In the world of the creation of literary and audiovisual products, it is common to want to endow the stories with which one works with elements that make them believable. For this reason, in a large number of products, especially those that are further removed from our reality, characters endowed with an idiolect, or peoples, races or species that have a common way of speaking or even their own language were created. .
For example, in the Syberia series, a reference in graphic adventures, some characters belonging to the youkol tribe appear, a term that does not appear in any dictionary or encyclopedia, since it is a fictional city that has different scripts. In other words, it is a personal creation inspired by the indigenous peoples of Siberia, which reproduces the collective imagination of these indigenous peoples. So much so that this fourth iteration, Syberia: The World Before, follows the same path in order to offer us a journey across continents and eras. A journey to recompose the puzzle of a lifetime.
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technical part
Although the steam punk It was born at the end of the 80s as a literary genre, one could say that it is only its inaugural space. This is so because, from its inception, it begins to push its limits until it assumes the different areas of visual production with its unique characteristics.
Indeed, the steam punk constituted itself as a subculture in the 90s. Since then, its aesthetic, linked to advanced future technology made with elements typical of the 19th century, has sealed the character of games like Syberia: The World Before, a work that stands out for its fantasies of retro-futuristic aesthetics.
However, beyond these constructions, the work that concerns us also manages to break down the barriers between the different media and thus propose an appearance characterized by sinuous lines which create soft and organic compositions. Many of these qualities are part of the same intention of this style: to create unique and intricate packaging that is also in perfect Spanish.
gameplay
A character, a goal and a series of obstacles to overcome to achieve it. This is the basic and simplified formula that must be followed to the letter to effectively articulate a story, and that cinema, like video games, has applied since their origins in the vast majority of their products.
In the case of digital media, the evolution of development tools and the power of current consoles and computers have favored the sophistication of stories, ranging from proposals as simple as, for example, Super Mario Bros – in which a noble plumber with more than three decades between pipes must have saved the princess — for others far more ambitious, complex and, why not say it, cinematic.
These examples are exemplary in many respects; masterfully embracing the classic three-act structure, peppering its expansive storylines with dramatic twists and turns that are also present in feature storylines, and bringing nuance and depth to its protagonists and antagonists. Extremely refined practices that work just as well in print as they do on screen
Syberia: the world before ofrece a closeness to film production in a very considerable way, inheriting the language and forms of cinema in a medium based on both the visual and the interactive to tell its story, producing an innovative combination in the field of narration. Plus, the intensity and nuance – not just in voice, but also in body language, and enhanced by the planning and camerawork that we usually associate with the cinema, in which scales, angles, the frames and the optics are entirely at the service of the story and, above all, to excite the player.
duration
This is what the work that features these lines consists of, although it also goes beyond the previously mentioned imaginary, since it represents each of the lines of the plot by means of a line, noting that a story can hold these lines together in many ways, weaving them together. On the one hand, the pianist career of Dana Roze, a 17-year-old girl who witnessed the rise of the fascist threat at the dawn of the Second World War. On the other hand, the fate of Kate Walker in an extremely hostile environment and with a tragic event in between.
The two passages of the plot, separated in space and time, constitute an adventure that approaches the inner world of the two protagonists, knowing how to understand their emotions, their faults, their qualities and their problems in any context, and that can extend beyond 10 hours.
conclusion
And yes, the title developed by the folks at Microids Studio Paris is still a typical graphic adventure in which we have to solve puzzles and riddles in the purest tradition of the saga. In fact, it is not an isolated element that can be solved independently of the context and of what is being told. In Syberia: The World Before, resolution involves understanding what is happening, understand how we can circumvent the difficulties and imagine how the story can continue. So much so that some of these hypotheses correspond to the direction that the plot will take, while others also enrich the experience and give more volume to the story, especially when you set your sights on secondary objectives.
Be that as it may, the cinematographic figure cannot be ignored, the main entity in relation to the title in question and by what refers to its development. All this with the aim of favoring the immersion of the player, even when it leads him to lose his previous identity.
We thank Southern Games the equipment provided to carry out this analysis
Alexandre Serrador
Good
- A staging full of images.
- Well designed puzzles.
- A good story with well-crafted characters.
The bad
- It does not bring much, mechanically speaking, compared to past deliveries.
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