Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 49 Ratings

  • Summary: Embarking on a desperate search for Hans Voralberg, Kate Walker crosses Europe from West to East. She has left behind all her worldly possessions with the express purpose of joining the heir of the Voralberg family on his journey. Together, through mystical and enchanting lands, they will find their way to the mythical Syberia, land of the forgotten mammoths. Thus Syberia II begins...The train leaves Aralbad under a quiet snowfall. Kate, Hans and Oscar, the loyal, humorous automaton, are heading to Romansbourg, the first of the four worlds to be explored in Syberia II. The motley crew will clear the last bastions of Russian civilization followed by the Frozen North before arriving at Youkol Village, from where they will try to reach their final destination: Syberia. Along the way, they will have to overcome many obstacles and deal with shady characters to uncover clues vital to the continuation of their quest. Kate's timeless journey through Valadilene, Barrockstadt, Komkolzgrad and Aralbad has sparked an evolution in her character, from an ambitious lawyer to a curious and tenacious adventuress. Kate's role has undergone a remarkable change. From being the pursuant, she becomes Han's main acolyte, his support in attaining the forgotten realm of the mammoths. How will she react to this new situation? Can she live up to the choices she made? [Microids] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 23
  2. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. It is a masterwork when viewed as an exemplar of the video game as art, one of the very best fusions of story and imagery extant in the medium today, and for that reason alone it deserves a place in the eventual Electronic Entertainment Hall of Fame.
  2. 86
    It has a great, albeit short, storyline that grips you from the get-go. Plus, the story's sense of urgency does a nice job balancing the languid pace of its gameplay. What's more, superb graphics, sound and music push Syberia II above being good, and just short of being great.
  3. Even with it’s somewhat weaker story (in comparison to the original), Syberia II still managed to send a chill up my spine as the story closed.
  4. 73
    As the sequel to the excellent Syberia, it is quite disappointing. The story is too segmented to be enjoyable, the puzzles are not as rewarding as in the first part and most importantly, the game fails to elicit the same kind of emotional response from the player that its predecessor did.

See all 23 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. JohanB.
    10
    Really the best point 'n click game of them all. A beautiful story, a nice gameplay and a very very nice environment!
  2. One of my all-time favorite adventure games. It improves on the first game with improved graphics and better game mechanics, especially dialogue. The graphics are no longer cutting edge as of 2012, but they are very nice to look at and complement the story well. Like the first game, this is more of an interactive story than a puzzle game. The puzzles are fun, but they are not the focus of the game. Most of the puzzles are solvable without too much difficulty. I used the hints a few times when I got stuck. An adventure game vet will not need hints too often. I can recommend this game to anyone who likes adventure games. Expand
  3. Very beautiful game with interesting story. For me it didn't quite live up to the hype. It was slightly frustrating to play (I am a seasoned adventure fan), with puzzles that sometimes felt contrived and a lot of time spent watching the character walk slowly around the screen. I am nit-picking though. It's in the middle of the first league which is, for me, topped by Culpa Inata, Azrael's Tear, the Last Express, and The Longest Journey. Expand
  4. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I've been playing video games for over 30 years. 've played every kind of game imaginable. I started playing adventure games back in the days of text adventures (and I STILL enjoy a good text-based game). So I'm not new to adventure games. I'm a big fan of the Sam and Max games. I also am not new to games that are long on plot and short on action. Dear Esther is a game I really enjoyed, even though a lot of other people described it, amusingly, as "Walking: The Game."


    What I'm trying to say is that I'm not some CoD player who accidentally bought Syberia II thinking it was a Russian FPS game. I knew what I was expecting.


    First: the good. The graphics are beautiful. I admit that. But, it's also a huge problem, and I'll get to that in a second. Second: there were a couple of cut scenes that were beautiful, in particular as the Ark is leaving the native village, and there was a storm on the horizon that was pretty. And that pretty much ends the good points.


    The bad? OMG, where do I start? First of all, like the original Syberia, I had a very difficult time getting into this game because the creators of this game, apparently, have never left their mothers' basements. They have no CLUE about engineering, physics, sciences. It was freaking irritating, like being beaten over the head with a book the entire time I was playing. Torches in an ice cave? A coal tender on a wind-up train (okay, that was kind of explained later, but honestly, the reasons behind it could totally have been written out of the script and not missed. It just didn't work.) The tin woodman. OMG. An oil can? Are you serious? And let me ask you this: what, exactly, was causing C3PO to move? Because there was nothing in the Tin Woodman besides a heart. How did he walk? How did he talk? How did he reason? Evil spirits? Jungles in the far Arctic coast of Russia. Explain that to me. When have there EVER been jungles there? Cutting something with a narwhale tusk? Really? Rain? In the Arctic. Rain? Flowers?


    But the prize winners? Okay, the train car run by a DOG SEAL in a giant hamster wheel (and I'm not freaking kidding, though I wish I were) and it CATCHES UP to our high-speed wind-up train. Catches Up. Really?

    But the cake taker. The absolutely, jaw-dropping idiocy award goes to the penguins. Penguins. In the ARCTIC The FREAKING ARCTIC! ARE YOU FREAKING 12 YEARS OLD? There are no penguins in the Arctic. There have NEVER been penguins in the Arctic. No, they are not Auks. Don't give me that. They were penguins. Penguins. In the Arctic. OMG. That is the stupidest, most ignorant thing I've ever seen come from anybody who graduated from the 8th grade. Seriously. You should be ashamed.


    Let's talk graphics. Brown and gray. How am I supposed to find a flower or a rock whatever it is I'm supposed to find when everything looks the same?

    Like the original Syberia, this game is LOADED with wasted space. It's just walking from one place to another, to give us a feeling of scale. And that's where this game went wrong on gameplay. The faux 3d environments just don't work. What you needed was some cartoony 2d graphics and some short cuts. You needed some less realistic colors so that we could more easily see that there was an object or lever or fish bone that we were supposed to see and pick up. More clues. More clues to tell help us avoid the incessant trial and error of "Do I push this first or this one?" The ONE place where this worked okay was in the train engine where it made sense. I could use logic and puzzle it out by looking at how things were connected. Other place? Not so much. And don't get me started on the ice cave that looked like a mouth and the other that looked like ... well, I won't go there.


    Fewer annoying cinematic interruptions would have been nice. Get rid of the spoken dialogue. Hearing that annoying woman say for the hundredth time "AH! It's STUCK!" Just grates on my nerves. Put in an unobtrusive noise to show the machine doesn't work. I'm a HUGE fan of escape the room games. I've never had a problem with trial and error in any other game: where the logic makes sense and I don't have to listen to annoying and repetitive dialogue.


    The characters. There is not a single character who ISN'T selfish, petty, weak, or repugnant in some way. Except maybe the orphan girl Malka.


    The native people? Are you serious? "Tooktoot, nice choo-choo!" You don't find a depiction of short, fat, gibberish-talking people "took-toot, took-toot" the least bit racist or offensive? Because I did.


    Finally: the plot. Character arc, anyone? Anyone? The main character resolved NOTHING. She ended, literally, no where. Why was her boss chasing her anyway? The plot and conflicts all came to zero.
    Expand

See all 5 User Reviews