Kate throws in her lot with the enigmatic Hans Voralberg.

In Syberia II, you continue your journey into the unknown aboard Hans’ streamlined
clockwork train, with the timid and sometimes peevish automaton, Oscar, again at
the controls. The game opens in the run-down Russian town of Romansburg, a tiny
little frontier outpost overlooked by an imposing old monastery on a ~Censored~
mountaintop. From there, you head into the snowy Russian wilderness where you’ll
encounter some ferocious wildlife and an old friend from the first game who makes
a dramatic entrance. Your travels eventually take you to a remote cave complex
that houses a village of vaguely Eskimo-like people known as the Youkol.
Eventually, you’ll help the ailing Hans travel into the great unknown to see if you
can reach the fabled land of Syberia at last.

Other than some second-act tedium, Syberia II is fairly well paced, with an ever
-greater sense of expectancy as you near your final goal. Then again, the journey
as a whole isn’t as enticing this time around. The first game let you travel on an
exciting journey while also unraveling an intriguing, emotionally captivating
mystery. Here you’re only doing more traveling on the same train, with the same
characters, hoping for some big payoff at the end. All along the way you’ll have to
coddle Oscar, who again hides in the train, worries, or complains most of the time,
as well as Hans, who is subject to delusional fits and manages to get himself in
serious trouble repeatedly. Plus, the game does little to make the idea of reaching
Syberia enticing in and of itself, beyond its symbolic value as a land of childhood
dreams made manifest. Unless you’re a particularly big fan of mammoths, the
whole notion is likely to leave you unmoved.

One snowy, icy landscape after another can get monotonous.

Lack of emotional resonance hurts the story in a number of ways, actually. There
are indeed a couple of moments that tug at the heartstrings. One of them is
strikingly powerful because it’s so unexpected and strange and yet so fitting and
melancholy. For the most part, though, the story just isn’t as well fleshed out as
that of the original game. There’s a thematically relevant but boring subplot told
exclusively through cutscenes, showing how Kate’s old law firm sends a detective
after her to reel her back in. These scenes–basically just voice-overs of phone
conversations–aren’t interesting and are also jarring in their occasional use of
profanity, which seems totally out of place in the gentle, wistful atmosphere of the
Syberia games. Imagine someone suddenly cussing in the middle of an animated
Disney film. There’s also a weak in-game subplot with two silly and unbelievable
villains, Igor and Ivan, one an outrageously slow simpleton, the other a cardboard
cutout of a cackling bad guy. More importantly, the ending, while heartfelt, feels
too abrupt, leaving too many unanswered questions.