I'm nearing the end of the second stage of the first game and I'm on the verge of giving up. Am I being premature or is there simply more of the same in store?

The mechanics are awful - areas are out of bounds for no good reason, there is no quick travel or way to skip the over used character animations, the 'puzzles' basically just require talking to everyone about everything and making sure you've comprehensively pixel-hunted, the voice acting is comically poor and given the button to skip it also the button that cancels conversations, accidentally missing something vital is far too easy.

Now I can put up with a clunky game, but even the story and characters, which are the driving force behind this genre, leave much to be desired. The longest journey worked as the characters were reasonably believable if infuriatingly introspective, but the heroine of Syberia along with her network of phone contacts are just irritating stereotypes. The plot, while inventive is paper thin and is developing an increasing number of holes as I progress.

So does it get any better or is it just a lot more tedious but pretty meandering peppered with pointless phone calls from needy family members?

Agreed with the amount of time wasted on character movement. No, there's no way to speed it up. The puzzles are also all like that. This is not a hardcore adventure game requiring the clever manipulation of inventory items a la Monkey Island. It's more like an interactive story. Agreed with voice acting too, it can be a bit rough at times. The story and this little dreamy fantasy world is the main draw of the game, and as with any stories, you might like it or you might not. Personally I found it to be decent, not great. Maybe you feel the same way. If you're expecting more in terms of gameplay, you're out of luck, and story-wise, it does get better once you're used to all the annoyances, but still like I said, it's not as great as what many people might say.

The overall game doesn't change either part through this one, or in the second. If you really aren't enjoying it then it's unlikely it will pick up for you I'm afraid.

Personally I liked it, however there were times when I decided that I wasn't going to get any further without looking up the solution on line. Usually there was a small item I'd failed to notice, or a conversation that I hadn't had, but I was happy to have got 95% of the way there. In my opinion this game is about the story, and some creative machines, so I wouldn't let a desire to "beat" the game stop you from enjoying it.

Finally, as for the stereotypical heroine. I also began the game thinking that if I had to listen to those phone conversations throughout then it would drive me up the wall. However they are setting the scene for the lifestyle she left behind, and the one she is now discovering. You gradually see the conversations and the mood of the game change.

I find it amusing that a game that was marketed towards children in the nineties is being called hard core today. Must be symptomatic to our current reverse evolution of games and it's audience.

(I was talking about Monkey Island btw.)

Monkey island 4. You had to use the banana picker with the nose of the giant statue of a monkey head. Of course, no hints, no real reason, it happened to open a door. Hardcore because it involved effort of trying everything with everything. Not intelligence.

And children don't try anything with everything today? Well, maybe not, as they're eating sitcoms for breakfast and low brow FPS games for lunch. But back then, children were definitely hard core as per your standards.

Stupidly trying anything with everything is hardly helping in building capabilities and is certainly not enjoyable or entertaining. This kind of riddles are actually the most boring part of adventure games together with riddles that force you to do it one way while you see thousand other ways to achieve the same result if the game was interactive enough to let you use them. And then only to find out you had to do it the way the game author intended it to be done.

That said Monkey Island is a good game.

Odd, I found the phone calls, added much depth and was an interesting way to give back story, and build the characters. vrs the typical read a book for info as is typically done.

wandering around, i enjoyed the sceanery.. And really you didnt have to do to much back tracking, and typically it was just a few screens to pass through.

i didnt find the puzzles all that difficult over all, though a couple i did check a walkthrough mainly cause i didnt feel like trying to guess numbers for hours. (2 puzzles)


but that said, If you don't enjoy it so far,, might as well pack it in.. cause the game is more of the same, though part 2 is a bit less interesting IMO.. Even though i thought the game was fantastic over all.

I enjoyed the ambiance of the game. The slow pace appealed to me with interesting Soviet style back drops. It felt foreign and that I had taken an adventure. I enjoyed the spa at the end, true to form in Russian grandeur and color. The cosmodrome and opulent university town and the dreary industrial complex also reflected the Russian ways.

This was a hit with me. Nothing too morbid or graphically disturbing, a nice easy pace, absorbing story and a reflective music score which is downloadable. At first I was a bit annoyed by the cell phone interruptions and chattering but then I got to thinking about it and realized that in life we have to deal with these ridiculous interruptions when we are engaged in important matters and usually at the least opportune times.

I am looking forward to playing Syberia II.

[Deleted]

I love comics of Benoît Sokal, so it's hardly a surprise that I also enjoy stories of his computer games. But I guess Syberia and Syberia II (which has improved user interface compared to first part) are games which you either love or hate. Personally I liked the atmosphere and characters (Oscar was one of my favourites) of the games and while I didn't think that the puzzles were particularly difficult, I thought that those offered a decent challenge compared to what you see in many more recent adventures.

Agree with everything the OP said. Plus I absolutely hate unrealistic dialogue/character responses--many times characters have reacted in ways or said things that no one would really do/say in real life, and stuff like that bothers me, even in fantasy genres.

BUT, I am enjoying the game enough to keep playing (on Syberia II now).

oh...but if one more person says the word "mammoth," I swear to God, there's gonna be trouble. I've grown to hate that word while playing the game. Unfortunately I suspect I'm going to encounter it once or twice more... :P

I don't think that Syberia's plot was meant to be dissected or analysed. The emphasis is on the slightly surreal, somber atmosphere which I think the game does achieve with it's environments, well-crafted backgrounds and subtle music. I personally believe that it also has a message to which most people could relate to to some extent, even if said message is not necessarily too complex.
If you over-analyse the plot it doesn't make much sense and you'd need a big deal of suspension of disbelief for the way clockwork automatons operate in the game, the conveniently placed train tracks and the fact that everybody throughout Europe and Russia speaks English, to only name the game's most fantastical elements. Syberia is a bit more "poetic", or "metaphorical", if you will, and while I'm not a fan of this sort of magical realism or whatever you might call it, in this case it works for me, mainly because the game does it in an elegant manner and does not want to seem more than what it is.

As for the actual gameplay, it is true you that can have better and much more challenging in this genre, as most of the solutions to the problems presented can be solved by using the right item in the right place, and there are no puzzles to be solved in the classical sense of the word.