SYBERIA REMASTERED

Benoît Sokal's Syberia was an oasis in the adventure game world when it appeared in (now distant) 2002. At a time when there was a huge drought of games of this genre, the Belgian comic artist's creation made history overnight. Both the amazing world of automatons he had conceived and the protagonist Kate Walker, who is still remembered as one of the most iconic figures in adventure games, contributed significantly to this.

The success of Syberia spawned three sequels, with Syberia II following two years later and completing the main part of the story (after all, the first game ended with a cliffhanger), while Syberia 3, released 13 years later, is best forgotten. Order was restored with the remarkable final installment and swan song of its creator (who passed away in 2021), Syberia: The World Before, released in 2022. However, Microids thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce the magic of Syberia to a younger audience by developing a remastered version of the original game. The term "remastered" is not entirely accurate, as Syberia: Remastered does not simply upgrade the graphics to a higher resolution, as is usually the case in such situations, but has been redesigned using a new graphics engine (Unity) and approaches the graphic style of Syberia: The World Before.

Of course, we witness this after the initial "shock" of the game's introductory cutscene. Shock, because this cutscene—like all the others in the original game—has been transferred, with minimal interventions (such as the use of an upscaler), almost unchanged to the remastered version! If nothing else, it's not the best way to start your game, and this was the first sign that something wasn't quite right with Syberia: Remastered.

However, after the cutscene and in the main game, the situation changes dramatically. The Virtuallyz Gaming development team has done a great job redesigning the game in full 3D, impressively transporting the beautiful locations of the original Syberia to the modern era. Especially from the moment Kate leaves Valadilene's hotel and begins to explore the area, Syberia: Remastered seems, at times, truly magical. If you loved the original game, we believe you will appreciate its artistic approach, as this "magic" is often maintained until the end.

Nevertheless, the work that has been done is far from ideal. There are several instances, especially when the camera zooms in, where the textures are low resolution, while the character implementation leaves mixed feelings. They may appear more mobile and lively, but no attention has been paid to the details of the models, especially their faces, and particularly that of Kate Walker, which, in our opinion, is poorly designed. This is especially true when compared to her appearance in the cutscenes, which is visually unrelated (this lack of consistency between the cutscenes and the main game creates a bad impression), she looks more like a soulless puppet than a dynamic lawyer with a sparkle in her eyes. Kate's model in Syberia: The World Before is far superior to the one we are ultimately presented with here.

As for the puzzles and the game's content, it's worth mentioning that this isn't a 1:1 copy of Syberia, but a more "optimized" experience—let's say a "cover", to use musical terminology. That is, some puzzles have been slightly simplified, some have been added (nothing earth-shattering), and some dialogues have been shortened – but overall, the plot and sequence of events remain the same. This decision, of course, has its consequences: Syberia was never a difficult adventure, and Syberia: Remastered manages to make it even easier.

There are many reasons for this. Regardless of whether we play in Story mode (for new users) or Adventure mode (the classic mode), there is a prolonged hand-holding approach towards the player: on the one hand, all hotspots that are not necessary for the plot have been removed, so there is minimal interaction with the environment, and on the other hand, whatever we can use appears automatically every time Kate is near it. In addition, the game itself marks the "correct choices" in the dialogues, thus (possibly) reducing the player's desire to seek more information about the lore. The only case where someone might have difficulty is in locating a path, due to the camera's quirks and the mediocre mouse controls.

It is true that Syberia: Remastered remains a point-and-click adventure, but it has been designed with consoles and controllers in mind. Therefore, it is probably preferable to play with a gamepad, as controlling Kate becomes more robust and clearly better than holding down the left mouse button to see her run to her destination. Moreover, in the absence of a fast travel mechanism, Kate will need to walk for miles, and the distances, due to the 3D design, seem somewhat greater this time around.

However, if there is one thing that stands out in Syberia: Remastered, it is that the further we progress, the more obvious it becomes that the work has been rushed and sloppy. Low-resolution textures appear more frequently, path-finding issues begin to arise (when playing with a mouse), animations are minimized when moving from screen to screen, we even witnessed clipping (!) in Komkolzgrad, and there are also gamebreaking bugs, such as Kate becoming inactive after a phone conversation (which happens regularly in the game), with the only solution being to press ALT-F4 and reload the game. Did we mention that there is no manual save and that the game saves automatically every so often? We're telling you now.

There may have been problems in the game's development and/or a lack of budget that led to this result, which detracts from the value of Syberia: Remastered and certainly does not leave much hope for a corresponding updated version of the "other side of the coin," namely Syberia II. Of course, the value of the game itself remains strong: the story of Kate Walker, the American lawyer who set out to complete an acquisition in an unknown village in Europe and ended up changing her whole life, is still moving even today. If one overlooks its problems, the game has the power to attract new players who want to find out what all the fuss about Syberia is about. Its atmosphere remains fantastic and full of the feeling of a great "journey", while the soundtrack is of exceptional quality, as are the voice-overs.

However, it is unlikely to excite those who played the original game to the same degree. It may be impressively beautiful at times, but due to its clumsy implementation and the dubious quality of the changes made to appeal to a younger audience, as a whole it fails to reach the level of the title we played in 2002. If its bugs are fixed in the future, at a good discount – and thanks to nostalgia – it might be worth trying. However, in essence, Syberia: Remastered does not add anything significant to the Syberia legend, so that any "old player" who does not play it will not really "miss out."

We would like to thank Enarxis Dynamic Media for providing the review code.

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