SYBERIA 3

 

Genre:    Atmospheric adventure 

Developer & Publisher:  Microids              

Released:  April 2017              

Requirements (recommended):

  • OS: Windows 7+ 64bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i5
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GTX 960 2 GB
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 45 GB available space
  • Sound Card: Any

Additional screenshots

 

 

By flotsam

 

Syberia 3

B.H.Sokal

In a galaxy far, far, away, and 13 or so years ago, I said this of Syberia 2:

You will be delighted by Syberia 2. It isn’t perfect, but no game is. You can tell it has been created with passion and feeling. It didn’t simply meander to the finishing line, but stayed strong and surprising. Like the final part of Lord of the Rings, the completion of the journey of Hans and Kate deserves the highest marks.

Launched from such a platform, and with the expectation heightened by the long gestation, this should have been a triumph. Sadly, it fails to get close.

I need to say something about the controls. When I first played, the game started by saying it was best played with a controller, and the cantankerous and clumsy keyboard and mouse controls seemed to confirm that. However a controller wasn’t a whole lot better, and so I went back to my more familiar mouse. Interactions remained fiddly and at times incredibly overcomplicated. The “move the mouse to mimic the motion” approach (e.g. opening a draw) didn’t help, and cranky camera angles just added to the whole mess.

Recently however, in response to observations like the above, the game was patched to be completely point and click. Having replayed parts, it is infinitely improved. You still have fiddly interactions, and the inventory use could be improved, but pointing and clicking at things and avoiding the keyboard entirely makes a huge difference. Kudos for listening Mr S.

The controls however were only one issue. The game is still the same game, and falls down in other regards.

It took me about 20 hours, which is a good length, but I reckon at least a good third of that was taken up with traipsing back and forth, be it for objects or conversations. A glimpse of this happens early on, albeit over a short distance. You have a conversation about getting a key fixed, get information about how to do that, but you quickly find you can’t do that. You go back to the same person, who tells you something else that will help, and off you go again. A portion of the solution then happens in a cutscene, which delivered a grating juxtaposition between the drawn out bits of one element of the puzzle, and its ultimate completion.

Graphically it left a bit to be desired. In the same galaxy as above I said this:

All of the scenes are crafted with a huge attention to visual and auditory detail. Realism abounds; watch and listen as Kate runs from a metal path into the snow, and past a puddle. Quite wonderful.

Here, we have a blockiness to many aspects of the environment and a veiled, drab palette (especially outdoors). None of the games have ever had a vibrancy of colour, but whereas previously it accentuated the mood and the tone, apart from a few occasions Syberia 3 just feels bland.

The character modelling didn’t help. Kate was better than most, but there is an inescapable woodenness to many, and some are horrible. Dr. Olga is a case in point. She presents as a stereotypical crazed doctor, so overdone I almost giggled. The controlling henchmen behind her are equally gigglesome.

Puzzling is a mixed bag. Some are fun, reminiscent of the mechanistic aspects of the earlier games. At the other end of the spectrum are things you need to look for that you don’t know you need to look for, and would be unlikely to find if you did. As I always say, maybe I missed the clue.

Kate herself disappointed me. I promise this is the last time I voyage to that galaxy, but here is what I said about her then:

Kate though is the central character, and it’s she who drags the train and its passengers ever northward. No fluttering eyelashes, no twisted ankles, no resorting to feminine charms. She is strong, resourceful, and unflinching, like many real women. If there really are mammoths, there is no doubt Kate will find them.

This time she was insipid by comparison, and not nearly as resourceful. She deserved better.

Unfortunately I could go on - Kate is completely divorced from what went before, the end is a frustrating cliffhanger, there is a lack of empathy with any of the characters, the game autosaves for you and won’t let you do anything else, the story is a lightweight shambles.

Which may just be me projecting my overall disappointment, so check it out for yourself.

I confess that not everything was a letdown. Some cutscenes were impressive to say the least, a number of the locations intriguing, and I always like a 3D world.  But that is not a lot to hang a game on, especially one with this pedigree.

As I said about Kate, Syberia 3 deserved so much better.

I played on:

OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit

Processor: Intel i7-6700 4GHz

RAM: 32GB GDDR5

Video card: AMD Radeon RX 470 8192MB

 

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