Syberia II

aka: L'avventura di Kate Walker: Syberia Volume 2
Moby ID: 12892
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/28 2:23 AM )

Description official descriptions

You find Kate Walker continuing her journey exactly where the first game, Syberia, ended. Rather than return to her life as a New York attorney, Kate chooses to journey with Hans Voralberg to the frozen northlands of Syberia aboard his futuristic train.

Kate, Hans and Oscar, the humorous automaton, will travel through four locations on their way to the mythical Syberia, where Hans believes the ancient mammoth race still exists. As the three make their way through the harsh, but beautiful, wintery landscapes, many obstacles will get in their way. The player has to talk to people Kate meets and solve situation-, inventory-based and mechanical puzzles. The single-cursor interface and the visual style (3D character models and pre-rendered backgrounds) are very similar to the original game.

Spellings

  • Сибирь 2 - Russian spelling
  • シベリア 日本語版 2 - Nintendo product page Japanese spelling
  • 赛伯利亚II - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (Windows version)

166 People (153 developers, 13 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 53 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 111 ratings with 6 reviews)

At last, closure! But... bleh.

The Good
The graphics and scenery in this game seemed to be much improved, and for the most part, the puzzles were more intuitive and logical than they were in the first game. The cutscenes seem to be even more detailed and beautiful than in the first game too.

The Bad
Sadly, there's a lot I didn't like.

While the puzzles were more logical this time around, there was an annoying amount of "hunt the pixel". Some of the items you're supposed to pick up blend into the background a little too well, and there are a number of "look-at" hotspots that are simply too small and too difficult to see. I had to consult a walkthrough a couple of times - not because the puzzles were confusing, but because I knew that I forgot to pick up some item somewhere.

Also, the voice actors for the main stars of the game remained the same, but the actual dialog was pretty horrendous. Much of Kate's dialog feels like it was recorded as individual lines, completely outside of context. A lot of her comments don't quite seem to logically follow one another, and they give the overall impression that Kate has a rather short memory and attention span. An example:

"I'm Kate Walker! Who are you?" "I'm Anna Voralberg, miss." "Do you know Hans?" "Hans is my brother!" "So you're Anna Voralberg, then?" "That's right!" "Do you have a brother named Hans?"

And so on. You end up exhausting all dialog choices with every character - not because their dialog is actually interesting, but because you need to hammer certain facts into Kate's head, and she can apparently only remember critical bits of information if they're repeated over and over again in different ways.

Also, for some reason, Kate is still carrying around her cellphone, though it's only used rarely, and I think it only ever needs to be used once. Kate's mom and her boss call a couple of times, but they might as well not have. It was already made pretty clear in the first game that Kate had put her old life completely behind her. The cellphone allows you to call Oscar this time around, but that's not particularly useful. It's actually more amusing than anything else, especially if you call him from the next room. "You sound so far away! Come back soon!"

Also, there are certain circumstances in this game where mild language is used, and there's a very brief scene with a half-naked (but strategically covered) Kate. While it doesn't bother me much, I was under the impression that this was essentially a kid's game...

The Bottom Line
Well, it's certainly pretty, and it completes the Syberia story. Other than that, as adventure/puzzle games go, it feels awfully half-hearted.

Windows · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2004

Better than the first one in some ways. Still not good.

The Good

This is the second part of my lengthy rant that started with the first Syberia; as the games belong next to each other back-to-back, and are, in fact, one game split in two, this review probably won't make sense without the first one. Syberia II doesn't, in any case.

The good, then. It's still jaw-droppingly beautiful. Perhaps even more so than the first game. This time, Kate's journey finally takes her to Siberia, and the freezing, snowbound environments are stunning. It's a 5/5 for graphics again.

I was also very pleased to see some of the most obviously broken aspects of Syberia were corrected in the sequel: the number of empty screens was cut to a bare minimum (for most of the game, anyway; sadly, a major location in the final act brings the issue back with a vengeance and considerable amount of pixel hunting ensues) and population was added to the backgrounds, making towns at the outskirts of civilization surprisingly much more alive than all of the European locations of Syberia combined. These people can't be talked to, yet help tremendously in making the setting much more lively. The result is that the game world is much easier and friendlier to navigate. The dialogue system was also reworked, now giving different dialogue options for different characters, as it should be.

Unfortunately, the rest of it is the same as before, if not worse; and the changes themselves are flawed.



The Bad

The story continues directly where Syberia left off and is just as bland as before. This time, a new plot element was added: cuts to the New York office of Kate's employers who are trying to track her down in the frozen wastes. In a perfect illustration of how misguided the storyline is, they have absolutely no reason whatsoever for doing that. It's a replacement for Kate's (also ultimately purposeless, but at least realistic) calls from home in the first game, but it doesn't work at all. Two villains were also added to the storyline, but they are so incongruous with the rest of it the less said about them the better (not to mention the sequence where Kate, usually unwilling to perform any physically demanding task such as jumping, suddenly turns into Spider-Man). At least there is a better ending this time, though not a satisfactory one by a long shot.

And talking about writing - I have said the dialogue system has been reworked, but somehow, it apparently hasn't occurred to anyone that it might be a good idea to keep track of what has already been said or done. Kate is perfectly willing to ask how to perform something she has already done, and people will keep offering exactly the same information in several conversation topics, not remembering anything at all; even more than in Syberia, they all sound like broken robots. Ugly and artificial.

There is, however, one aspect of Syberia II that takes all that was wrong with the first game and just runs with it. I have called the puzzle design of Syberia atrocious; in Syberia II, it's well beyond that. More often than not, the things Kate does in this game are completely arbitrary, and done just because that's what adventurers do, apparently; strangely enough, when combined with the already mentioned removal of empty screens, these arbitrary puzzles are all the more obvious and I often felt like I were playing with a walkthrough at hand - it's perfectly clear what you are supposed to do, it just takes a lot of time. But still, if you put yourselves in Kate's shoes, and think within the game world, it makes no sense whatsoever. There's a puzzle where your heroine defaces a church mural, with absolutely no indication, literally none, that there is something hidden beneath it; in the end, there is, of course - church murals just always seem to work that way, don't they? There's also a bear who will only eat a certain kind of salmon, and a ton of other examples that are actually hilarious, when you think about them. There's also a lot of mechanical, Myst-like puzzles, way more than in Syberia, but a notable percentage of them don't seem to follow any sort of internal logic; just clicking madly usually solves them. However, there is also one devious puzzle, quite different from the rest, which can't be solved unless you happen to remember a certain fact your eccentric old companion had murmured once or twice in his sleep. If you paid little attention to his ramblings, tough luck. Bad, bad design.

To stress my point, let me quote an example of what has to be one of the most horrible "do as the designer says" puzzles ever conceived: there's a pilot hanging by a parachute from a tall tree in the snowbound Siberia, just out of reach, he's asleep and wearing headphones, so he can't hear the shouts trying to wake him up. Kate, being an Adventure Game Heroine, promptly searches the wreckage of his plane and starts randomly flipping switches in the cockpit (and I swear there is absolutely no method to this) to find out the frequency the pilot is tuned to; luckily, there is a radio tower nearby (the chances of that, eh?) she can then use to transmit a wakeup call. And throughout the whole effort, it apparently never occurs to her to throw a bloody snowball at him. Too simple, I suppose. And all this is done to find a faster method of transportation than going on foot to a train that is some 2 kilometres away; the method the awakened pilot suggests has all the advantages of being dramatic, really fast, impractical and seriously life-threatening. Oh well.

And there are penguins at the North Pole. Which is, admittedly, petty criticism for a game where huge herds of mammoths roam, but it's still pretty weird.



The Bottom Line

All in all, Benoît Sokal (by now, his name is the very first thing one sees in the game after the company logo fades away; subtle) should stick to what he does best: drawing. When the tedium of Syberia is removed, as is the case in most of Syberia II, the faults are all the more apparent. As the first one, it's a horribly designed, poorly written game.

But it still is gorgeous.

Windows · by plumifrons (95) · 2010

Bigger and bolder than the original, though not always for the better

The Good
* Much more exciting storyline than the first

  • Improved visuals

    The Bad
    * Frustrating puzzles

  • Environments lack variety compared to the first game.

  • May be too far-out for some

    The Bottom Line
    Syberia II was released in 2004, 2 years after its predecessor. Originally planned to be a part of the first game, the story was eventually split into two installments. As a result of this, Syberia II picks up exactly where the original left off.

    After the events of the first game, Kate Walker, Oscar, and Hans Voralberg are traveling on the clockwork train towards the farthest reaches of Siberia in the hopes of finding Syberia (no, that’s not a typo), an island which is said to contain the last living population of wooly mammoths. After stopping in the last village in Siberia, Hans falls sick to an illness, and things just go from bad to insane from there on out. Meanwhile, Kate’s law firm have hired a detective to follow Kate into Siberia in the hopes of bringing her back to New York.

    Compared to the first game, which was much more subdued and mysterious, Syberia II is far more action-packed and episodic. There are a lot of coincidences which take place over the course of the game, bumbling villains, daring escapes, noble sacrifices, absurd deaths, and even a dash of the supernatural. Personally, I think this is a much-needed change, but it also highlights the fact that this story was really split into two games. If Syberia was all buildup, then Syberia II is the payoff. At the same time, though, this approach will understandably turn off some fans of the first Syberia. That game was unusually grounded and subtle in its implementation of fantasy elements, and arguably more mature in its themes. By contrast, some of the things that happen during Syberia II require some extremely high suspension of disbelief. Imagine watching a Hollywood blockbuster sequel to a small independent film and you have a sense of just how big of a shift this is in tone.

    It’s also a far harder game than the first one. The developers seriously cranked up the difficulty compared to the original game, and I think they might have went too far in some regards. A number of the puzzles suffer from poor visual design. There were a few times where it was impossible to accurately read a necessary clue for solving a puzzle. Some objects are so hard to see because they blend in so well with the backgrounds. The puzzles themselves seem to rely more on moon logic compared to the original game. Unlike the first game, the interactive objects aren’t highlighted, adding to the frustration. On top of that, some of the devices you have to manipulate in Syberia II are much more difficult to operate in general.

    The worst offender is the size of some of the areas which separate the puzzles, which means minutes, potentially hours, of slow, aimless wandering until you either find what you’re looking for or just look at a walkthrough. I might have criticized the lacking puzzle difficulty in the original Syberia, but Syberia II only reinforces Microids’ decision to make the puzzles in that game so easy. When you’re on the edge of your seat waiting for the next story beat, the last thing you want to do is to get stuck on a puzzle about overcoming an arbitrary obstacle.

    With the exception of the final section, the entire game takes place in an icy landscape, so the variety that was present in the first Syberia isn’t here. Nevertheless, this is undeniably a better-looking game than the first, and it ultimately ends up being a worthy tradeoff from scope to detail. The backgrounds are more alive, and there is a greater use of lighting and particle effects. Even the quality of the FMV’s has been punched up a notch. However, the 3D character animations look a bit jerky at times, and seem to get choppy whenever text appears on-screen, though this could be an issue with the Mac port. Overall, though, it’s hard not to be impressed with the improvements in the visuals between the two games.

    If you played the first game, then Syberia II is essential. If you’re getting into the series for the first time, this isn’t where you want to start. That being said, I could understand why some will prefer the first game. The difficulty is cranked up far too much and the story is much more cartoonish and unbelievable. I personally enjoyed this crazy ride from beginning to end, even if the puzzles were extremely frustrating at times.

Macintosh · by krisko6 (814) · 2018

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
hi xanthi dem Aug 25, 2007

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Syberia
Released 2002 on Windows, 2003 on PlayStation 2, Xbox...
Syberia: Collectors Edition I & II
Released 2004 on Windows, 2011 on Macintosh, PlayStation 3
Syberia: The World Before
Released 2022 on Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
Syberia Collection
Released 2006 on Windows
Syberia 3: The Complete Journey
Released 2017 on Windows, 2018 on Nintendo Switch
Blair Witch
Released 2019 on Windows, Windows Apps, PlayStation 4...
Alilia
Released 2019 on Windows
Codebreaker Puzzle 1000! ENG & JAN
Released 2021 on Nintendo Switch
Furion Chronicles II
Released 2020 on Windows

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 12892
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Jeanne.

PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. Linux added by Plok. Nintendo Switch added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. Xbox 360 added by Kennyannydenny. OnLive, Gloud added by firefang9212. PlayStation 2, Blacknut, Android added by Sciere. Windows Mobile added by Kabushi. Macintosh, iPad, iPhone added by PolloDiablo.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Sciere, Stratege, Rik Hideto.

Game added April 17, 2004. Last modified March 16, 2024.