Syberia The World Before

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Syberia is currently a fairly secret adventure game series for most gamers, but in the past, it used to be one of the memorable elite franchises at the “golden age” of the genre. Traditional adventure of the 2000s.

Today, to become more trendy, adventure games are gradually turning into a cinematic direction with a 3D graphics platform, prioritizing plot details, less having to puzzle players in the game puzzle segment, and heavily focused on choices with more or fewer consequences, typical examples can be mentioned as the recent The Quarry.

Therefore, with the lack of time to “transform” with the times, Syberia 3 is overwhelmed when compared with the quality of new adventure games. Not to mention the development process is so up-to-date that the game itself has become a disappointment to the community at launch, from both quality and quatity.

Happily, it’s not because of a failure that you give up. The French game developer and publisher, Microids, continues to return with the promising Syberia: The World Before, drastically changing the game series since the “teaser” in 2019.

After a period of development, will we have another memorable journey?

The story of Syberia: The World Before takes place in two different times, accompanied by two main character lines: Dana Roze – an Osterthal pianist, and Kate Walker – the main character of the game series, is captured after the end of Syberia 3.

Besides, there are small moments we are alternately experienced from the perspective of several other important supporting characters.

Syberia: The World Before’s storyline draws players in from the beginning to the end, and does not forget to bring in strong messages about life, family, and love.

The main and supporting characters are gracefully portrayed, and the dialogues are close with emotional voices, refined, leaving continuous and honest narration, prompting us to explore, and discover everything that takes place in the world of Syberia: The World Before.

The context that the player passes through is fully utilized with a flashy, magnificent beauty, but sometimes… quite creepy by the loneliness of the environment. They can only be portrayed extremely well by clever use of light and color, and a lot of beautiful cinematic angles, evoking the atmosphere and ideas that the Microids artists wanted to portray for Syberia: The World Before comes to players.

The other specialty of the series remains the same: the “thick” Steampunk imprints spread from the streets, vehicles, automatic mechanical machines, and more.

If not to mention the background music that settles, knows how to overflow emotions, accompanied by environmental sounds that are meticulously done enough to create a space with enough depth to the player’s ears.

All combined, creating an almost perfect picture of the exciting and impressive journey in Syberia: The World Before.

As I mentioned, today, although the adventure genre with traditional gameplay is no longer in its glory days (due to the heavy emphasis on brainstorming to solve puzzles and find the way, it is easy to discourage players), The Microids team has done a great job with Syberia: The World Before, balancing this factor to attract new players and “hard fans” who can enjoy playing!

Syberia: The World Before removes a common and often “criticized” element in old adventure games: putting items together to create another item. They are replaced by rotating the item to find information or pulling it in and out to create a new shape. Therefore, despite the simplicity, the puzzle segment of the game is not made easy.

I have never felt that he was stuck on the road because of an unreasonable factor during the process of finding the answer, everything just needs to be a little observant to find the clues. Solving these puzzles, or quite difficult path-finding segments, is completely satisfying the effort we put in.

Especially in the puzzles related to “steampunk” decoding, seeing how the manufacturer put in the effort to describe each engine operating the machinery inside these puzzles is extremely clever and creative.

In many other segments, players also have to alternate between two characters. The prime example is in the segment where Kate has to find a way to unlock the pillars located in Osterthal Square to activate the piano. To find the correct information, the player must “jump back” the flow of time and use another character to find it to be able to support Kate.

These segments are also developed by the developer to try to be as logical as possible with the situation, creating the emphasis and variety needed for Syberia: The World Before. So from the my point of view, this is a commendable point for the Microids team.

Besides solving puzzles, at breaks, players can still admire the scenery, contemplate – through some interactive positions with the word “observe”, or read the side information to gain a deeper understanding of the context of the game in general, and also the areas that we are going through.

Both ROKI and Syberia: The World Before have something in common that I dislike: the slowness of the control system, and the dialogue can not be fast-forwarded.

Many areas in Syberia: The World Before annoy me because the character keeps going around indiscriminately. Due to maintaining the “point” control when playing on PC with an unstable camera, because many angles can be changed completely, it has messed up all the directions of the player when controlling.

Especially in multi-directional areas, walking briskly in these areas is not advisable if you do not want to see the character spinning wildly because it does not “recognize” the direction of the mouse’s movement.

I have not to experience with the handle so I don’t know if there is any improvement, but I think the game should default to using the keyboard’s WASD keys in character navigation to be less miserable for the player.

Next are the dialogues and cutscenes that cannot be fast-forwarded. Understandably, it’s important to see these conversations for the first time when talking, but if you accidentally press “speak again”, it will take time to sit and look at a “class of novels”!

Syberia’s graphic background: The World Before is very beautiful in scenery, lighting, and many scenes showing character models, etc. but not without its flaws. The most obvious during the experience: the frame fluctuates erratically despite tweaking the graphic settings to a low average level, the surface textures are not good, most obviously in the hair that looks very rough, and some human movements. The object is still awkward, especially the hand is very strange!

The plot of Syberia: The World Before is quite slow in many scenes and compared to the second part, there are not many climaxes, tension, or “fantasy” contexts.

Fortunately, the story is still very good, especially when chaining the entire event has helped pave the way for a future of the series that has a lot to explore further.

where can you get a Syberia The World Before online

Syberia: The World Before – Limited Edition (PS5): Buy it now