I enjoyed a lot of Syberia. I played the Switch port of the game. I thought the Switch version worked pretty well. There were times when the touch screen controls messed me up a bit because when my hand slipped the dialog that I was in would advance. Usually this isn’t a problem but during some of the more story based dialog the player won’t be able to replay the dialog. This is only a problem if you play in handheld mode.

I liked a lot of the characters in the story. Kate is a pretty well fleshed out character. Her friends the automatons were also fun. The characters who she interacted with via the phone were exceptionally terrible. Her mother was fun occasionally but she seemed vapid and self-absorbed especially during their first call. Kate’s fiance was just god awful from the beginning and the writer of the game really telegraphed how things would end up for Kate and him. I didn’t find that part of the story very satisfying. The same goes for her friend. And, her boss was also just awful to her throughout their conversations as well.

The characters that she met throughout her journey were fun. The Hotelier and the small boy in Validelien. She also met and put together the automaton who would go on to join her throughout her journey. She met some interesting characters during her time at the university. I found this part of the story fun especially the three presidents of the university were fun.

I got ground down in some of the adventure gaming bullshit during this part of the game. Most of the game didn’t give me much in the way of trouble. Most of the puzzles were straightforward. I didn’t get stuck often and I think I only looked online once to figure something out. This is an adventure game made for adventure game novices. Actually, the issue that I had wasn’t even adventure game bullshit it was HD gaming/pixel hunting bullshit. I couldn’t find a crank while I was in the third level in Russia.

The game seemed to wrap up quite well. I was actually surprised because it ended before I expected it to end. When she did finally meet Hans Vorelburg, I wasn’t satisfied with how they wrapped things up. It seemed too quick. I was ready for the game to be over for sure. I think my final playtime was nine or ten hours but I felt like Hans was plopped down on my lap.

Other than that one feeling, I was happy with how the game ended and it makes me interested in playing the second game.

The graphics were good. I think they hold up generally on modern machines. The in engine assets have that too crisp look that older games running in HD tend to have. The cut scenes look good but they have that old 3D CGI look to them and the quality is more muddy than the in engine stuff.

I generally enjoyed the music in the game. It added to the adventure. Some of the sound effects during the game got grating especially the bird sounds at the university and in the first Russian town.

The game play is pretty simple. Movement around the environment is intuitive. There are times where you won’t quite get in the pocket that will transition between screens but it didn’t annoy me that much. The inventory is easy to use. It took a little while for me to figure out who can react to inventory items and who can’t.

The cell phone was used in creative ways and I think that this is probably one of the most innovative aspects of the game play that made this game unique. The player will receive calls, make calls, and there are times when the cell phone will aid in puzzle solving. It was refreshing.