izigame.me

This is a lovely game but also quite sad.
It's so beautiful, even magical in so many places. But there's also a lot of pain and drama as the story progresses.
It's so very obvious that so much effort and love went into making it, it's really impressive.
I played Syberia 1 and 2 some 20+ years ago and now this one feels like coming back to the roots. I wish Syberia 1 looked like this those many years ago when I was exploring Valadilene, Barrockstadt etc. :)
The game takes its time, you can't skip cutscenes, you can't skip dialogs. I think this was a design choice rather than an omission. I've felt the game encourages you at every point to slow down and experience the moment.
The story in the game is very powerful, it deals with themes such as the passage of time, the impermanence of things and of human life, one's aspirations in life and the prospect of failing to meet them.
On a technical level, the game cleverly combines multiple timelines, it's really well done.
The game feels very nostalgic in a good way, this is certainly magnified by the fact that Benoit Sokal himself didn't live to see the release of this game and that this is quite likely the last entry in the entire series.
After I finished the game one night (after roughly 17 hours of gameplay in total), I couldn't fall sleep almost the entire night, I was so overwhelmed by the story and the implications of everything.
I have to say I wasn't a huge fan of Inon Zur's music in Syberia 2 because to me the arrival of a new composer shifted the atmosphere established in Syberia 1. But in this game, I have been extremely impressed with Inon Zur's soundtrack and the musical choices in general.
Several of the music tracks are just brilliant and I keep listening to them over and over. And it was recorded with a live orchestra and a virtuoso pianist, wow!
The voice acting is great, as well as the motion capture and animations, I enjoyed it all very much. Several of the original voice actors are back once again, which is sweet. The young lady doing the voice acting for Dana Roze apparently did both the English and the French language versions, plus also the motion capture for both Dana and Kate. Very impressive!
As a side note, I noticed multiple times that different characters pronounce the same words or names differently. Typically the word Fräulein (which you'll hear VERY often) and also the name Dana. Oh and the rector of the music school apparently doesn't know how to pronounce the word "automaton". I don't quite understand how such things can go unnoticed during the recording sessions.
But these are just very small details.
I didn't experience any significant technical issues, no crashes either, only two very minor visual glitches with NPCs throughout the entire game. I was able to play the game on my Acer Nitro laptop on the highest settings. Very nice.
Overall, this is a great game, particularly if you are a fan of the series, then it's a no brainer.
I originally bought the game in a sale but then a few days ago I bought the entire Collector's Edition also, because I just wanted the artbook so much! And yes, there's obviously MUCH more than just the artbook...
I really miss Benoit Sokal but it's good to know that his last game turned out so good.