#syberia2

Now, the storytelling was a lot better, but there were some inconsistencies or strange plot points that seemed off.  For example: You will find the Youkol people eventually, a people who lived in symbiosis with mammoths for centuries. Weirdly enough, there are train tracks that lead directly into their cave - I don’t know what I missed, but it wouldn’t make sense for the Youkol people who live so far off from any civilization to have a huge railway contraption installed that takes up most of the space in their basecamp and is made out of mammoth tusks and wooden pillars. It doesn’t feel right or logical.  A friend we know from the first game is Oscar - an automaton/robot and the train’s engineer. Because of him being such a sophisticated “machine”, the Youkol are scared of him and the story only progresses when he wears the mask of a friendly spirit so that the Youkol don’t really recognize him. Shortly after that, Oscar takes off the mask and wanders through the entire camp, passing several Youkol on his way, and it’s totally fine, noone is scared of him at all. He does that during an emergency situation, but he does it, and the lack of reaction from the Youkol makes absolutely zero sense.  

Then there is the protagonist - Kate Walker. We already mentioned that she feels like a maniac who is out of control. It’s like after finding out that her boyfriend cheated on her in the first game, something in her head just snapped and she decided to dump her job as a lawyer in New York to go on adventures with an old man that she barely knows in search of an island that she doesn’t even believe exists (as she says in the beginning of Syberia 2). Why would any person in their right mind do such a thing?

I love proper character development, but this here is just totally random and unconvincing. All she does is flinch when the villain in the story is brutally picked apart by penguins (I mean, okay, he threatened her, but still). They find the Youkol and she isn’t even amazed. She is super calm during a phone call with her mother when she should actually hurry to reach the train that has just been kidnapped. 

Also, the villain in the story is one of the nicest villains I ever saw: He lets her calmly call her friend Oscar to tell him to come to the rescue while threatening her with a mammoth tusk and stands idly by: 

The legitimately best part of the game was the ending. You do find the legendary island Syberia and there are mammoths there. It’s the shortest part of the game, this island, and if you know what you will have to do to solve the puzzles, it won’t take you 20 minutes to play through this part.  The ending cutscenes were really cute and the mammoth design was the best design and animation in the entire game. I see what the developers could manage to do with more experience and modern technology. I’m interested to play Syberia 3 next which was released in 2017 - so 13 years after Syberia 2 -but received only moderate reviews. 

I am also very much looking forward to Syberia - The World Before which is said to be released this year. It may be a great success or a huge disappointment, knowing how remakes can go. I sure hope the developers managed to learn from their past mistakes and used modern technologies and storytelling to their advantage.