A gentle, personal, heart touching story
Syberia's greatest asset is the storytelling, never too loud, never inclined to use heavy brush strokes, never about shouting at you. Nope, it tells a story of a young woman set on a quest to find out whether or not there are any mammoths left alive in the world. Though, in truth, what her quest is, is finding herself, detaching herself from the distractions of the world and finding her soul. Benoit Sokal is the one responsible for the game, who also worked on Amerzone and the conclusion to Syberia, Syberia 2. Technically, the game is a typical modern day era adventure, with clean mouse controls, the cursor that changes its state depending on what you're pointing at, and many puzzles, mostly based on combining items, or, finding objects, or talking to whomever you need to talk to advance the plot. Yeah, there are the usual adventure bits that can aggravate, just because you've missed a small hot spot, or because your logic doesn't fit the pre imposed one, of the developers, but generally, you'll be alright, it won't throw no stupidity at you, or something too awkward. The journey is also sprinkled with beautiful characters, (the automaton you'll find later in the game is absolutely adorable a character!), and, the more I think about it, the more I am of the opinion that I too should replay this. Because this is a game that can be understood on many different levels, and I think different age groups will receive it differently as well, will find different layers in its story. Plus, even played rather superficially it is a satisfying game, with loads of surrealistic but well grounded in reality spaces, with good graphics and sound and music that are as subtle, unassuming but deeply touching as you'd ever want. Play Syberia, it's a game that I'm afraid will never get to be made again, a game of Slavic influence and feel, that can still speak loads to others, even if in a sweet, lowered voice!
