It's been a decade since I played through the first two Syberia games. I was worried where Syberia 2 left Kate Walker, and based on how Syberia 3 starts, it was a valid concern. She wakes up in a hospital that's clearly seen better days (not a unique condition in this fictional world), run by medical staff that seem determined she stay there. To the point of questioning the stability of her mental state.
Oh goody, one of the concepts that creeps me out. Really wish the game would let Kate run faster.
Kate was found near-death by a Youkol caravan, and brought to the hospital with their guide, Kurk, who needs a prosthetic leg. Unfortunately, the battle-ax of a head physician is just as determined Kurk not leave until she's finished warping his mind with drugs and hypnosis. And the doc, sorry, Dr. Olga Efimova - she's always referred to by her full name and title - is working with some eye-patched, Baron Strucker lookalike of a colonel who wants Kate Walker in custody.
The story is Kate first getting herself and later Kurk the hell out of that place, and then helping the Youkols and their giant, woolly ostriches follow the migration route. This, like the first two games, results in solving a bunch of puzzles requiring Kate to grab almost any random item she can and combine them MacGyver style into whatever she needs.
There are different ways you can interact with things, like simply observing something, or picking it up to add to your inventory, or actively moving it, if it's a lever. Each action tied to a different button, signaled by its position on the little ring and probably its color if you're using a standard controller. Moving things is tricky, as you have to hold the button then move the joystick, and the controllers can be a bit touchy.
This sometimes also requires talking to people. While the game offers different dialogue options, you can usually progress regardless of what choice you make. It's mostly a matter of how you want to play Kate. I opted for polite, with a mix of charm and humor as seemed workable. These conversations can also help you figure out what you need to do with the eclectic arrangement of crap you collect, but sometimes I was stuck just trying to use everything in my inventory to interact with an object until something happened.
How was I supposed to know the sawdust went in the drawers of the steampunk smoke machine I needed to activate to get the Youkols permission to pass a non-sacred bridge?
The problem is, the nature of the gameplay doesn't match the story. Kate and the Youkols are supposed to be working against a clock of sorts. The colonel and Dr. Olga Efimova are after them, and the colonel's got a missile-armed helicopter and AK-47 toting soldiers at his disposal. But no matter how long it takes me to figure out what I'm supposed to do, the pursuit is always just slow enough, never quite able to mobilize fast enough.
In the first two games, any resistance of that sort was less organized and much more limited. The monks that were reluctant to release Hans, for example, hadn't the resources to pursue Kate once she got back to the train, even if they wanted to. Time wasn't so critical. Here, even when the ship they use to cross a lake comes under attack by a freaking kraken and Kate has to figure out some way to turn off all the lights, there's no real urgency. You have as much time as you need to figure out where to find a crowbar to smash the lights.
To be clear, I appreciate the puzzles aren't timed, but I think it works cross-purpose to the story.
The game itself can lag, and there was one point it kept crashing as I would finish a brief cut scene. Which was especially annoying because I knew exactly what I needed to do next for once, and had everything ready to go. All I needed was the game to stop crashing long enough to turn on the Ferris wheel.
Syberia 3 plays pretty much like the first two games, which makes it feel like a bit of a throwback they tried to upscale graphically to more recent console generations. But it still suffers from weird camera angles that make it hard to tell where you can and can't go, which is the sort of thing that actually needed improving. The at times, questionable, voice acting doesn't help. I don't know if they used a computer speech program for the minor characters, but there are times whoever is speaking sounds like they've never done it before.
I didn't find Syberia 3 as frustrating as the earlier games, which might owe to my being slightly more patient than I used to be, but I was more disappointed by it than the earlier games.
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