A great game ruined! Extremely disappointed :-(
It's safe to say then that my hopes were high for Syberia DS. I didn't know too much about the game before I got my hands on it. Was it a cross platform remake? Have they added anything new? Is it a sequal? Okay...
First things first; it IS a remake of the original PC game. I wasn't sure whether I felt relief or disappointment after finding that out but I was certainly content. If you've played syberia on the PC you'll know about the beautiful cinematics and the DS is no exception - the game starts with the same opening movie as the original and it looks pretty neat on the DS. I was pleased with this and fairly eager to experience the gameplay. Oh dear...
You obviously use the stylus to point Kate in the direction you want her to move. You tap - she goes there. simple right? nope. Before I approached any characters or did anything I actually turned the game off, took the game out and inspected the calibration on my DS to make sure everything was okay. Kate doesn't always walk when or where you want her to and it becomes frustrating FAST. What's more... there is no way to make Kate run at all. So when you leave the hotel at the start and you need to start getting to places it becomes almost painful. The backgrounds and visuals are great but not so great that I want to stare at them for 2 minutes while kate makes her way from one side of the screen to the other. I thought they might have added a little 'double tap' feature (you had to double click on the pc) but there's nothing.
Understandably, there is no voice acting in the DS version. It is a shame because hearing characters like Momo and the groovy robot guy (whose name I just can't remember) were what made the original so smooth and enjoyable. This version seems a little more like hard work. Rather than the voices and the movements we instead see a still image of the person we are talking to on the top screen and the text on the bottom which we can then flick through. This seems somewhat laborious and a little on the boring side compared to other games of the genre.
Syberia on the PC was a GREAT game and if you havne't played it, put your DS down and go buy it. If you have played it then, like me, you're going to be sorely disappointed by this port so let me save you from that - go blow the dust off you pc copy and relive it on your desktop! but either way don't spend your money on a copy of the DS version - its simply not worth it. None of the functionality, none of the magic and some very clunky, shabby controlls.
Graphics.......7/10
playability....3/10
sound..........5/10
storyline......9/10
OVERALL........3.5/10