Syberia, by Benoît Sokal, was originally released in 2002 to a generally positive response. It’s a tale of adventure, using classic but timeless puzzle designs, cementing it as a memorable title that spawned three sequels. Microids, having successfully brought back Amerzone, is reviving more of its classic catalogue. Now it’s Syberia‘s turn. Can this remastered format stand up in today’s landscape, and does it improve on the original title?
Starting up the game, players are immediately introduced to a scene of protagonist Kate Walker riding a train. It’s a nicely rendered menu background using the new visuals and models, meaning Kate now has a similar look to her new design from The World Before. This, however, is immediately contrasted when the player starts the game and is greeted not by a new take on an old scene, but by the original cutscene that has been upscaled to modern resolutions.
It’s an unusual stylistic choice, and it raises some questions: why not update the cutscene designs and models if they no longer match the gameplay? Kate has undergone such a significant redesign that it’s almost as if the cutscenes are about a different person. It’s a clash that is cute in theory, but maybe could have been an option for less visual inconsistency. However, once Kate enters the hotel, players are finally reintroduced to the redone visuals.
Each area is a fresh take on the old prerendered artwork, built up in a fascinating way that still utilises fixed cameras while allowing for greater use of panning shots. The extra animation also helps bring the game’s locales to life. Swaying trees, reflective puddles and more help ground each place, and it almost feels like bringing those original prerendered graphics to life. It’s incredible when Syberia takes the time to pan out and let players take it all in.
What is a little weird is the introduction of a loading zone in Valadilene that isn’t in the PC version. It seems bizarre that the Xbox cannot run this without that transition point as it takes away a couple of views of the Voralberg factory. This was likely a performance aspect, but it’s still a shame to lose the hill overlooking the town.
When it comes to the small things there are a couple of changes that are minimal but stand out if players compare with the original. Details are missing such as Kate no longer stuffing items into her coat, or the missing bespoke animations to pick things up. It’s weird but somehow, despite having all of this technology behind it, interactions feel more static than the older versions.
Gameplay, at least on console, goes through a few changes versus the previous Syberia ports, the main one being the removal of the inventory. This is a fairly minimal alteration as all interact points will allow players to pick any item, but now it’s handled the same way as it did in The World Before, where certain dialogues and interaction spots now bring up an item slider.
It’s not some groundbreaking change, but it means players don’t have as much control as before; instead, the game dictates these things. Luckily, Syberia‘s puzzles are here and mostly function as they did before, requiring players to press buttons, add items, and move levers to work various machines and clockwork devices.
Some of the puzzles have been tweaked and now have new solutions, with one example being creating Oscar’s legs. Having gone back to compare to the original, this is now a much more complex puzzle requiring players to listen to what Oscar says, then use that knowledge to compare with some hints in the environment. Where it is unfortunately a bit less clear is in the way the game presents the materials. The colour matching part of this puzzle is near impossible as each note that shows the correct material has it appear in a different colour.
There are a few little inconsistencies like this likely caused by the way notes are presented. In the original version notes fill the screen, immediately clear and readable, and unaffected by the idea of lighting. In Syberia Remastered the notes are textured 3D objects that appear zoomed out with seemingly no way to zoom in on them, which is unfortunate as it means these nice handwritten notes and other objects instead have to be read as plain on-screen text. There were also issues on Xbox with the textures not loading properly for notes meaning details were immediately lost.
This all sounds quite negative, but it’s coming from a place of love. The remastering of the environment and characters is excellent, but it comes at a cost to the game’s overall stability. It’s a trade-off that is sad to see. During the review period, Syberia Remastered fully crashed to the dashboard multiple times, dialogues and cutscenes replayed with missing assets, interactive points that had animations had to be clicked three times (every time), and interactive points were hard to line Kate up with. It feels very much like this is designed purely around point and click, where the player has more accuracy and the game moves the character around automatically.
All that being said, however, it’s still an incredibly compelling story, told the same as it was before, but now with a really excellently realised set of HD 3D environments that do a great job of capturing the original game’s art style. The redesigned Kate looks brilliant even when recycling original animations, and ultimately this is a new, modernised way to play the first Syberia title. Benoît’s story and world is as compelling and fantastical as ever.
