, but it still does deliver both of sense of adventure and the world you explore. And Kate Walker is a great character, who has a great journey from a New York lawyer to a globetrotting adventurer.
I do have to mention the ending, which is very satisfying. Throughout the game, Kate is contacted, via cell phone, by her boss, her friend, her fiance and her mother, who all have their own ideas about Kate's prolonged adventure. Kate's boss keeps constantly bugging her about the case, seemingly very obtuse on how hard it is to find a mand who has not been seen in decades. Kate's mother and a friend are seemingly well-meaning, but her fiance comes out as a jerk and when Kate finally cuts her ties and continues her adventure to the unknown, it's all a pretty satisfying conclusion to her arch.
Nowadays I do have a kind of love, well not really hate, but kind of dislike, but even milder than that, take on Syberia. While it still is absolutely marvellous to look at and the world is amazing, filled with great snippets you'd love to spend even more time with, I also find it kind of tedious with its overly padded locations, that offer very little value during multiple playthroughs. You just slough through the slow parts in order to get to better parts, which are numerous in this road adventure.
Perhaps a part of the problem for me is, that just like The Longest Journey, I played through Syberia multiple times as there was so very little else worthwhile around. Sure, I don't know it as well as I know the Sierra catalogue, but then again, I don't think Syberia has the same kind of long-lasting appeal to me as the Sierra and Lucasfilm classics do. As a game, it's not that great, no matter how great the world and the visuals are.
Still, it's a game I'd recommend you to give a try, especially if you like adventure games. The world alone is worth the ticket in this case, despite the game itself does leave some room for improvement. Syberia is all about the world and its inhabitants, in that it excels.
Syberia can be bought from GOG and Steam. And probably some other places as well. It's in sale often enough, so even if you aren't sure, you can get it with a couple of bucks. Syberia has also been ported on various consoles and mobile devices.
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