I love point & click games. Since 1993 I fell in love with the genre and have a large collection of them. Yes, a boxed version of Syberia is among them.

When I originally played it in 2002 I really didn't like it. This was during a bad time of my life however and I wondered if this had coloured my experience of the game so I thought I should give it a fair retry, especially considering how many positive reviews it gets not to mention several sequels. However ... it seems my initial experience is no better 20 years later.

I have a few "expectations" of a good adventure game. Good engaging dialogue (optionally lighthearted), good clever puzzles, a clear interface & an interesting setting is important to me. Syberia, being considered a "classic" lacks most of these sadly enough.

Let's start with the dialogue. It's not BAD but it's dry as heck, it lacks ANY lightheartedness and sounds almost depressing. The voice acting is also very mediocre - the main actress can't even be bothered to inject any emotion in her lines. She's clearly just reading her lines off a script.

The puzzles are no better. These do not require any insight really - it's a case of "collect & use at the right place". There's no combining items which was standard since Secret of Monkey Island 12 years before this game even was released.

As if dull dialogue and tedious puzzles weren't enough, the interface is a mess. You don't get text telling you what you're looking at, you can't examine items in your inventory (only 'activate' them to use in the world) and the game really loves wasting your time. A hotel with a dozen doors, none of which matters. Why make the doors interactable?

The game does have some positives however: the graphics used to be really good. They have aged (more so than The Longest Journey which is older than this game) but they mostly still hold up. The music is also wonderful and by far the best thing about the game.

I also imagine the story & locations later on are positives as well but despite trying, the game is just too dull for me to continue. I've completed some pretty poor adventure games but as poor as these were, at least they didn't feel "dead". That's this game's main problem for me: it feels as if the world is dead. Every location is static, NPCs don't move, NOTHING moves.

So no I can't recommend it. I don't get how this gets a "very positive" when far better adventure games on Steam get a worse rating than that. Are people being nostalgic or what?

I love point & click games. Since 1993 I fell in love with the genre and have a large collection of them. Yes, a boxed version of Syberia is among them. When I originally played it in 2002 I really didn't like it. This was during a bad time of my life however and I wondered if this had coloured my experience of the game so I thought I should give it a fair retry, especially considering how many positive reviews it gets not to mention several sequels. However ... it seems my initial experience is no better 20 years later. I have a few "expectations" of a good adventure game. Good engaging dialogue (optionally lighthearted), good clever puzzles, a clear interface & an interesting setting is important to me. Syberia, being considered a "classic" lacks most of these sadly enough. Let's start with the dialogue. It's not BAD but it's dry as heck, it lacks ANY lightheartedness and sounds almost depressing. The voice acting is also very mediocre - the main actress can't even be bothered to inject any emotion in her lines. She's clearly just reading her lines off a script. The puzzles are no better. These do not require any insight really - it's a case of "collect & use at the right place". There's no combining items which was standard since Secret of Monkey Island 12 years before this game even was released. As if dull dialogue and tedious puzzles weren't enough, the interface is a mess. You don't get text telling you what you're looking at, you can't examine items in your inventory (only 'activate' them to use in the world) and the game really loves wasting your time. A hotel with a dozen doors, none of which matters. Why make the doors interactable? The game does have some positives however: the graphics used to be really good. They have aged (more so than The Longest Journey which is older than this game) but they mostly still hold up. The music is also wonderful and by far the best thing about the game. I also imagine the story & locations later on are positives as well but despite trying, the game is just too dull for me to continue. I've completed some pretty poor adventure games but as poor as these were, at least they didn't feel "dead". That's this game's main problem for me: it feels as if the world is dead. Every location is static, NPCs don't move, NOTHING moves. So no I can't recommend it. I don't get how this gets a "very positive" when far better adventure games on Steam get a worse rating than that. Are people being nostalgic or what?