ATENÇÃO, NÃO PARE DE JOGAR NA PRIMEIRA VEZ QUE VER OS CRÉDITOS, CONTINUE JOGANDO, ME AGRADEÇA DEPOIS. Digo isso por que conheço gente que achou que o jogo tinha acabado ali.
Eu sempre fui medroso pra jogos de terror, então não joguei clássicos como RE e Silent Hill, mas agora depois de adulto tenho experimentado alguns jogos de terror como Layers of Fear, Observer, etc. Porém, Signalis é minha primeira experiência com Survival Horror, e hoje mesmo já adicionei Silent Hill nas minhas listas de desejo.
Signalis me atraiu muito por esse estilo gráfico PSOne (principalmente do primeiro MGS) e me capturou por sua atmosfera e construção de mundo muuuuuito instigante. Que jogo estiloso da p****!
Há anos que eu não jogo 6h diretas de um único jogo, muito menos terror. Mas a forma como tudo é feito em Signalis permite que, mesmo que a passos lentos, você se sinta sempre avançando.
E pra que isso aconteça de forma natural e boa, um ponto precisa ser feito com perfeição, e Signalis acerta muito nisso, seus Puzzles! Conforme se avança no jogo, a qualidade dos puzzles só melhora, sempre atingindo um equilíbrio perfeito de dificuldade.
A história é daquelas que se interpreta como pode, o que me lembra muito Neon Genesis Evangelion, que também serviu de referência visual, claramente. Pra mim, isso é um ponto extremamente positivo.
Eu poderia tentar achar algum motivo para reclamar do jogo, como o combate ou o inventário, mas a verdade é que apesar de não ser os pontos fortes do jogo, são detalhes que não incomodam, o inventário me fez ir e voltar na safe room umas 500x mas não me incomodou.
Eu sempre fui medroso pra jogos de terror, então não joguei clássicos como RE e Silent Hill, mas agora depois de adulto tenho experimentado alguns jogos de terror como Layers of Fear, Observer, etc. Porém, Signalis é minha primeira experiência com Survival Horror, e hoje mesmo já adicionei Silent Hill nas minhas listas de desejo.
Signalis me atraiu muito por esse estilo gráfico PSOne (principalmente do primeiro MGS) e me capturou por sua atmosfera e construção de mundo muuuuuito instigante. Que jogo estiloso da p****!
Há anos que eu não jogo 6h diretas de um único jogo, muito menos terror. Mas a forma como tudo é feito em Signalis permite que, mesmo que a passos lentos, você se sinta sempre avançando.
E pra que isso aconteça de forma natural e boa, um ponto precisa ser feito com perfeição, e Signalis acerta muito nisso, seus Puzzles! Conforme se avança no jogo, a qualidade dos puzzles só melhora, sempre atingindo um equilíbrio perfeito de dificuldade.
A história é daquelas que se interpreta como pode, o que me lembra muito Neon Genesis Evangelion, que também serviu de referência visual, claramente. Pra mim, isso é um ponto extremamente positivo.
Eu poderia tentar achar algum motivo para reclamar do jogo, como o combate ou o inventário, mas a verdade é que apesar de não ser os pontos fortes do jogo, são detalhes que não incomodam, o inventário me fez ir e voltar na safe room umas 500x mas não me incomodou.
i wish i liked signalis more. but i feel like a lot of the enjoyment i got from it was just from it being in a genre i love, which is only recently getting a resurgence, and not from the choices the game actually makes.
the game is inspired by a lot of fantastic media. resident evil (the remake of 1 in particular), silent hill (mostly 1 and 2), evangelion, the shining, lovecraft, and more. i can tell because it won't shut up about it. i'm not opposed to wearing your inspirations on your sleeve, but this game does it so blatantly and so frequently that it distracts me from the game i'm supposed to be playing and enjoying, and makes me thinks of other things i like better instead. yes, signalis, i remember the part in resident evil where jill plays moonlight sonata on a piano to open a secret passage. that was a cool moment. you aren't recapturing that by putting a piano in one of the save rooms and playing moonlight sonata in the background, because it's not tied to anything, it has no relevance, you're not doing a new twist on it. you're just making a reference to a game you like. yes, signalis, i recognize the carpet from the shining. yes, signalis, i remember angela from silent hill 2. yes, signalis, i've seen end of evangelion. can we make our own thing now? the worst of it is the blatant, absolutely shameless lifting of an entire major area from silent hill, taking its mechanical gimmick, its aesthetic, and even its name. the game even has the nerve to recycle an entire major plot moment from SH2 in that area. there is a line between "cute reference" and "borderline plagiarism" and signalis crosses it.
signalis strikes me as a game made by people who like a lot of things, but don't understand why they like the things they like. they like the resident evil remake, a game where some downed enemies will eventually get back up unless their bodies are burned, and need to be killed again in a stronger form. but they wanted to one-up that mechanic, so now EVERY enemy gets up unless burned, infinite times, which discourages combat too much. stealth quickly becomes the dominant strategy, slowing the pace of the game down and leading to the player stockpiling way too much ammo and healing. by the time i reached the final boss, my item box was stuffed with dozens of healing items and bullets for every gun, and i'd never touched any of those guns aside from the pistol, and maybe the shotgun once or twice. it's not that the game is too easy once you've figured it out, it's that it's too easy to figure out. enemy encounters should be as much of a puzzle as any door code or wall safe combination.
maybe the biggest offender is the save system. resident evil requires you to spend an ink ribbon to save for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is pacing. in a game where every bullet/healing item is precious, the player is gonna wanna save often to lock in their progress. by tying your ability to save to a resource, the game keeps you from ducking into a save room every 30 seconds and slowing the game to a crawl. it also means that if you wanna savescum to try a room over and over until you can do it without spending bullets or healing, then it'll at least cost you a save ribbon, probably two since you're gonna wanna save again after your perfect run. it's another thing the designer has to balance, but the effort is worth it.
signalis takes the easy way out and allows infinite free saves. so if you wanna play safe, which you SHOULD because that's the name of the game, then you'll shatter the game's pacing by saving after every single room clear. you'll savescum rooms over and over until you get by without taking a hit, then you'll save again, and it won't cost you anything. call that exploitative if you want, but we already had a mechanic that stopped players from playing this way nearly 30 years ago in the original resident evil for ps1, and signalis fails to learn from that despite constantly referencing that game. even the resident evil 2 remake, which had free saving, still had a hardcore mode which brought back the ink ribbons. i wish signalis' hard mode did the same, instead of just lazily increasing enemy health and damage.
also, for god's sake, why do the defensive items take up an item slot? and why can't i have a stun rod and the flashlight equipped at the same time? REmake doesn't make you give up an item slot to carry a taser, and silent hill doesn't bar you from using melee weapons if you have your flashlight out. this is just a stupid, misguided attempt to make inventory management more intense, when what it actually does is make stun rods worthless to carry around, force you to run back to the item box every time you wanna go through a dark room, and make the theoretically cool in-game screenshot item a waste of time and inventory space.
the story is fine, but it takes a lot of skill to pull off this sort of lain-esque, stream of consciousness, highly interpretive storytelling, and i don't think signalis sticks the landing. there's only one Serial Experiments Lain, and that's for good reason. i'm not sure even david lynch could put "Image Intentionally Left Blank" where a cutscene would normally go and make it work. i understand the story fine, but it's trying way too hard with its presentation. simple in-engine sequences would be much more effective than the 15 different styles of cutscene this game cycles through, especially the amateurish-looking anime ones that are way too clean and pretty for such a grungy, rusty, bloody game. though i suppose i haven't seen many games before which have such explicit lesbian overtones. depending on who you are, that element might hit hard.
if i weren't such a junkie for Scary Hallway Logistics Simulators, i'd probably be more down on this game. when i actually think about it, so much bad comes to mind. but even if it's fucked up, inferior resident evil, it's still resident evil, which i'll never stop finding fun. and given this game was made almost entirely by just two people, it's a monumental achievement. i just wish it were a better game.
the game is inspired by a lot of fantastic media. resident evil (the remake of 1 in particular), silent hill (mostly 1 and 2), evangelion, the shining, lovecraft, and more. i can tell because it won't shut up about it. i'm not opposed to wearing your inspirations on your sleeve, but this game does it so blatantly and so frequently that it distracts me from the game i'm supposed to be playing and enjoying, and makes me thinks of other things i like better instead. yes, signalis, i remember the part in resident evil where jill plays moonlight sonata on a piano to open a secret passage. that was a cool moment. you aren't recapturing that by putting a piano in one of the save rooms and playing moonlight sonata in the background, because it's not tied to anything, it has no relevance, you're not doing a new twist on it. you're just making a reference to a game you like. yes, signalis, i recognize the carpet from the shining. yes, signalis, i remember angela from silent hill 2. yes, signalis, i've seen end of evangelion. can we make our own thing now? the worst of it is the blatant, absolutely shameless lifting of an entire major area from silent hill, taking its mechanical gimmick, its aesthetic, and even its name. the game even has the nerve to recycle an entire major plot moment from SH2 in that area. there is a line between "cute reference" and "borderline plagiarism" and signalis crosses it.
signalis strikes me as a game made by people who like a lot of things, but don't understand why they like the things they like. they like the resident evil remake, a game where some downed enemies will eventually get back up unless their bodies are burned, and need to be killed again in a stronger form. but they wanted to one-up that mechanic, so now EVERY enemy gets up unless burned, infinite times, which discourages combat too much. stealth quickly becomes the dominant strategy, slowing the pace of the game down and leading to the player stockpiling way too much ammo and healing. by the time i reached the final boss, my item box was stuffed with dozens of healing items and bullets for every gun, and i'd never touched any of those guns aside from the pistol, and maybe the shotgun once or twice. it's not that the game is too easy once you've figured it out, it's that it's too easy to figure out. enemy encounters should be as much of a puzzle as any door code or wall safe combination.
maybe the biggest offender is the save system. resident evil requires you to spend an ink ribbon to save for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is pacing. in a game where every bullet/healing item is precious, the player is gonna wanna save often to lock in their progress. by tying your ability to save to a resource, the game keeps you from ducking into a save room every 30 seconds and slowing the game to a crawl. it also means that if you wanna savescum to try a room over and over until you can do it without spending bullets or healing, then it'll at least cost you a save ribbon, probably two since you're gonna wanna save again after your perfect run. it's another thing the designer has to balance, but the effort is worth it.
signalis takes the easy way out and allows infinite free saves. so if you wanna play safe, which you SHOULD because that's the name of the game, then you'll shatter the game's pacing by saving after every single room clear. you'll savescum rooms over and over until you get by without taking a hit, then you'll save again, and it won't cost you anything. call that exploitative if you want, but we already had a mechanic that stopped players from playing this way nearly 30 years ago in the original resident evil for ps1, and signalis fails to learn from that despite constantly referencing that game. even the resident evil 2 remake, which had free saving, still had a hardcore mode which brought back the ink ribbons. i wish signalis' hard mode did the same, instead of just lazily increasing enemy health and damage.
also, for god's sake, why do the defensive items take up an item slot? and why can't i have a stun rod and the flashlight equipped at the same time? REmake doesn't make you give up an item slot to carry a taser, and silent hill doesn't bar you from using melee weapons if you have your flashlight out. this is just a stupid, misguided attempt to make inventory management more intense, when what it actually does is make stun rods worthless to carry around, force you to run back to the item box every time you wanna go through a dark room, and make the theoretically cool in-game screenshot item a waste of time and inventory space.
the story is fine, but it takes a lot of skill to pull off this sort of lain-esque, stream of consciousness, highly interpretive storytelling, and i don't think signalis sticks the landing. there's only one Serial Experiments Lain, and that's for good reason. i'm not sure even david lynch could put "Image Intentionally Left Blank" where a cutscene would normally go and make it work. i understand the story fine, but it's trying way too hard with its presentation. simple in-engine sequences would be much more effective than the 15 different styles of cutscene this game cycles through, especially the amateurish-looking anime ones that are way too clean and pretty for such a grungy, rusty, bloody game. though i suppose i haven't seen many games before which have such explicit lesbian overtones. depending on who you are, that element might hit hard.
if i weren't such a junkie for Scary Hallway Logistics Simulators, i'd probably be more down on this game. when i actually think about it, so much bad comes to mind. but even if it's fucked up, inferior resident evil, it's still resident evil, which i'll never stop finding fun. and given this game was made almost entirely by just two people, it's a monumental achievement. i just wish it were a better game.
Eternity in a Box
Signalis gets under your skin. I will, past it’s runtime, continue to live within you. This horrible tragedy, horrifically engrained in your mind. Twisting and turning in your psyche until it cements itself as one of the most impactful experiences in recent memory. If you’re not put off by the dozens and dozens of references and homages to other media, it will manipulate you to love every frame of its horrifying tale of dying in a long dead machine.
I am shaken to the core by this experience and it became one of my favorite games of all time. I feel lucky to having been born in Germany and thus being able to read most of the untranslated text on screen, with the exception of maybe the Japanese text. It is a game deeply tied to the DDR and other eastern countries under the Soviet Union. All of my ancestors lived in eastern Germany and thus have I been heavily influenced by the tales of my parents and grandparents alike, for all of my post Mauerfall upbringing. Signalis is a punch in the gut. A sweet one. A pain I did not want to end. Having the historical cultural knowledge to view Signalis through a lens of the divided Germany’s elevated my experience a lot in that sense, I believe.
Mechanically a wonderfully done Survival Horror game with lovely puzzles and very well executed difficulty curve that never felt unfair to me, narratively a shiver inducing psycho-horror mindbend that will stick with me forever.
The soundtrack goes from somber to hectic and chaotic in a heartbeat, pulling one into the many locations of Signalis world.
I’m in awe of this masterpiece and by no means done thinking and writing about the game, while probably replaying it a hundred more times before I go under the ground. I can’t express my love in a totally for me satisfying way yet, but eventually I will find the words to do this masterpiece justice.
Signalis gets under your skin. I will, past it’s runtime, continue to live within you. This horrible tragedy, horrifically engrained in your mind. Twisting and turning in your psyche until it cements itself as one of the most impactful experiences in recent memory. If you’re not put off by the dozens and dozens of references and homages to other media, it will manipulate you to love every frame of its horrifying tale of dying in a long dead machine.
I am shaken to the core by this experience and it became one of my favorite games of all time. I feel lucky to having been born in Germany and thus being able to read most of the untranslated text on screen, with the exception of maybe the Japanese text. It is a game deeply tied to the DDR and other eastern countries under the Soviet Union. All of my ancestors lived in eastern Germany and thus have I been heavily influenced by the tales of my parents and grandparents alike, for all of my post Mauerfall upbringing. Signalis is a punch in the gut. A sweet one. A pain I did not want to end. Having the historical cultural knowledge to view Signalis through a lens of the divided Germany’s elevated my experience a lot in that sense, I believe.
Mechanically a wonderfully done Survival Horror game with lovely puzzles and very well executed difficulty curve that never felt unfair to me, narratively a shiver inducing psycho-horror mindbend that will stick with me forever.
The soundtrack goes from somber to hectic and chaotic in a heartbeat, pulling one into the many locations of Signalis world.
I’m in awe of this masterpiece and by no means done thinking and writing about the game, while probably replaying it a hundred more times before I go under the ground. I can’t express my love in a totally for me satisfying way yet, but eventually I will find the words to do this masterpiece justice.
a Nier fan's spin on Resident Evil. maybe feels a little unfair to reduce it to its influences, but signalis absolutely wears said influences on its sleeve - at one point i was like yeah the developers for sure loved evangelion cos of all the huge kanji cut-ins and then they 1:1 ripped the one shot of shinji from eva episode 26 n i was like ah yep that makes sense. Only even played this game cos of the generational lesbian fanart that was coming out of the fandom so imagine my surprise when suddenly i'm fighting for my fucking life for 10 hours. goated game, thank you harper for the rec
With the atmosphere and presentation of Signalis, I was sure I would fall in love with this game. In the first few hours, the gameplay was interesting and fun, motivating me to solve the puzzles laid before me through its mechanics that very much reminded me of the classic survival horror genre.
Unfortunately, the horror aspect of Signalis isn't very appealing and while everything is stunning to look at and play through, there's never a feeling of tension and that's a huge miss.
Nearing the end, those mechanics that I found so engaging towards the start, started to dwindle and became monotonous with countless times feeling burdened with whatever comes next.
I stopped caring and I dropped it.
Unfortunately, the horror aspect of Signalis isn't very appealing and while everything is stunning to look at and play through, there's never a feeling of tension and that's a huge miss.
Nearing the end, those mechanics that I found so engaging towards the start, started to dwindle and became monotonous with countless times feeling burdened with whatever comes next.
I stopped caring and I dropped it.
finally being fluent in german is good for something
ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴏᴜʀ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ. ᴡᴀᴋᴇ ᴜᴘ.
As it is mentioned lots of times already by many people, and I will mention it as well, Signalis is a genius, well designed and a tremendous survival horror experience, and a groundbreaking moment for indie videogames.
An incredible work of art from two developers (with a little help from others of course) who offered a loving tribute to all survival horror games from the late 90s to early 2000s, including a presentation of how far someone is willing to go for their loved ones.
Elster, a Replika unit, wakes up after crashing to an unknown planet, not remembering the reason she's here. Forgetting her 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲. She leaves her ship to find something, only to run into a strangely familiar room, yet she can't wrap her finger around it. That was the moment, she got the first message from an unidentified sender. The moment she got back all her memories. From past selves maybe? From other Elsters? That she had made a promise. And she'd do anything to keep it. Her promise. No. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 promise.
A story about a person stuck in a neverending dream. A loop. An eerie and dreadful reality. To keep reminding Elster. 𝗧𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲.
W̴̛̼͖̒͋̇̍̇̔͑̉̈ă̸̡̢̖͍̗k̵̯͎̇͂̍̏̉̆͠ĕ̵̞̞͂͜ ̶͔̯̹̣̤̝̻̀͒u̴̥̭̟͂͒̈͑p̷̬̖̘̩͖̰̘͍̦̳̉̅̐͝.̷͚̙̅͂̑̓͗̀̉͠
I would love to get more into the messages and themes of Signalis and how fun of a time I've had with the gameplay, but decided in the end to keep it short, to avoid spoilers mostly, but the game has made a huge impact on me and turned this experience from a spine-chilling horror survival, to a thought provoking narrative with hidden details waiting to be discovered. To remind you. To keep you straight to your goal.
ɪ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴀ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ. ɪ'ʟʟ ᴅᴏ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ.
As it is mentioned lots of times already by many people, and I will mention it as well, Signalis is a genius, well designed and a tremendous survival horror experience, and a groundbreaking moment for indie videogames.
An incredible work of art from two developers (with a little help from others of course) who offered a loving tribute to all survival horror games from the late 90s to early 2000s, including a presentation of how far someone is willing to go for their loved ones.
Elster, a Replika unit, wakes up after crashing to an unknown planet, not remembering the reason she's here. Forgetting her 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲. She leaves her ship to find something, only to run into a strangely familiar room, yet she can't wrap her finger around it. That was the moment, she got the first message from an unidentified sender. The moment she got back all her memories. From past selves maybe? From other Elsters? That she had made a promise. And she'd do anything to keep it. Her promise. No. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 promise.
A story about a person stuck in a neverending dream. A loop. An eerie and dreadful reality. To keep reminding Elster. 𝗧𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲.
W̴̛̼͖̒͋̇̍̇̔͑̉̈ă̸̡̢̖͍̗k̵̯͎̇͂̍̏̉̆͠ĕ̵̞̞͂͜ ̶͔̯̹̣̤̝̻̀͒u̴̥̭̟͂͒̈͑p̷̬̖̘̩͖̰̘͍̦̳̉̅̐͝.̷͚̙̅͂̑̓͗̀̉͠
I would love to get more into the messages and themes of Signalis and how fun of a time I've had with the gameplay, but decided in the end to keep it short, to avoid spoilers mostly, but the game has made a huge impact on me and turned this experience from a spine-chilling horror survival, to a thought provoking narrative with hidden details waiting to be discovered. To remind you. To keep you straight to your goal.
ɪ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴀ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ. ɪ'ʟʟ ᴅᴏ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ.
instead of Stray, this should on the GOTY nominations. i have no doubt in my heart for many years to come this will be among Resident Evil, Silent Hill, etc for the best Survival Horror games to change how we go about seeing and implementing mechanics in horror games. But honestly, it doesnt only remind me of the classics, it reminds me of Hylics with its gore, and its writing really reminded me of the Southern Reach book series. Rather this is intentional or not, it's a testament to how otherworldly the writing is. If you're looking for a good survival horror to play, especially after the disappointing Callisto Protocol, play this!
Plots centered on existentialism never really hit deep for me because I'm very solidified in the fact that I am real considering I've actually been real for quite a few years now.
Signalis puxa inspiração de onde pode - Resident Evil, Eva, Blame!, entre outros - e disso constrói uma peça de tom e apresentação arrebatadores, ainda que um pouco presa à fonte: uma linha tênue entre homenagem, conjuração ou plágio. É uma loucura pra mim que duas pessoas apenas tenham escrito, animado, desenhado e organizado um esforço tão carregado de qualidade e imensidão para além de suas amarras.
Brinca um pouco perto demais com a frustração, especialmente em relação à seu nada popular inventário limitadíssimo, que aqui defenderei: vejo como positivo como sua inclusão força backtracking constante em áreas que nunca estão verdadeiramente aliviadas de hostilidade, assim requerindo que seu entendimento de mapa e otimização de rota seja quiçá mais importante do que sua habilidade em combate - quanto mais você conseguir evitar, melhor na fita está para quando não houver outra opção. Existem algumas situações que considero meio sacanas, como a imprecisão geral que envolve o contato com inimigos - hitboxes ativas e controles difusos com base na proximidade são uma receita para frustração. A energia opressora de seus ambientes intercala muito bem com os puzzles, que achei satisfatoriamente calibrados e absurdamente bem apresentados, geralmente através de mudanças de perspectiva para a primeira pessoa, trazendo uma nova realidade para aquilo que de longe é distorcido e maligno - de perto tudo fica mais humano, a fisicalidade do ambiente dando corpo ao que outrora foi vivido.
Uma jornada em um inferno solitário, apoiando-se no imaginário do que já veio para projetar suas próprias imagens. Os pilares de seu mundo, alicerces de tirânica tranquilidade, ruindo ao redor de uma realidade insustentável sendo questionada. Crescendo entre as frestas de uma jaula de concreto, o amor é a onda que desmorona tudo.
Brinca um pouco perto demais com a frustração, especialmente em relação à seu nada popular inventário limitadíssimo, que aqui defenderei: vejo como positivo como sua inclusão força backtracking constante em áreas que nunca estão verdadeiramente aliviadas de hostilidade, assim requerindo que seu entendimento de mapa e otimização de rota seja quiçá mais importante do que sua habilidade em combate - quanto mais você conseguir evitar, melhor na fita está para quando não houver outra opção. Existem algumas situações que considero meio sacanas, como a imprecisão geral que envolve o contato com inimigos - hitboxes ativas e controles difusos com base na proximidade são uma receita para frustração. A energia opressora de seus ambientes intercala muito bem com os puzzles, que achei satisfatoriamente calibrados e absurdamente bem apresentados, geralmente através de mudanças de perspectiva para a primeira pessoa, trazendo uma nova realidade para aquilo que de longe é distorcido e maligno - de perto tudo fica mais humano, a fisicalidade do ambiente dando corpo ao que outrora foi vivido.
Uma jornada em um inferno solitário, apoiando-se no imaginário do que já veio para projetar suas próprias imagens. Os pilares de seu mundo, alicerces de tirânica tranquilidade, ruindo ao redor de uma realidade insustentável sendo questionada. Crescendo entre as frestas de uma jaula de concreto, o amor é a onda que desmorona tudo.
A stylish, old school inspired, science fiction, psychological, survival horror game at an affordable price point. Yes please and thank you!
Signalis plays how you would expect a survival horror to and is heavily inspired by Resident Evil and Silent Hill. You have a limited inventory space, which means considering what to pick up and planning your trips to the item box. You use the map to get around and see what needs to be explored next. Every enemy encounter needs consideration as you have limited health, ammo and items and you will probably need to back track through each location again too. There are good puzzles to solve which are not too easy but not too obtuse. The game does not hold your hand either and there are no constant check points. It’s all very satisfying to play and it is the type of game that is hard to put down. I found myself saying “I’ll just check out these two rooms” or “I’ll just see what this key opens.” Then another hour would fly by and I’m still playing.
The combat is the weakest part. The way the enemies move, look and sound is creepy but they don’t really pose a threat on their own. One or two enemies can usually be easily dodged around or put down. The way the game ups the difficulty is by throwing small groups at you and/or heavily restricting space. It would have been cool if the enemies were a challenge on their own and a greater variety in enemies and how they attack would have been good too. I found the combat definitely got tiresome by the start of a second play through. There are also some first person sections which felt too slow and tedious.
The story, world and lore of Signalis is interesting and I really enjoyed it. It’s not told in a direct way and there is room for interpretation. There are multiple endings as well which are all valid. The art direction and sound all fit perfectly with this story and world. It looks somewhat like a PS1 era game but has so much of its own personality and style which I am a big fan of.
Signalis was easily one of the best games released in 2022. The very small development team are absolute legends and I can’t wait to see what they do next. If you have any interest in survival horror then you need to play this or even if you just like good games in general then I recommend Signalis.
8.3/10
Signalis plays how you would expect a survival horror to and is heavily inspired by Resident Evil and Silent Hill. You have a limited inventory space, which means considering what to pick up and planning your trips to the item box. You use the map to get around and see what needs to be explored next. Every enemy encounter needs consideration as you have limited health, ammo and items and you will probably need to back track through each location again too. There are good puzzles to solve which are not too easy but not too obtuse. The game does not hold your hand either and there are no constant check points. It’s all very satisfying to play and it is the type of game that is hard to put down. I found myself saying “I’ll just check out these two rooms” or “I’ll just see what this key opens.” Then another hour would fly by and I’m still playing.
The combat is the weakest part. The way the enemies move, look and sound is creepy but they don’t really pose a threat on their own. One or two enemies can usually be easily dodged around or put down. The way the game ups the difficulty is by throwing small groups at you and/or heavily restricting space. It would have been cool if the enemies were a challenge on their own and a greater variety in enemies and how they attack would have been good too. I found the combat definitely got tiresome by the start of a second play through. There are also some first person sections which felt too slow and tedious.
The story, world and lore of Signalis is interesting and I really enjoyed it. It’s not told in a direct way and there is room for interpretation. There are multiple endings as well which are all valid. The art direction and sound all fit perfectly with this story and world. It looks somewhat like a PS1 era game but has so much of its own personality and style which I am a big fan of.
Signalis was easily one of the best games released in 2022. The very small development team are absolute legends and I can’t wait to see what they do next. If you have any interest in survival horror then you need to play this or even if you just like good games in general then I recommend Signalis.
8.3/10
this game was so beautiful and had the perfect balance of horror and survival. this is definitely my favorite experience this year and i love the lore sooo so much
Almost fainted while watching one of the longer cutscenes cause I didn't realise I was holding my breath the entire time. Best game I've played from the last decade probably.
After hitting the credits and mulling this game over in my head for a couple of weeks now, I find I am disappointed with it. When this game released, it was the hot new shit, and finding new survival horror in the vein of the classics we all love is still pretty rare. So I knew I had to play this game.
I wont even begin to talk about the game's convoluted story, because I did not enjoy it and honestly I did not follow. Maybe I am just stupid, and that is fine. If you wanna have a confusing-ass story, that's your deal, and I don't need to understand the story completely to have a good time, but from my end it sure does feel like a game that is meant to be complicated so that people think it is smarter than it actually is. Like bait for Youtube channels to make videos like SIGNALIS STORY EXPLAINED as so many games do in a post-Souls world. But honestly that's still fine because even with a weak story, the atmosphere, sounds, and music were so on point, I can forgive this shortcoming. The gameplay however, is where this game lost me, and lost me hard.
I found gameplay to mostly miss the mark. I love survival horror classics of the 5th gen/6th gen era so I am no stranger to what some would call outdated mechanics of those games, but when it comes to the implementation of those mechanics here, they are such an annoyance that it really drug the entire experience down for me completely.
The gameplay is mixed between two specific titles, which clearly are Signalis's biggest influences. Those being Silent Hill 2, and Resident Evil 1. These two games are indeed both survival-horror games, but when their mechanics are slapped together haphazardly, it makes for a very wonky experience. The biggest example is the inventory slots, and item box management. This mechanic is straight out of Resident Evil. The problem with this however, is the game gives you only 6 slots, the minimum amount from the first Resident Evil game, reserved for Chris Redfield who was considered the games harder character to play. However, in RE1 most of the items in the mansion are health items and ammunition, which means, if playing efficiently, even with 6 slots, as long as you watch your health and ammo, you wont run into the slot limit, and therefor have to run back to the item box TOO often. Signalis however has many many MANY puzzle items to pick up, multiple in each room, which means to progress, you are forced to pick all of these up at some point or another, meaning many forced trips back to the item box. It feels like item boxes and item limits were included because they are Resident Evil survival horror staples, but not thinking about how they would influence the moment to moment gameplay and exploration of THIS game.
It is even more frustrating when examining the fact that this games primary influence, Silent Hill 2, also has many puzzle items to pick up in many different rooms. BUT, that game HAS NO INVENTORY LIMIT. Meaning exploration is never interrupted. And then Silent Hill 2 gives you items like a flashlight, which you pretty much need at all times to be able to play the game. Signalis also gives you a flashlight, and you pretty much need it at all times to play the game, especially when they start introducing traps, but guess what, THAT TAKES UP ONE OF YOUR 6 SLOTS. See why this mixing and matching doesnt work??? You now have 6 slots, minus 1 for your flashlight, MINUS ANOTHER ONE FOR YOUR GUN, which you will pretty much have on hand at all times. So really you DON'T have 6 slots, you actually have about 4.
The good news is if you are on PC, you can fix this problem that did not need to exist in the first place, giving yourself just about as many slots as you want, and when you do this, the game feels more like it falls into place, and most of the annoyance is removed. The bad news is, if you are on console, you can pretty much get fucked, as not only does Signalis only give you 6 slots, but UNLIKE Resident Evil, the series Signalis idolizes this inventory mechanic so much for, there is no option in game to upgrade your inventory amount. Meaning you will take those 6 slots from start to finish. And yeah, I know in RE1 you cannot upgrade your slot amount, but hey, Signalis devs, did you ever ask yourself why, in almost all future RE games you are able to give yourself more slots and more inventory? And in the case of Resident Evil 1specifically, did you maybe ever wonder why more people play as Jill (who has 8 slots) than Chris (who has only 6 slots)? It's definitely worth thinking about!
I still believe after all that, that this is a game that survival horror fans should play, because even with my opinion of the game's shortcomings, there are still great things to experience here, but the gameplay needs to be improved for the sequel. I cannot see a bigger audience jumping on otherwise.
To not end this on a sour note and whip this around to a positive, if I had to say the kindest thing I can to these developers, it would be this:
YOU GUYS should be the ones remaking Silent Hill 2. FUCK Blooper Team! Never have I felt so close to that initial playthrough of SH2 than hearing this music, being so creeped out by these monster designs, being drowned in this thick atmosphere. It is truly amazing what an indie team with passion can accomplish over a larger studio that just pumps out dogshit and keeps failing upwards.
I wont even begin to talk about the game's convoluted story, because I did not enjoy it and honestly I did not follow. Maybe I am just stupid, and that is fine. If you wanna have a confusing-ass story, that's your deal, and I don't need to understand the story completely to have a good time, but from my end it sure does feel like a game that is meant to be complicated so that people think it is smarter than it actually is. Like bait for Youtube channels to make videos like SIGNALIS STORY EXPLAINED as so many games do in a post-Souls world. But honestly that's still fine because even with a weak story, the atmosphere, sounds, and music were so on point, I can forgive this shortcoming. The gameplay however, is where this game lost me, and lost me hard.
I found gameplay to mostly miss the mark. I love survival horror classics of the 5th gen/6th gen era so I am no stranger to what some would call outdated mechanics of those games, but when it comes to the implementation of those mechanics here, they are such an annoyance that it really drug the entire experience down for me completely.
The gameplay is mixed between two specific titles, which clearly are Signalis's biggest influences. Those being Silent Hill 2, and Resident Evil 1. These two games are indeed both survival-horror games, but when their mechanics are slapped together haphazardly, it makes for a very wonky experience. The biggest example is the inventory slots, and item box management. This mechanic is straight out of Resident Evil. The problem with this however, is the game gives you only 6 slots, the minimum amount from the first Resident Evil game, reserved for Chris Redfield who was considered the games harder character to play. However, in RE1 most of the items in the mansion are health items and ammunition, which means, if playing efficiently, even with 6 slots, as long as you watch your health and ammo, you wont run into the slot limit, and therefor have to run back to the item box TOO often. Signalis however has many many MANY puzzle items to pick up, multiple in each room, which means to progress, you are forced to pick all of these up at some point or another, meaning many forced trips back to the item box. It feels like item boxes and item limits were included because they are Resident Evil survival horror staples, but not thinking about how they would influence the moment to moment gameplay and exploration of THIS game.
It is even more frustrating when examining the fact that this games primary influence, Silent Hill 2, also has many puzzle items to pick up in many different rooms. BUT, that game HAS NO INVENTORY LIMIT. Meaning exploration is never interrupted. And then Silent Hill 2 gives you items like a flashlight, which you pretty much need at all times to be able to play the game. Signalis also gives you a flashlight, and you pretty much need it at all times to play the game, especially when they start introducing traps, but guess what, THAT TAKES UP ONE OF YOUR 6 SLOTS. See why this mixing and matching doesnt work??? You now have 6 slots, minus 1 for your flashlight, MINUS ANOTHER ONE FOR YOUR GUN, which you will pretty much have on hand at all times. So really you DON'T have 6 slots, you actually have about 4.
The good news is if you are on PC, you can fix this problem that did not need to exist in the first place, giving yourself just about as many slots as you want, and when you do this, the game feels more like it falls into place, and most of the annoyance is removed. The bad news is, if you are on console, you can pretty much get fucked, as not only does Signalis only give you 6 slots, but UNLIKE Resident Evil, the series Signalis idolizes this inventory mechanic so much for, there is no option in game to upgrade your inventory amount. Meaning you will take those 6 slots from start to finish. And yeah, I know in RE1 you cannot upgrade your slot amount, but hey, Signalis devs, did you ever ask yourself why, in almost all future RE games you are able to give yourself more slots and more inventory? And in the case of Resident Evil 1specifically, did you maybe ever wonder why more people play as Jill (who has 8 slots) than Chris (who has only 6 slots)? It's definitely worth thinking about!
I still believe after all that, that this is a game that survival horror fans should play, because even with my opinion of the game's shortcomings, there are still great things to experience here, but the gameplay needs to be improved for the sequel. I cannot see a bigger audience jumping on otherwise.
To not end this on a sour note and whip this around to a positive, if I had to say the kindest thing I can to these developers, it would be this:
YOU GUYS should be the ones remaking Silent Hill 2. FUCK Blooper Team! Never have I felt so close to that initial playthrough of SH2 than hearing this music, being so creeped out by these monster designs, being drowned in this thick atmosphere. It is truly amazing what an indie team with passion can accomplish over a larger studio that just pumps out dogshit and keeps failing upwards.
I'm not entirely sure why I bought Signalis, but I now know I was in error to do so. The most charitable thing I can say for the game is that I am absolutely not its target audience: I scare easily in horror games, have little interest in them, and have never played the early Resident Evil or Silent Hill titles Signalis is clearly looking to ape. Despite that, I gave Signalis the old college try only to find a mechanical mess of a game whose problems can't be waved off as genre convention.
Signalis is a really good example of incentives in game design and how they can undercut an experience. The game design starts off with some good ideas: inventory is limited to add consequence to combat encounters; there are no autosaves to ratchet up the tension; controls are clunky enough to discourage a more action-oriented style of play. All of these decisions seems like they would mesh well with a survival horror game, yet they ultimately are the undoing of anything resembling immersion in the game or its world.
The core of the issues lies in how optional all of the game's encounters are. The vast, vast majority of enemies can be ran around and avoided without fighting them. Given how limited resources are, this becomes the dominant strategy. Why waste ammunition or risk incurring damage when it's easier to hold the run button and weave around? It's also faster. On a base level, there's very little reason to engage in the resource management the game is very clearly pushing as a means of creating tense gameplay.
Without resource management being impactful, the limited inventory space suddenly becomes an inconvenience rather than a conduit for strategy. A good example played itself out many times over my run through the game. I'd have a full inventory, encounter a necessary key item pretty far from a safe house, and suddenly have a decision to make. I could run back to the safe house and rearrange my backpack to have space for the item, or just fire off some rounds to clear ammunition from my inventory to pick up the item. Or use a healing item unnecessarily again in the name of making space. Without the combat encounters putting stress on these resources, the player is free to essentially waste them. The whole exchange breeds contempt for the inventory system. Once I understood how the game worked, I never really needed to plan a load out. I wonder why the inventory was built this way to begin with, other than this system likely being similar to an old survival horror game.
The lack of an autosave feature is another way Signalis calls back to its inspirations, and this is another mechanical misfire. The threat of a death that will meaningfully reset progress only works if developers commit to that notion. There needs to be stakes, usually in the form of the time investment since the last save. Signalis refuses to raise these stakes through the vast majority of the game. Areas are small, with all of the action taking place within 20-40 seconds of a safe room. Players are free to run back to the safe room every time they accomplish something, no matter how small, thereby ensuring any death won't ding them too much. Hell, this constant saving is doubly encouraged by the previously mentioned inventory system; the only place to dump the items picked up on any excursion is the same place the player saves the game. The combination of the level design and the save system works to deflate the tension, which is a bizarre undercutting of the only possible reason to design the save system this way in the first place.
All of Signalis's mechanics seem half-cooked; a "wouldn't it be cool if" whiteboard list that never coalesced into a meaningful experience. Which is a shame, because aesthetically the game works much better. The graphics and sound design both do a good job in creating an unsettling atmosphere. But unfortunately that really doesn't mean anything when the gameplay doesn't work in service of the horror experience.
What players are left with is at times boring, at times frustrating, and thoroughly samey. No matter what is happening in the story you can count the fact that you, as the player, will be bobbing and weaving through enemies to find the square peg in room A, stick it in the square hole in Room B, to unlock access to the circle peg that is needed in Room C. Perhaps this is evocative of old Resident Evil games, which even I know have a reputation for this kind of nonsense, but I'm flabbergasted that someone thought it was engaging gameplay in 2022.
If they were set on making an homage to Resident Evil, they could've also copied the respect that game surely had for its players; I can't imagine there was ever a puzzle room in an RE game that had a note not five feet from the puzzle outlining its solution step-by-step.
I was beside myself when I found this. The puzzle it spoiled wasn't even difficult; none of the game's puzzles are difficult. Do the developers truly think that little of their audience?
I'll end by describing my last experiences with Signalis. I beat the game, found the ending to be lackluster, watched the credits, and looked up what people were saying online. I found some discussion of the final boss, an encounter I never had. Wouldn't you know it, the player is supposed to start up the game again to continue the story. So I did, and I played for another hour or so. What I expected to be a short story sequence opened up into a full 'dungeon' of sorts.
I'd had enough. I closed the game.
Signalis isn't scary. Signalis isn't fun. And for a game with a story that is so clearly open for interpretation, Signalis isn't even interesting, and that's what's most disappointing of all.
That's a lie, the most disappointing part is that it's not fun. God damn.
Signalis is a really good example of incentives in game design and how they can undercut an experience. The game design starts off with some good ideas: inventory is limited to add consequence to combat encounters; there are no autosaves to ratchet up the tension; controls are clunky enough to discourage a more action-oriented style of play. All of these decisions seems like they would mesh well with a survival horror game, yet they ultimately are the undoing of anything resembling immersion in the game or its world.
The core of the issues lies in how optional all of the game's encounters are. The vast, vast majority of enemies can be ran around and avoided without fighting them. Given how limited resources are, this becomes the dominant strategy. Why waste ammunition or risk incurring damage when it's easier to hold the run button and weave around? It's also faster. On a base level, there's very little reason to engage in the resource management the game is very clearly pushing as a means of creating tense gameplay.
Without resource management being impactful, the limited inventory space suddenly becomes an inconvenience rather than a conduit for strategy. A good example played itself out many times over my run through the game. I'd have a full inventory, encounter a necessary key item pretty far from a safe house, and suddenly have a decision to make. I could run back to the safe house and rearrange my backpack to have space for the item, or just fire off some rounds to clear ammunition from my inventory to pick up the item. Or use a healing item unnecessarily again in the name of making space. Without the combat encounters putting stress on these resources, the player is free to essentially waste them. The whole exchange breeds contempt for the inventory system. Once I understood how the game worked, I never really needed to plan a load out. I wonder why the inventory was built this way to begin with, other than this system likely being similar to an old survival horror game.
The lack of an autosave feature is another way Signalis calls back to its inspirations, and this is another mechanical misfire. The threat of a death that will meaningfully reset progress only works if developers commit to that notion. There needs to be stakes, usually in the form of the time investment since the last save. Signalis refuses to raise these stakes through the vast majority of the game. Areas are small, with all of the action taking place within 20-40 seconds of a safe room. Players are free to run back to the safe room every time they accomplish something, no matter how small, thereby ensuring any death won't ding them too much. Hell, this constant saving is doubly encouraged by the previously mentioned inventory system; the only place to dump the items picked up on any excursion is the same place the player saves the game. The combination of the level design and the save system works to deflate the tension, which is a bizarre undercutting of the only possible reason to design the save system this way in the first place.
All of Signalis's mechanics seem half-cooked; a "wouldn't it be cool if" whiteboard list that never coalesced into a meaningful experience. Which is a shame, because aesthetically the game works much better. The graphics and sound design both do a good job in creating an unsettling atmosphere. But unfortunately that really doesn't mean anything when the gameplay doesn't work in service of the horror experience.
What players are left with is at times boring, at times frustrating, and thoroughly samey. No matter what is happening in the story you can count the fact that you, as the player, will be bobbing and weaving through enemies to find the square peg in room A, stick it in the square hole in Room B, to unlock access to the circle peg that is needed in Room C. Perhaps this is evocative of old Resident Evil games, which even I know have a reputation for this kind of nonsense, but I'm flabbergasted that someone thought it was engaging gameplay in 2022.
If they were set on making an homage to Resident Evil, they could've also copied the respect that game surely had for its players; I can't imagine there was ever a puzzle room in an RE game that had a note not five feet from the puzzle outlining its solution step-by-step.
I was beside myself when I found this. The puzzle it spoiled wasn't even difficult; none of the game's puzzles are difficult. Do the developers truly think that little of their audience?
I'll end by describing my last experiences with Signalis. I beat the game, found the ending to be lackluster, watched the credits, and looked up what people were saying online. I found some discussion of the final boss, an encounter I never had. Wouldn't you know it, the player is supposed to start up the game again to continue the story. So I did, and I played for another hour or so. What I expected to be a short story sequence opened up into a full 'dungeon' of sorts.
I'd had enough. I closed the game.
Signalis isn't scary. Signalis isn't fun. And for a game with a story that is so clearly open for interpretation, Signalis isn't even interesting, and that's what's most disappointing of all.
That's a lie, the most disappointing part is that it's not fun. God damn.
Pros:
- Great level design with plenty of puzzles to tackle and strong atmosphere/music. With top down survival horror gameplay that emulates those of the PS1 era, it wears its influences on its sleeve but stands out as a well crafted game in its own right
- Its pixel art and visual style are really cool, managing to give a continuous sense of dread as you progress deeper into the facility and the game grows more chaotic
- The story’s a bit difficult to follow as it’s told through disjointed scenes and you’re never sure of what’s actually happening, but it’s really interesting nonetheless. And you can tell it takes from the likes of Evangelion in how abstract the presentation can be
Cons:
- You only have 6 equipment slots the entire game, which did feel a bit restrictive when you have to hold weapons, modules (like the flashlight), ammo and collect numerous puzzle pieces. The only reason you’d need to backtrack in this is to dump stuff into storage cause you couldn’t pick up what you needed, and this happens often enough to be annoying
- Combat is just serviceable. It’s usually easy enough to run by enemies and avoid fights, but boss fights are unsurprisingly a weak point. I wish they weren’t always in these kind of horror games, but they weren’t a frequent part of it at least
- A nitpick but sometimes the door prompts don’t appear unless you move away from them and back again, this tended to be an issue whenever you were in a room running from a bunch of enemies lol
- Great level design with plenty of puzzles to tackle and strong atmosphere/music. With top down survival horror gameplay that emulates those of the PS1 era, it wears its influences on its sleeve but stands out as a well crafted game in its own right
- Its pixel art and visual style are really cool, managing to give a continuous sense of dread as you progress deeper into the facility and the game grows more chaotic
- The story’s a bit difficult to follow as it’s told through disjointed scenes and you’re never sure of what’s actually happening, but it’s really interesting nonetheless. And you can tell it takes from the likes of Evangelion in how abstract the presentation can be
Cons:
- You only have 6 equipment slots the entire game, which did feel a bit restrictive when you have to hold weapons, modules (like the flashlight), ammo and collect numerous puzzle pieces. The only reason you’d need to backtrack in this is to dump stuff into storage cause you couldn’t pick up what you needed, and this happens often enough to be annoying
- Combat is just serviceable. It’s usually easy enough to run by enemies and avoid fights, but boss fights are unsurprisingly a weak point. I wish they weren’t always in these kind of horror games, but they weren’t a frequent part of it at least
- A nitpick but sometimes the door prompts don’t appear unless you move away from them and back again, this tended to be an issue whenever you were in a room running from a bunch of enemies lol
"She'll never dance with us again, no matter what we do."
Or:
"PERHAPS, THIS IS HELL."
What do I even say to this, man? This has been a game I've been meaning to play for a very, very long time and I'm glad I finally finished it, because holy shit. Might write a big review later but I'm too stunned at the moment, that ending genuinely knocked all the air out of me and is pretty easily the closest a game has come to making me cry in ages. fuck.
Or:
"PERHAPS, THIS IS HELL."
What do I even say to this, man? This has been a game I've been meaning to play for a very, very long time and I'm glad I finally finished it, because holy shit. Might write a big review later but I'm too stunned at the moment, that ending genuinely knocked all the air out of me and is pretty easily the closest a game has come to making me cry in ages. fuck.
incredible. the best silent hill-like game, ever. incredibly ui design. love the story, and love how much it lets you figure it out on your own. genuinely jaw dropping at times. never found it too hard. wish there was a greater variety of enemies but its a very minor thing.
Was really hoping to get spooked and blown away by this one after seeing it explode everywhere but uh... who gave all of these zombie robots kitchen knives? I guess the zombie shrieks are unsettling, the bosses have cool designs, the glitches were... uh... glitchy? and I do enjoy the pixelated vibe, but the controls were bad, (not in a way that makes the game intimidating ala RE tank controls) I was never really that scared of anything besides the horrible inventory size, and none of the puzzles ever made me feel smart.
to contribute to the theme of misery in the game, i highly suggest playing this on a switch with joycon drift for an immersive experience!
Hauntingly beautiful, a quasi-metaphorical descent into a hell of gears, flesh and madness. Visually relentless, brutal and visceral, mechanically tight and curiousity-driven, and narratively densly impenetrable yet touchingly human, Signalis wears its inspirations like a badge of honour and showcases the best that each of its genres has achieved in recent decades.
This game deserves proper critique as much as it deserves its praise.
Gameplay is poorly designed. Ammo, inventory space, level design and respawning enemies are all SUFFOCATING. These elements don't work well together and just frustrate you.
Signalis just poorly replicates old mechanics, while forgetting why these elements worked in the first place. Most ps1 RE games had 8-slots inventory while Signalis tightens it to 6, but also constantly drops at you quest items(Like Silent Hill did) that are far more common than in RE. Because of that backtracking reaches insane levels of tedium. Add to that tight corridors filled with enemies that will respawn later on and it becomes even worse. I had far more fun with majority of psx survival horrors despite them being 20 years older than Signalis.
But despite all of that you can swallow it up and gameplay, while annoying, still will be... serviceable. After all, game tries to be story focused. But story isn't that good either.
Remember principle of "Show, not tell" technique? Well, Signalis OVERuses and UNDERuses it at the same time. Let me explain, there's two primary sources of storytelling in Signalis:
1. Vivid dreamy incomprehensible cutscenes with hundred hidden meanings
2. Ten thousand notes and journals that just infodump on you everything with no context.
Remember Silent "two hour videoessay" Hill 2? People keep analyzing it decades after, I know comparing Signalis to THE Silent Hill 2 is unfair, but the story is simple and perfectly comprehensible without German/Chinese knowledge and reading King in Yellow. Silent Hill KNOWS when to be subtle and when to be blatant. Good luck with understanding Signalis though, because game just tells you to screw yourself and figure everything out by yourself.
Story itself isn't bad, but the game is AFRAID to tell you anything. It comes off as pretentious 2deep4u Evangelion wannabe, instead of presenting cohesive storytelling. It's just blueballing you with introducing a lot of cool stuff like replikas' past lives or cosmic horror, but doesn't provide any fricking answer, all is left is fans' theories. Hell, you won't even know why you ended up at Sierpinski in the first place!!!
The game has positive sides, like outstanding art direction or unique lore, but people just straight up ignore fundamental problems that prevent it from being "instant classic" or "greatest silent hill game since silent hill 3". But ig because lesbian representation is so rare, people treat it like angel simply because it has WLW story(Which is thankfully executed really damn well, but introduced WAY TOO LATE).
I really wanted to love this game. Sadly, I couldn't.
Gameplay is poorly designed. Ammo, inventory space, level design and respawning enemies are all SUFFOCATING. These elements don't work well together and just frustrate you.
Signalis just poorly replicates old mechanics, while forgetting why these elements worked in the first place. Most ps1 RE games had 8-slots inventory while Signalis tightens it to 6, but also constantly drops at you quest items(Like Silent Hill did) that are far more common than in RE. Because of that backtracking reaches insane levels of tedium. Add to that tight corridors filled with enemies that will respawn later on and it becomes even worse. I had far more fun with majority of psx survival horrors despite them being 20 years older than Signalis.
But despite all of that you can swallow it up and gameplay, while annoying, still will be... serviceable. After all, game tries to be story focused. But story isn't that good either.
Remember principle of "Show, not tell" technique? Well, Signalis OVERuses and UNDERuses it at the same time. Let me explain, there's two primary sources of storytelling in Signalis:
1. Vivid dreamy incomprehensible cutscenes with hundred hidden meanings
2. Ten thousand notes and journals that just infodump on you everything with no context.
Remember Silent "two hour videoessay" Hill 2? People keep analyzing it decades after, I know comparing Signalis to THE Silent Hill 2 is unfair, but the story is simple and perfectly comprehensible without German/Chinese knowledge and reading King in Yellow. Silent Hill KNOWS when to be subtle and when to be blatant. Good luck with understanding Signalis though, because game just tells you to screw yourself and figure everything out by yourself.
Story itself isn't bad, but the game is AFRAID to tell you anything. It comes off as pretentious 2deep4u Evangelion wannabe, instead of presenting cohesive storytelling. It's just blueballing you with introducing a lot of cool stuff like replikas' past lives or cosmic horror, but doesn't provide any fricking answer, all is left is fans' theories. Hell, you won't even know why you ended up at Sierpinski in the first place!!!
The game has positive sides, like outstanding art direction or unique lore, but people just straight up ignore fundamental problems that prevent it from being "instant classic" or "greatest silent hill game since silent hill 3". But ig because lesbian representation is so rare, people treat it like angel simply because it has WLW story(Which is thankfully executed really damn well, but introduced WAY TOO LATE).
I really wanted to love this game. Sadly, I couldn't.
Signalis is the debut production by rose-engine, a two-person team made up of Barbara Wittmann and Yuri Stern. This is a strong survival horror action game. There's a mechanical emphasis on scarcity, on being thoughtful with your actions. Every attack costs ammunition of some kind, and the game doesn't dole out enough ammunition for you to ever feel too comfortable for too long. As well, your character can only carry six items. There's even an in-fiction reason for it—there's a somewhat spiritual tenet of the culture called The Rule of Six. As you continue to play the game, you learn that having certain items can be dangerous for the androids, in that they may develop problematic, rebellious personalities if they interact with certain ideas or objects; the Rule of Six, which forces you to carefully balance the weapons you're carrying (each taking one slot), the ammunition types (another slot), special items, or keys, while leaving room for pick-ups you might encounter in the world, is a means of oppression, and you feel it. In fact, my only major problem with this game was the number of times I had to backtrack to pick up items or bring the rest of the keys to a door, since some doors can require six keys. This limitation, like the scarce ammo and health drops, successfully evoke the mood its trying to establish.
The art and narrative design of Signalis recalls a lot of other games—the game is honestly homage heavy, which I don't mind, but it might bug others. I might not mind it because I've also been inspired by so much of the same stuff.
The idea of the diametrical replikant/gestalt is straight out of the replicant/gestalts in Nier: Replicant, and the way there is an attempt to manage and control the replikants from developing personalities, and the way similar personalities develop for similar robots regardless of their station, is very Nier: Automata. The first wall safe combination includes the numbers 0451, an homage to the Looking Glass/Ion Storm games. (When I got to this safe I actually tried 0451 to open it, which I always do, but it didn't work; I felt really smart when I completed the puzzle to get the code and it had 0451 in there.) Plugging the various keys into the doors is reminiscent of the colored plates puzzle from Silent Hill, and in general the puzzles recall the first three Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. (And you're constantly jumping down or crawling through holes, like in Silent Hill.) I was also reminded of Control a few times—there's the censorship of certain key-words, and the design of the mine level reminded me a lot of Control's Black Rock Quarry. There's a lot of anime influence. The character designs are reminiscent of the anime Ergo Proxy and Tsutomu Nihei's manga BLAME!, or GANTZ. There's an unmistakable Neon Genesis Evangelion influence in the way the story develops towards its emotionally driven cosmic climax; there's also a weird fiction (my favorite kind) influence in the story: you find a copy of The King In Yellow in the game, and certain places reminded me a lot of what I imagined when reading The Fisherman by John Langan. The HUD and menus also seem inspired by Evangelion. There's an industrial looking funicular elevator that evokes the ones in Evangelion, Akira, and Metal Gear Solid. And of course there's a lot of Alien in the industrial spaceship and planet base designs. The PS1 style models, where the faces are fragmented into polygons evoking the ideas of a face, are used for cut scenes, and are reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill. The game also references The Isle of the Dead), a series of paintings done by Arnold Böcklin who created many different versions of it, and which is homaged often in art, from artists like Salvador Dali to movies like Alien: Covenant.
But the game isn't just its influences. It's effortlessly stylish. The use of German in HUDs and cut-scenes are just cool; the cut-scenes themselves have a rapid editing and strange style to them, cutting between anime style drawn close-ups of characters or objects, text, tech HUDs. The game enters first person in certain spaces, and there are full first-person interludes that gives the game a nice pace. I dug this game, and I'm excited to see where rose-engine goes next.
The art and narrative design of Signalis recalls a lot of other games—the game is honestly homage heavy, which I don't mind, but it might bug others. I might not mind it because I've also been inspired by so much of the same stuff.
The idea of the diametrical replikant/gestalt is straight out of the replicant/gestalts in Nier: Replicant, and the way there is an attempt to manage and control the replikants from developing personalities, and the way similar personalities develop for similar robots regardless of their station, is very Nier: Automata. The first wall safe combination includes the numbers 0451, an homage to the Looking Glass/Ion Storm games. (When I got to this safe I actually tried 0451 to open it, which I always do, but it didn't work; I felt really smart when I completed the puzzle to get the code and it had 0451 in there.) Plugging the various keys into the doors is reminiscent of the colored plates puzzle from Silent Hill, and in general the puzzles recall the first three Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. (And you're constantly jumping down or crawling through holes, like in Silent Hill.) I was also reminded of Control a few times—there's the censorship of certain key-words, and the design of the mine level reminded me a lot of Control's Black Rock Quarry. There's a lot of anime influence. The character designs are reminiscent of the anime Ergo Proxy and Tsutomu Nihei's manga BLAME!, or GANTZ. There's an unmistakable Neon Genesis Evangelion influence in the way the story develops towards its emotionally driven cosmic climax; there's also a weird fiction (my favorite kind) influence in the story: you find a copy of The King In Yellow in the game, and certain places reminded me a lot of what I imagined when reading The Fisherman by John Langan. The HUD and menus also seem inspired by Evangelion. There's an industrial looking funicular elevator that evokes the ones in Evangelion, Akira, and Metal Gear Solid. And of course there's a lot of Alien in the industrial spaceship and planet base designs. The PS1 style models, where the faces are fragmented into polygons evoking the ideas of a face, are used for cut scenes, and are reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill. The game also references The Isle of the Dead), a series of paintings done by Arnold Böcklin who created many different versions of it, and which is homaged often in art, from artists like Salvador Dali to movies like Alien: Covenant.
But the game isn't just its influences. It's effortlessly stylish. The use of German in HUDs and cut-scenes are just cool; the cut-scenes themselves have a rapid editing and strange style to them, cutting between anime style drawn close-ups of characters or objects, text, tech HUDs. The game enters first person in certain spaces, and there are full first-person interludes that gives the game a nice pace. I dug this game, and I'm excited to see where rose-engine goes next.
I love Blade Runner, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, NieR, End of Evangelion, and Ghost in the Shell! They should all be mashed together into an unrecognizable paste!
I'll give some short thoughts on this before pointing out the best softlock ever.
-- The pixel art is fantastic.
-- The horror aesthetic is great.
-- The initial descent into the facility works really well.
-- A particular point in the game where you learn more about your REPLIKA unit was probably my second-favorite moment of the game.
-- Kinda hate that the inventory is only six slots and you're using one of those slots for a necessary item for about half of the game, because it creates a lot of needless backtracking and pushes you to just run through areas instead of engaging enemies (or even dispatching them with tools).
-- The puzzles are a little obtuse at times, but it's not too hard to figure out what's going on most of the time.
But really, I'm here for when I beat the game and it softlocked during my ending. It was such a WTF moment because I'm sitting there on a screen that's not-quite frozen, with the words "YOU SELFISH MONSTER" just stuck on the screen while occasional artifacting happens. I waited ten minutes and then had to go look up the endings to confirm it was a softlock and not something else, since no buttons would give any sort of response to move it along.
YOU SELFISH MONSTER. Yep, that's me! Fun game, but also a real dick for calling me out like that. I got it on sale for 20% off and I think it's worth it at that price, given I got about eight hours out of it for 15 bucks. There's better survival horror out there, but this one definitely feels like a rather unique experience, if nothing else.
-- The pixel art is fantastic.
-- The horror aesthetic is great.
-- The initial descent into the facility works really well.
-- A particular point in the game where you learn more about your REPLIKA unit was probably my second-favorite moment of the game.
-- Kinda hate that the inventory is only six slots and you're using one of those slots for a necessary item for about half of the game, because it creates a lot of needless backtracking and pushes you to just run through areas instead of engaging enemies (or even dispatching them with tools).
-- The puzzles are a little obtuse at times, but it's not too hard to figure out what's going on most of the time.
But really, I'm here for when I beat the game and it softlocked during my ending. It was such a WTF moment because I'm sitting there on a screen that's not-quite frozen, with the words "YOU SELFISH MONSTER" just stuck on the screen while occasional artifacting happens. I waited ten minutes and then had to go look up the endings to confirm it was a softlock and not something else, since no buttons would give any sort of response to move it along.
YOU SELFISH MONSTER. Yep, that's me! Fun game, but also a real dick for calling me out like that. I got it on sale for 20% off and I think it's worth it at that price, given I got about eight hours out of it for 15 bucks. There's better survival horror out there, but this one definitely feels like a rather unique experience, if nothing else.
Hits like a freight and leaves you with a mental parasite so you never forget it
They have since patched in enough room in my inventory for the 5th star
Easily the best game I’ve ever played down to the gameplay artstyle music characters and most importantly the story to the game which is so well done and complex the themes are amazing such as finding your identity/mistaking grief for purpose/love/identity crisis/and the weight of a promise. The game has some of the best endings I’ve ever witnessed with the secret being the best I’ve ever seen overall play Signalis.
Quite possibly one of the prettiest games of a modern era. Puts most other attempts at translating classic survival horror structures to shame.
Somehow manages to also bring a fresh and exciting narrative to the table. It's carried by its presentation, but if you're won over by the visuals the story will likely grab you alongside it.
Lacks some form of subtlety in its aesthetic, which is to say that it doesn't bother to hide where its inspiration comes from. Wish more games were like this. Makes it feel more personal in an odd way.
Soundtrack is pretty good too.
Yah, anyway, play this or you suck at video games and I rebuke you
Somehow manages to also bring a fresh and exciting narrative to the table. It's carried by its presentation, but if you're won over by the visuals the story will likely grab you alongside it.
Lacks some form of subtlety in its aesthetic, which is to say that it doesn't bother to hide where its inspiration comes from. Wish more games were like this. Makes it feel more personal in an odd way.
Soundtrack is pretty good too.
Yah, anyway, play this or you suck at video games and I rebuke you
This is an exceptional game, not to mention one made nearly entirely by two people. Rose-engine perfectly captures what makes Silent Hill/RE formula games so great and adds an awesome sci-fi, analog horror twist to it. My only real complaint about the game was the inventory management, which I felt was a bit too limiting at times considering the variety of weapons at your disposal near the end of the game, but any other issues I had were unsubstantial. The subtle and passive yet coherent storytelling, excellent puzzles that are thoroughly satisfying to solve on your own, and a wholly unique atmosphere and general vibe that deeply resonated with me make Signalis easily one of the best indie games of the year.