Syberia Remastered review: A hit of nostalgia that may not land with everyone

Let me start off this review with a few important factors. I have no prior knowledge of this remastered adventure. I have no nostalgia for this game. I never played the original Syberia. I can look at footage, screenshots, and comparisons online, but for me, this was my first Syberia experience. The closest thing I can think of, in my experience, is earlier this year, when I reviewed the remaster of Amerzone, which was worked on by some of the same people at Microids Studio Paris. Funny enough, the Amerzone comes up as a small part of a puzzle in this game, which I wasn’t expecting.

This remaster is 23 years in the making. The original Syberia was released in 2002. Looking at the original, it’s hard not to notice the improvements in the graphics, but I still wouldn’t say the modern version is on the cutting edge of high fidelity. The colors are more vibrant, the environments less blurry, and, generally, the characters have lost that odd, uncanny-valley polygonalness that can be characteristic of early video games. But if you were just to take a glance, it is the kind of difference that could go unnoticed. But I’ll get more into that later. Ultimately, this is my first experience with the game, so I only mention it for any fans who may have played this game at some point in the past.

Syberia - Remastered is a loving revival of a classic puzzle-adventure game, but even in its remastered state, it doesn't feel completely modern. Movement is clunky, animations are simple, and while the story has its moments and delivers a satisfying conclusion, it is more often confusing and silly than compelling. There is some good stuff here, but unless they have nostalgia for the original, I have a hard time recommending Syberia - Remastered to anyone.

Chasing Down Hans

The story begins in the French Alps. You play as Kate Walker, a lawyer from America, going the extra mile to climb the ladder at her firm. Your goal is simply to get a signature from the owner of a toy factory so your corporate clients in America can take it over. But, of course, it’s not that simple. Shortly after your arrival, the owner passes away, but leaves clues to a brother and heir who was once thought dead. As Kate Walker, you team up with Oscar, an automaton train conductor, to venture through Europe to find a lost genius engineer, Hans Voralberg.

Syberia - Remastered is set in a fascinating alternative Europe, where clockwork contraptions are far more common. This is plainly obvious in characters like Oscar and he clockwork train that must be wound up with special tools at each stop. But there are more subtle inclusions as well that add to the overall worldbuilding. At the hotel in the French Alps, whenever you walk to the entrance, a small robotic man steps forward and tips his hat in either a farewell or a greeting. Later, at a University, you help fix a large bandstand full of violin-playing robots. All the while, the world seems to be moving on from automatons, adding to the feeling that this story and these places have all been lost to time.

Through the game's relatively short runtime (I believe I was able to complete the story in under ten hours), you visit several locations as you pick up more clues about Hans Voralberg’s whereabouts. You essentially follow in the footsteps of Hans’ life. First, you pass through the University, then to where he spent most of his working years as an engineer, and finally… well, I won’t get into that in case you would like to experience it for yourself. But all I’ll say is that the overall story arc is satisfying in the end.

Each location has a wide variety of quirky and memorable NPCs. You’ll meet a ridiculous trio of mustachioed men overseeing the University, and an eccentric post-war engineer who wants nothing more than to hear his favorite singer one last time. While not everything about this game is perfect, the cast is definitely a highlight.

Lost & Found

Syberia - Remastered is not a point-and-click adventure, as you might think of it. In fact, I played the game on PlayStation 5, so there was no mouse to click at all. But you can certainly feel the inspiration and roots of the point-and-click genre woven throughout its DNA. As Kate Walker, you can move about the 3D world as you please, though I will admit that this can often lead to getting lost, as it’s not easy to spot what is important. For example, in one section, you need to get help from some sailors to tow your train with their boat. For them to reach the train, you need to unlock a sluice that will allow the boat to pass through. The sailors toss you a key as they refuse to set foot on the dock, and I ran to the sluice to progress the mission. Little did I know that the key had landed on the ground rather than in my inventory, and that I was meant to find it and pick it up. So I spent about fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to unlock the sluice in other ways, until I returned to the sailors, hoping talking to them would give me a clue, only to finally notice the indicator of the key on the ground.

This is especially problematic when it’s nearly impossible to stray from the intended path. Later on in the game, an NPC asked me to alert their automaton nurse that they wanted to come inside. Without hesitation, I ran inside to find the nurse to let them know. The dialogue went nowhere until I went back outside to find the bell I was supposed to ring. Then, even after ringing the bell, I had to go back inside anyway to talk to the automaton, who had heard the bell but was afraid to go outside. This feeling of running back and forth across the map can get pretty common. There are plenty of examples where I run somewhere only to learn I need an item or need to have done something, so I run off, then run back.

But ok, I’m getting sidetracked. Something that is unfortunately very easy to do in this game. You can only tell when you can interact with something by walking up close enough to it. The environment and what is interactable also change depending on what you’ve done or haven’t done yet, making it harder to pinpoint where the game wants you to go next. It was in these moments that I wished there was some sort of “scan” ability that would immediately highlight what around me I could interact with. While the more traditional point-and-click nature of a game like Amerzone - The Explorer’s Legacy has its flaws, it does help keep everything organized and help prevent the player from getting lost or from missing a key detail. The more freedom a player has to wander, the more branching paths begin to open up, and that’s where players will get lost, frustrated, and put down the controller.

Upgraded Visuals

In a remaster, often one of the most important upgrades is the visuals. Of course, I didn’t play the original, so it’s not the easiest to compare. Thankfully, there are some great videos available on YouTube. From what I’ve seen of the original Syberia, this is a noticeable improvement. But it doesn’t appear to be a complete overhaul. The visuals are mostly faithful; it’s almost like the layer of dust was wiped away, or you finally put your glasses on. The textures are more brightly colored, and the lines are sharper. But it’s not exactly the kind of monumental change that you might expect after two decades. Despite that, this is certainly the superior way to experience Syberia now.

There was one odd thing that bothered me, though. It seemed like in some of the cut scenes, the visuals would return to the 2002 version. Kate Walker in cut scenes looked a lot different from Kate Walker during gameplay. If this doesn’t bother you, that’s great, but it was almost a jump scare every time.

Outside of the graphics themselves, the game’s art style fits well with the story. As you continue the journey, the locations stand out from each other distinctly, growing darker, more complex, and dangerous as you travel further on the train. This provides a great parallel to Kate Walker’s inner journey as well. She continues to dig deeper and deeper into this mission, as colleagues and loved ones continually call her asking her to give up and return home, while also revealing darker sides of themselves.

Final Thoughts

Syberia - Remastered is another solid remaster from the team behind some iconic point-and-click puzzle adventures from the early 2000s. In an ideal world, and to appeal to a new audience, Syberia might need more of an overhaul than this remaster provides. By today’s standards, the puzzle adventure was somewhat slow, repetitive, and unexciting. Navigating the 3D space was often clunky, and sometimes frustrating to know what to do next. Thankfully, the game does not ask for too much of your time, so you can get through the story at the heart of this. If you have started playing and are annoyed with Kate Walker and her occasional phone calls, it is worth reaching the end of the game for a satisfying conclusion to her character. But if you play on PS5, I recommend turning off the phone sound effect for the DualSense. It gave me a heart attack every time.

Overall, Syberia did not quite resonate with me, but I can appreciate what it was going for and recognize many of the highlights it does have. This is a unique vision for Europe, and I would be curious to learn more about this world and its history. It’s also full of unique characters that I likely won’t forget about anytime soon.

However, even with all that, I have a hard time imagining anyone picking this up unless they played the original release in 2002 and have been wanting to revisit Syberia again. With this remaster, it’s hard to consider this more than a better-looking 2002 game. There isn’t much here to convince new players to jump in and experience the world of Syberia for the first time.