Syberia

This is a nostalgic childhood game for me. I played it back in those dark, pre-widespread-internet days, and I’m not even sure I had the wit to finish it back then. Honestly, I wouldn’t have made it through today either if not for the guides (huge thanks to all the guide creators — you’re the best!).

Syberia is definitely challenging. You don’t get clear directions on what to do next, and there are no real hints. There aren’t that many locations, but you constantly have to run back and forth between them, which can get annoying. In the second city, for example, I had to go through 5–6 screens repeatedly just to have a quick chat with different people about a plant.
Small hint here: if you click the screen twice, MC will run instead of walking; doesn't work on the stairs or uneven terrain though.

You also need to stay alert at all times, since the cursor subtly changes when you can interact with something — and those spots aren’t always obvious. It’s easy to miss things.

The story itself is absolutely lovely, in my opinion. There’s the main plot set in Europe, plus a few small, personal sub-stories that eventually tie into it.

The graphics are pretty decent for 2002. I played it on Windows 11 — zero issues. I also got prompted to install it on my M1 Mac, though I think that was a bug: it installed, but froze on the launch screen, and I couldn’t get it to work.

تحفة

pretty outdated, puzzles don't make much sense. I did not enjoy

this is actually such a beautiful game, i always said to myself while i was playing this "why is this game so underrated?" and then i looked it up and i think they were the best adventure game of its time, like on goty level.

the story is really good really nice, and i know old games doesnt rely much onto their storyline but wow this was amazing, the graphics is good for its time, like on cutscenes when helena romanski sung on that komkolzgrad factory is really good, i was amazed.

puzzle is way to hard on my monke brain, i often look for guides on google lol, i mean its only like 5 times though, and i got stuck way too many times (ok thats maybe a lil bit too exaggerate) like i only need 1 more thing or like a clue, like that times when i only need to get a book on that barrockstadrt library to continue the game, but i just walk past it and didnt saw it lol, so after i got that book by looking at a guide, i was able to continue the game by myself.

overall 10/10 puzzle game, fortnite kids might not like this one as some ppl said it was boring but no, it was really fun for me!, although i slept on it maybe twice, cause of that stuck i said earlier, but once u got it right on track it surely became fun lmao

Quite the puzzling retro indeed!
We love it!
Yep!

An absolutely AMAZING point and click game that goes way beyond the realms of "ordinary." This game tells the story of Kate Walker, a lawyer who is tasked with finalising the sale of an automaton factory, but it goes far beyond that with highly involved dialogues with multiple strange and unique characters set into a background that is highly detailed and visually exquisite. The game play is smooth and the voice acting is superb.

But be ready for lots of going back and forth to locations and running around!

Definitely worth the purchase!

Charming story, incredible atmosphere and architectural design. Would recommend using a guide.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game. The story was fun and the characters are delightfully quirky. It took me 21 hours to complete but I must confess that I couldn't have done it without consulting the walkthrough (on Steam: thank you, Tachyawn) from time to time. The dialogue is excellent (very funny in places) and it's worth going through all the options, even if one doesn't need to in order to move things forward. One thing which might not suit everyone is that Kate Walker (the main character) does an awful lot of walking; there is no way that I could see of speeding this up. This didn't bother me but, then, I never speed up in games even when I can. I thought that the artwork was beautifully done and I very much enjoyed the voices (I played it in English). But the really outstanding thing for me was how interested I became in the characters; the telephone calls, which Kate receives, seem to flesh out her character and background and made me hope for her success. This game has made me smile a lot, and I have already bought the other games in the series in a bundle.

definition of escapism

Played this in-tribute to my mom who passed away.
Rest in peace mom.

It's easy to describe this, boring. The best I can come up with for a target audience is a game made to try to get middle school girls to get them into video games with the assistance of their parents.

Oh, and someone needs to be the rube that gets stuck artistically moving the cursor all over the screen...just in case something isn't too obvious. You know, like the blurry "mammoth" drawn on the wall in the attic that you need to somehow notice to get past the part where a literal mentally handicapped kid that the game refers to as the "R" word, yes, true story.

So, after the kid bothers you for a picture of a mammoth, he shows you a "secret" that amounts to him showing you a stream. Mind you, this stream is a whole foot deep and you couldn't possibly traverse something so beyond the capability of a grown woman. Instead, you literally start manipulating the handicapped kid because you're not motivated enough to open a dam by pushing a lever. Well, this involves getting him to pick up an oar for a lever and using that to open the dam. Why can't you pick up the oar? Well, duh, it's "gross" and old... Yes, another true story. I had enough at this point.

Game play? A back tracker's delight.
Graphics: Aged
Sound: Repetitive music to the point of insanity.
Puzzles: Not entirely difficult, other than even seeing them and none of them make any real world sense.
Dialogue: Cringe. Again, had to have been written for young girls.

Story? Dunno, 2 hours into this YouTube play through and there isn't much. 2x speed isn't fast enough...

beautiful beautiful beeautiful story, game, setting, visuals

This is a fun point-and-click game from my childhood. I finally beat it! Took 11 hours, but mostly because it crashed after the first 2 hours. Save often - is has no autosave feature! I think this game is one of the reasons I like escape rooms so much. I love the logic puzzles and storytelling. Very fun, considering it's age. The storyline has aged well.

A fun story based click through game, It's old, and a bit buggy. I saved often and played for fairly short periods of time. But all in all I enjoyed playing the game and hope to continue the story with the sequels.

Epic game!

Best quest adventure game to EVER exist!

Not Recommended

I hesitated a lot between giving this game a positive or a negative review but it's going to be a negative one in the end.

I still have to say that I enjoyed the game and I understand the appeal and why so many people love it but I'm not sure that I would recommend it to anyone without explaining the negative parts first.

Let's start with the good things: there is an interesting story there with character development, the game is easy to play, the controls are intuitive, the graphics are beautiful and imaginative, the voice acting is good and the music is nice. I also liked the animations of the characters, not just the walking and running parts, but also the actions that happen only once during the game, they all have a nice little animation that is well made. The cutscenes are also well done and integrate well with the rest of the game. In terms of puzzles I don't think there's anything too illogical or frustrating, if anything I think they're more on the easy side.

There are however several things that I liked less.

First, there's a bit too much backtracking for my taste. The game succeeds at making you feel that you're in a physical space where the distances are realistic. There is for example a moment early in the game when you need to go out of town to do something, and from the moment you leave the main street until you get there you have to cross five screens where literally nothing happens, there's nothing to interact with and you just walk through them, it's just scenery. This is not a problem in itself, and is certainly not a problem in this particular case (I actually like it). However in other parts of the game there's plenty of going back and forth through areas that you have already seen a hundred times. I have seen that other reviewers found this very irritating. For me it was just mildly annoying, but annoying nonetheless.

A related problem is that although you can generally run to speed things up there are plenty of staircases, bridges, doors, and similar, where the animations are "scripted" and your character stops, moves into a certain position and then performs the action at a slower pace. This happens a lot during the game and makes the backtracking problem more frustrating.

In terms of interaction I found this game rather limited. Although the screens are realistic and full of details you cannot examine, move, take, ... almost anything. If a part of a scene stands out you almost certainly cannot have your character look at it, describe it or try to use your objects there. In fact, you are typically only allowed to use an object in the place where it's supposed to be used. If you try it anywhere else the cursor takes the "this won't work here" shape and that's it. The places where you can casually examine apparently irrelevant elements of the scenery are so few and far between that it's often a strong hint that they are part of a puzzle. "I have no idea why this is important but it's the only thing that I was allowed to examine in the past five screens, so I'll have to do something with it later", I actually solved a couple of puzzles with this.

And this gets me to the part that I perhaps liked the least about Syberia, and it's that the locations feel cold, lifeless and static. This is partly because of what I just said: you cannot interact with almost anything, not even have your character describe out loud the things that she sees or her failed attempts at using objects where they don't belong. Also, and this has to do with the technology used to make the game, most locations are basically static photos where nothing else moves apart from your character and some water effects in some cases. I found it harder to immerse myself in the game and believe that I'm in a real place where people exist and had a life before I arrived.

This certainly doesn't happen in 2D games like Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight or the Blackwell games, but also not in Grim Fandango which is technologically closer to Syberia.

There is for example the second main location of the game, Barrockstadt, which feels like a ghost city with an abandoned train station, houses in ruins, empty streets, surrounded by a wall and kilometers of wasteland and emptiness and yet there's this big University right there and a completely usable railway crossing through enemy territory (?!). I find it very hard to imagine such a place, let alone immerse myself in it.

And finally there's the writing which is... weird. There is an interesting general idea there, a US lawyer that travels to Europe to oversee the purchase of a factory and has to disentangle a family mystery. The development of the main character is interesting, and actually the frequent phone calls she has with her boss, friends and relatives have the normal, serious tone that one would expect in a case like this.

However some of the things that happen during the journey are way too cartoonish (like the rectors of the University) or downright illogical. For example everything what happens in the Industrial City (?) of Komkolzgrad: the bad guy steals the hands of your automaton and tells you that in order to recover them you have to go to a different city and bring a world-famous opera singer (?) to give a concert. And then you say "sure, why not" (?), go there, tell the woman that "an old fan of yours wants a private concert in his creepy underground base in an abandoned industrial place", she says "of course!" (?!), then she arrives and is immediately captured by the evil guy and that is followed by a surreal escape scene with clumsy attempts at stopping you both. That whole part of the story is a big wtf. Also, earlier in the game, the part where the guard at the wall in Barrockstadt thinks that a dead tree in the horizon is an enemy soldier that has been there for years (!!) is ridiculous. It would work in a cartoonish game with goofy characters like Day of the Tentacle, but not here. In general I don't think the game mixes the serious and the absurd very well.

I did like the last location of the game (the hotel in Aralbad), somehow the place felt more real and the characters more likeable. In general I liked the ending of the story as well and if everything was more consistent throughout the game I would have written a more positive review.

But as things are, I'll leave it in "yes... but". It's not a bad game but I think you should know what you're getting.

The start of a 4 (so far) long game adventure for Kate Walker. Some cool puzzles.
Everything is a bit dated in 2024 but what else are ya doing? Solving the world's problems?

Just like the automaton age of wind up toys and mechanisms that belongs to a bygone era in Syberia, this game belongs to a genre well past its glory days, which is truly sad. They don't make them like they used to, would be the best way to depict it.

Syberia is a classic point 'n' click adventure gem that will put you in the shoes of Kate Walker, a young lawyer from NY on her way to seal the deal in a small, automaton-themed village of Valadilene tucked away in the French Alps. Her adventure, or rather yours, begins upon realizing that a day's order of business has taken an unpredictable turn, as she embarks on a search-and-sign mission into the unknown.

The game has aged well, which is very good news! Visually it stands the test of time, mainly due to its art direction which almost seems to cast a spell on the player and pulls them in, it can be truly enchanting. The VA is good too, with slight hiccups here and there, and the game isn't heavy on the reading side (I actually miss this and wish it had more) as Kate isn't the 'usual' P'n'C protagonist who goes about inspecting everything and serving monologues back to the player. Instead, you are mostly left to a mix of welcoming silence, wonderful ambient music, and scarce commentary throughout.

And one more thing stranger, for the full graphical fidelity and the chance to play this amazing title on a modern OS without crashes, make sure to get dgVoodoo glider/wrapper; it's free and its easily available online. It's very simple to set up, there are a few guides in the community tab section to look up. For reference, here's a quick how to:

Step 1. Make sure to copy files from dgVoodoo's MS/x86 folder only (you won't need other folders), as well as the config and executable file too (dgVoodooCpl.exe and dgVoodoo.conf) into the game's main folder

Step 2. Run dgVoodooCpl executable, leave the first 2 tabs as they were, go to the DirectX tab

Step 3. Untick the dgVoodoo watermark, set antialiasing to max (8x), and disable/untick bilinear operations (should be off by default)

Step 4. Texture filtering, 2 choices. If you wish to enjoy the game as I did, set the filtering to App driven. This will avoid the annoying black lines tearing the textures within the game, at a minimal visual loss and emulating original experience. If not, then force the filtering to 16x anisotropic, and you'll enjoy a smoother ride but at the cost of having to deal with texture tear at random points in game, which I found very off-putting.

Step 5. In the same tab, select your preferred resolution (or create a custom resolution of your own outside). Again, I went for the original 4:3 aspect ratio as the the game looks weird when stretched to 16:9. For instance, instead of going for the 2560x1440 (my native resoution) I opted for 1920x1440 which turned out to be the sweet spot in 4:3.

Step 6. Optional, slight visual enhancement, unnoticeable.
In the same tab (Direct X), check the Apply phong shading box; go to the first tab (General) and tick the Progressive scanline order box.

Step 7. Smile. More good news. You can set up Syberia 2 by using the same tool later on.

Beautiful, wonderful game but I can't run it because of a graphical rendering glitch that shuts the game down before I can even start it.

Syberia is an absolute gem of a game, especially for fans of adventure and storytelling. The narrative is its standout feature—rich, emotional, and beautifully crafted. You play as Kate Walker, a New York lawyer, on an extraordinary journey to uncover the mysteries of a once-thriving automaton factory. The world-building and character development are top-notch, and the story takes unexpected twists that kept me hooked from start to finish.

The visuals and atmosphere, though dated by today’s standards, still evoke a sense of charm and nostalgia. The puzzles are engaging, striking a good balance between challenging and intuitive.

However, I encountered a minor technical hiccup on Windows 10/11. There’s a bug that occasionally causes the game to freeze or crash, which can interrupt the otherwise immersive experience. Thankfully, this is manageable with frequent saves, and some tweaks to compatibility settings seem to help.

Overall, Syberia is a classic that deserves a spot in any adventure game lover’s library. The story alone is worth the price of admission, but a patch to fix the bugs would make it truly flawless.

Awesome, unique story line! Can't wait to start number 2!

fun

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Nostalgic game with a very Nice Story. Old Times Really liked Playing after Many Years.
Loved the Syberia Series & the Fantastic Graphics. I remember when I finished the 1st Part I was eagarly waiting for 2nd Part.

Great story-line and character development. The graphics were fairly well done for its time, but still lots of little details that make it still enjoyable to play today (weather animations, etc...). The UI is a bit simplistic, but it's the first in the series. It was definitely improved in Syberia 2, so it's harder in this game to distinguish which direction the scene exit will take you. The designers did a good job of hiding the hints and details, requiring the player to pay attention and remember things; you can always write stuff down between scenes if that's difficult, though.

Save often, this game is old. Can it be frustrating? Yes. But it has a charm to it I still find myself drawn to years later. I played this initially when it first came out, loved it, bought the sequel immediately, loved it, still need to play the third though so I'm now replaying the whole series to remind myself of the story because I'd shockingly forgotten a lot of it! It's still charming and weird as ever, just remember this is a classic point and click and follow a walkthrough if you get frustrated. Nothing wrong with just enjoying the story!

Apparently retro point-n-clicks aren't my thing. I struggled to get into this given how frustrating it is to click on the same areas over and over, repeatedly missing whatever it is they need you to click on to continue.

I find that any game I spend more time looking up help for online than playing is probably something I should put down again, so I did.

Perhaps the best thing about it, in my opinion, is the fantastic art and settings, but the story is still fun. It may end on a bit of a cliffhanger, but it's still a classic point-and-click adventure.

Ok! I haven't played enough to give a real review yet, but here's something helpful I found online for anyone who can't boot the game or is freezing on startup. This worked for me using windows 11 on parallels desktop for mac.

Set your resolution as low as possible in the desktop settings without it being hard to see.
Go to your Steam library, and click the little settings icon on the left below the game banner. Click "Manage" then go to "Browse local files"
Right-click the game.exe file! It might just say "game". Make sure it is game.exe and not the "Syberia" one.
Click "Properties" in the dropdown menu. It took me more than one try and a restart+installation of parallels tools to see this for some reason, but there should be a tab that says "Compatibility". Open it and set the compatibility to "Windows 7".
This emulates the game as if you are using an older system! It won't be 4K HD, but it will run just fine if you do this. It should work for a standard Windows computer too, not just paralells desktop! Have fun!

Unstable. Broken. Crashed three times within 5 hours. Game is old, mind you. Mediocre story. For a 2005 game i guess it's not that bad. Not good, either. I bought this in a bundle to get a bit of lore before delving into Siberia 3. Not sure if it's worth my time tho.

Been playing this game over and over for 20 years... the immersive and unique world of Syberia is a running theme in my life. Best point and click adventure.

Kino

Very nice story line, puzzles fit into the story very well. Initially had to experiment to learn the mechanics and cursor shapes for various actions, but not overly complicated. In general, all the puzzles are local in the sense that the items or controls you need are in the same area or nearby.

This is the worst game I've ever tried. Slow and dysfunctional. I needed to look up the help and still couldn't get where I was supposed to go. The lady just wouldn't walk there...Absolutely terrible. Zero stars out of ten

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=455764396
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=524459830
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=456413315

Such a nice story. Great game for those days. Wish I knew about it then.

I'm not great on Point and Click games, but after reading about how great this series is I’ve decided to give the first one a try, and boy, gotta say, I’m presently surprised.
You follow the game through the eyes of Kate Walker, in a sort of come of age story, as she abandons this stricter, by the numbers persona, deals with personal issues and blossoms into an adventurer and enthusiastic character. You cannot help, but to feel proud of her as she progresses in the game
Great supporting characters also and ok puzzles, nothing too difficult. Just a little bit of attention and you can solve them without guides.

Played this with my mum when I was a kid, so it brings back memories playing it again. Classic point-and-click adventure with a fun and interesting story. Some of the puzzles are a bit weird to figure out, but there are many walkthroughs online that can help. If you don't mind the old graphics and simple controls, then Syberia is definitely worth playing. Very casual and relaxing!

Just finished this beautiful game. I actually have no complaints. The puzzles were challenging and the story was interesting. I was always looking forward to where we were going next. I love when a game can make me feel like i am the character. If you like puzzly, point and clickers, this one is for you.

Nope. I played lot of adventure games, from earliest King's Quests through classics like Maniac Mansion, Secret of Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight trilogy to newer ones like Gray Matter from legendary Jane Jensen. For some, Syberia was "savior" of adventure genre, for me it was disappointment. Only one small plus point is nice graphics, but apart from that, the game is quite dull, puzzles easy and tedious (walking forth and back between screens), playing through it feels like a chore. There are better adventure games out there.

I enjoyed exploring the different world locations. It was a nice little adventure. I'm glad the ending was good too.

I like the graphics and the puzzles. Also the interesting places in the game

It might be a great game, but doesn't run well on modern systems. I followed advice in the boards to get it to run, but even then it kept crashing. I got to a point where I could not continue because it kept crashing at a cut scene of a door opening. In any case, I was able to play for an hour and what I did play was just okay.

I liked the story line, characters and game play.

Love it. Story the best

The age of the game is showing
The graphic is a little bugish the dialogs a little stiff and it could reaaaaaally use a fast travel function
Despite all that it is really quite enjoyable to play
I just had to turn down the sound to almost nothing because the screeching of the atomatons drove me mad XD

Just adjust your expectations according to the age of the game and you will have fun

[quote]Follow my curator page for more recommendations![/quote]
This is a slow game, it asks of you to step off of the hamster wheel of modern life and take a deep breath. Which is exactly what Kate has to do on her adventure.

It took me awhile to get back to this and get over the initial hump of boredom but after that and dwelling on it awhile it was really a pretty serene and contemplative experience.

As far as adventure games go, its pretty basic, maybe even anemic. There aren't that many things you can inspect to hear Kates commentary on. The puzzles don't require a lot of thought and there is no item combining so no rubber duck puzzles. The background art is nice though and the story, while simple, has some nice themes. The main one being that the modern world has left behind a lot and the hustle and bustle of modern life has lost a bit of magic and whimsy in the process. All the areas you explore here are in a period of transition, as the last bits of the old world give out a final sigh.

The best part for me was watching Kate change, she starts out all business looking to do her lawyer duties and close a business deal. But as time goes on the tightened grasp of the modern world loosens and she regains that sense of wonder and adventure that we all have as a kid but lose as we get older.

This reminded me a lot of Galaxy Express 999. Which I watched for the first time earlier this year and it became one of my favorite anime ever. There are a lot of similarities, the anachronistic train, the automaton engineer, chasing a dream that is unlikely to come true, and shaping oneself through the journey. You will stop at station to station and get a glimpse into peoples lives from the uniquely melancholic perspective of the traveler, unable to get too involved because after all you are just passing through. Along the way you will interact with these mechanical contraptions, falling apart but still beautiful in their complication and excess. While the march of efficiency washes over the rest of the world with robots and such, in these dusty corners of the earth you can still relish in the song and dance of the automatons.

The cell phone Kate carries was a genius bit of design, it maintains a window into the modern world along the way. Sometimes through automated voice messaging systems you call to solve a puzzle. Or also a handful of people will call and bug Kate about some inane drama, or work stress, or gossip. All of which starts out familiar and mundane, its the type of phone calls we all get in the real world. But as time goes on, against the backdrop of Kates adventure into these strange lands these calls feel increasingly silly and out place. Like seeing yourself in a photograph you didn't know was taken or a strange angle through multiple mirrors. Its jarring from a renewed perspective. Is this really the best way to live our lives?

As far as how the game runs, you'll have to use one of the fixes floating around to play it on a modern system. I used dgvoodoo2 and after some tweaking I was able to play it through without issue, with the added benefit of being able to run a reshade on it and with some gaussian blur and some contrast boost to iron out some compression of the backgrounds and give better depth its quite nice looking.

Give it a try when you are in the mood for something slower paced, and for anyone that does like it I do really recommend checking out Galaxy Express, the original TV run not the movies.

Havent played this game ever before.

I was looking forward to this game but after pouring five miserable hours into it so far, i can say it is one of the worse puzzle game experiences. (Nearly) all of the map being immediately accessible makes the navigation confusing and you practically have to guess where to begin and youre never sure if you missed something, or if the task is completed. The guidance is terrible and confusing, you have to pay attention to the smallest of details or else you might miss a crucial detail. Its a frustrating experience and the puzzles arent that enjoyable. You practically have to guess your way through and hope for the best, while also having to deal with the tedious and slow gameplay.

Besides the gameplay, the atmosphere is not all that attractive either and the visuals feel bland, even for an older game.

I will continue playing the game til completion out of curiosity, but i do not look forward to it.