Syberia II The Syberia recap is a nice thing to have, but I’d say it was the better game, with a better setting and atmosphere. Alexei’s book is a pretty nice touch though. In general, the graphics, being in the same style, still hold up well, characters seem to look and move better, though I’d say Kate would need much warmer clothes in that climate, and the music remains nice enough. The writing can be an issue, however, dialogues often not quite fitting together and simply not having enough quality overall. And the fact that you can’t repeat any piece of conversation and they’re not logged either can be quite a problem at times. It can also be annoying when some conversations end after a certain option is selected, before exhausting all, and that often you do exhaust all available topics, but if you immediately talk to the character again, new options appear.
But an adventure game’s gameplay is defined by puzzles, and those again usually made sense, and I’d still consider the lack of inventory ones a plus. It can be tricky to spot some objects or even exits, and the areas that pan can still be confusing at first, but I didn’t even really get frustrated by the few puzzles requiring trial and error, taking them for what they were and solving them quickly. I consider it either a bug or the game‘s one instance of Moon logic that the dream clock puzzle can’t be solved correctly, accurately, but there was just one other place where I checked the walkthrough, the drums in the Youkol Cave, and that was my fault, the area seeming rather confusing and making me think I missed something elsewhere when I just couldn’t find the target for the otherwise obvious solution. They get rather too straightforward after leaving the Cave, however, as if the developers got bored, locations and cutscenes otherwise seeming to indicate that they weren’t really rushing. Was left at a loss regarding Kate’s fate, however, and also wondering what the point of everything about her work and being tracked was.
