Nindie Preview: Syberia 3

While I’d heard of the Syberia series before I’d not indulged in any of them to this point. However, since it has been confirmed that Syberia 3 will be coming to the Switch I decided to check it out. Having played quite a number of adventure-style games that Syberia 3 is reminiscent of, after a few hours of play, I’d say it represents its genre pretty well. It tells a reasonably good story and has you solving puzzles through a combination of smarts, found objects, and some good old experimentation.

Starting with the positive I’m reasonably intrigued by the game’s story and main characters. While there are elements to the story that are familiar the foreign setting and culture of the nomadic group that found and saved you are interesting and I’m curious to see how it will all play out. The puzzles to this point are also generally a positive as they do a good job of making you intuit your solutions through targeted trial and error, making you feel smart when you figure them out. A few times there have been clues there to help guide me, but the nice thing is that I typically didn’t completely understand them until I was well on my way to finding the solution, which is a nice balance.

Where I’ll throw a bit of caution out is definitely on the fact that this is a pretty classic slow-paced adventure title and there’s nothing here that breaks away from that mold so if you’re not into that sort of game you’ll want to steer clear. At least to the point I’ve gotten in the game a criticism is that even moreso than normal the experience is a bit “on rails” at times, turning it into a sort of mildly interactive story since there are limited things to interact with along the way. However, since some games in the genre have also infuriated me with a pile of garbage to wade through in order to find what you need to progress I’ll credit it with not needlessly wasting my time either. It’s a difficult balance.

At the end of the day Syberia 3 will be a completely unique experience at this time on the Switch, and people looking for a story-driven adventure should probably be satisfied with it, depending on pricing and other details. I played the game on the PC using an XBox 360 controller and it worked well, so control moving over to the Switch shouldn’t be an issue. The characters and environments are sufficiently large on-screen that it being playable while in handheld mode should also not be a concern. It’s a game to look out for if you’ve been itching for something story-driven with some puzzles along the way.