Despite not doing anything particularly groundbreaking with the survival horror genre - its mechanics a delightful mesh of everything that worked in the classics, with a particular emphasis on Resident Evil HD - Signalis doesn't feel like it's threading old ground in the slightest. Its triumphs, I believe, stem from the fact that it doesn't at all feel like it's trying to be like any of its particular inspirations, a list that includes Silent Hill, Evangelion, Lovecraft, the retrofuturism movement, and even pieces of real-world history like the Cold War. In that sense, despite feeling very much like a particular something, the vastness from which it pulls makes it impossible to narrow down that particular something into a single thing, leaving a dream-like experience that feels at once both familiar and unfamiliar: the dream-about-dreaming quality that defines the true identity of Signalis.

And it works marvelously in action, a maze of a story that compliments the literal mazes that you will be traversing through the game's 8 to 10 hour duration. Each story beat takes you deeper both into the characters' psyches as well as literally deeper into the holes and crevices that structure the progression of Signalis. Each puzzle presented raises another question about the world, each monster killed awakens a new anxiety about your limited resources. It's an experience that feels incredibly cathartic to finish, and that I couldn't help but replay as soon as it was done.

Nitpicking though, this game made me realize why the early Resident Evils limit saves with the use of an item, as the survivor difficulty in Signalis, combined with its incredibly limited inventory space, incentivizes a gameplay loop in which the player is constantly taking the safest route to and from safe rooms, hurting the heightened sense of tension that it should provide. Were I to rebalance it, I'd add a consumable that would be used to save the game and compensate for it by adding a single extra inventory slot.

I think this might have gotten me into Survival Horror? Like, I finally get what makes it so great?!

This game is pretty much the classic Resis but damn does it do it well, love the resource management and careful inventory management (though I agree the flashlight really shouldn't have taken up a spot).

Enemies are extemely tense to deal with, either sneaking around them or killing them each come with their own risks and costs. Level design is amazing, each one being a sprawling puzzle box that feels great to slowly piece together. Puzzles were the perfect level of difficulty for me, often being decently challenging to solve or keep track of without me ever resorting to looking up a guide (Except for one where I needed a code from hours earlier, because I didn't know how to access the Memories part of the menu due to some UI control inconsistencies).

Also, I live for that the PS1-ish low-poly art style. Especially in the first-person segments, it just looks so nice. Finally, the story is defintely interesting, emotional and maybe even a little avant-garde, though I'm far from fully understanding it. Usually I'm not really a fan of stories that require you to piece everything together with notes and descriptions, but I do want to search around and piece together what's going on, since what I did understand is pretty well-written for what it is.

Overall, this defintely a classic in my eyes, and really deserves your time. I can see some of the old-school horror mechanics not gelling with some people, but roll with its quirks and it'll be well worth the effort- at least in my eyes.

Signalis
#14
PC - Steam
Beaten December 10th, 2022



Signalis is a modern classic, a psychological horror game made up of a dozen influences in gaming, anime and movies over the past 25 years - but instead of feeling derivative, if blends each element together to create something wholly new... and frightening


Pros:
We'll start with presentation, as it's visual design is it's most striking feature and obviously in a class of its own. It has a late-PS1 style graphics albeit with more modern lighting techniques and easily readable textures, crossing Resident Evil, Silent Hill and anime like Bakemonogatari & Evangelion, it's got enough edge to it that you can tell what everything is, but looks blurry enough to be just a bit... off
The story is straightforward but also fragmented, like our protagonist's memory. You are Elster, a robot/cyborg/clone who is searching for their missing girlfriend on an old and decrepit mining colony - one that is currently undergoing a horrifying transformation as all its robot workers are being twisted into monsters, as organic matter is slowly stuffing up the mechnical parts of both the people and the facility itself. As you progress through the facility (with several odd gaps in how you get where and when) you learn more about your past and the woman you're after - and why are others after her as well...? There is a great deal that is referential and open to interpretation which I enjoy, if you get any of the endings other than the one I got (it's okay youtube helped me out) I do feel you get enough closure at least on the main character. It's very much a game more about feeling and presentation rather than plot.
While the static cam is mentioned in the "meh" section below, I must call attention to the several segments of 1st person exploration, each area you wander about in has a distinct vibe to it that adds a great deal of "present"-ness. I wish there were more!!
Lovecraft nods E'RYWHERE! Love it
Music is exceptional, obvious nods to Silent Hill with its somber pianos and contemporary jazz but also some VERY well-placed classical pieces. Like damn man.
Puzzle designs are a visual feast, and most of the puzzles are pretty good, not too tough but not just pushing a button on a pretty background either.

Meh:
Camera angles are a bit too "static" in terms of isometric views? I wish that some rooms changed up the direction a bit.
All characters (with one notable exception) are ladies who look very very similar.... The artist has a type that's for sure lol
Combat is a bit too... fine? Like everything not on the pro's list, it's not like Signalis has any real BAD parts, just things that don't live up to the superb music, visuals & story. The combat is basically just Resident Evil, however there's too much of it and it's not dangerous enough. It borrows the idea of Crimson Head mechanics (dead enemies can come back to life) but they just come back normal so there's no real reason to be too afraid of them, just burn the bodies that are in the main halls so you don't have to waste bullets when going up and down the busy roads solving puzzles and you're A-Okay. Basically the combat encounters need to be tighter - fewer in number, more deadly, more meaningful.
Puzzle FREQUENCY and inconsistency is a bit of an issue, there's too many "get X number of things to open this door" puzzles, and I get they're an homage to RE but ehhh I feel like RE had them paced better? Like there are 10-20 "find weird thing and put it in weird hole" moments in RE1, there are like 100 in Signalis. Puzzles are tough but with so many I felt like we needed more variety.

Cons:

Speaking of lack of variety, my one real issue with Signalis - the levels themselves. 3 of the 4 main areas are basically identical in layout - handful of hallways with handful of similar size rooms with a handful of floors. Find the right puzzle item in one room, head to another room with a very similar size and layout then drop off puzzle coupon and move on til' you're done with that area.. over and over. Of course RE and SH do similar things but their layouts feel very different, the RE levels especially. Wings of the mansion feel very different and unique to the other wings, the labs and outdoors feel very different from the mansion and each other... the majority of Signalis is pretty similar I'm afraid. There's one big exception to (the mines) this which is neat, but it's also by far the shortest. Boooooo!


Hmm:
Seriously why does everyone look so similar...

A couple times a year an indie title comes out and smashes all expectations, your Hades, your Hollow Knights, your Yuppie Psychos... Signalis is made by two people (+2 musicians) and is a colossal achievement. It's questions about identity, about pride, about conformity, about love, about how far you can and should go on behalf of your loved ones... it wants to confuse and intrigue you into following it's bread crumbs, and I gobbled them up all the way through and continue to think on it regularly months later. I look forward to going back again for the secret ending too, though I know it's quite small, knowing sort of what's going on may lead to some very interesting insights on the story I'm curious about!


Final Grade: A

This game excited me a lot at the beginning but by the end, I confess I felt exhausted, this game is resident evil only 100x better (and no ports) but it suffers from issues that were quite simple to fix. Like for example the inventory that is always full of 5 different types of ammunition for a weapon that is practically a reskin of the pistol; And the aim is horrendous (making an obvious reference to the classic resident evil); And the puzzles that look like they were inspired by a spirit possessed by albert einstein after 30 years of taking andrew tate's course, i guess i'm dumb but maybe if the puzzles were a bit clearer and had less backtracking they would be better.

Signalis is a top down 2D version of the classic Resident Evil formula I love so much. I appreciate what they were going for but to me Signalis doesn’t hit the highs of the genre, but it’s still a very well done game.

The story is a bit esoteric with lots of flashy direction with quick cuts to random images that are supposed to mean something different. There are plenty of notes and cutscenes that fill in the story but ultimately leaves much to be interpreted by the player. This works great for those that want to really explore the lore but for me that rather have a story enhance the moment to moment gameplay I kind of checked out. It takes place in the future on some isolated planet after a civilization created androids to pair with humans and sent them to work, well something goes wrong and the androids get infected and boom you have a game with monsters to fight.

You play as Elster, an android looking for her human partner and you are lost in this facility that so happens to have a bunch of locked doors and puzzles to unlock them. Most of the game plays out like a standard survival horror game with limited inventory and ammo as you navigate a maze like location looking for items to advance. There is way too limited space in the inventory, only six slots and you never earn more, this means way too many trips back and forth to the item box. Luckily the level design is pretty well throughout so a save room with an item box is usually just a few rooms away. Levels smartly unlock, creating new paths and locking behind others.

It’s more Silent Hill at times as there are so many damn doors to get into and really boring enemies at the start.

Combat is basic aim and shoot, it’s not supposed to be complicated, combat is just a means to stop the aggressive monsters in your path. There are also defensive items like the ones in REmake. Ultimately it’s better to just run around them especially because these enemies just get up again. I can’t stress how poor of a decision this is because it totally disincentivizes killing an enemy to clear a room which is basically the entire point. Many hours into the game you all of a sudden have fire items that allow you to burn the bodies of defeated enemies, exactly like in REmake. In REmake though that mechanic was tied to the crimson zombies, meaning if you wanted to clear a hall of standard zombies you risk them coming back as powerful monsters, burning them became a smart way to deal with it, and that only applies to the zombies. In this game everything gets up again so you have to pick from very few flame items to kill enemies you think will bother you most, the rest what’s the point in killing them. I felt that whole balance was off for most of the game.

This game does a really weird thing where it has a fake ending and credits that dumps you to the main menu and doesn’t tell you at all to keep playing. I thought the game ended on a bad note, two simple sections that had some good puzzles but lacked in survival. Thankfully the actual final area after the takeout is really well done and increased my final score on this game. Finally we get an area filled with danger and really tested all the ammo conserving and navigating skills needed.

Puzzles are one of this games strength, they are way better than most found in Resident Evil games. The game has this radio signal mechanic where like in metal gear you can change the frequency and hear different messages. This plays into certain puzzles and even one enemy that requires an opposite frequency to beat. Sadly that’s severely underused as it’s only done in very specific spots. There is a weird item that lets you take in game screenshots, why I would waste an item spot on something I can do on every modern gaming device is beyond me but it’s there. I also did not like needed a flashlight taking up space, way too many rooms needed it and there was nothing worse than reaching a new area and have to back track just for the light, so I kept it on me at all times lowering my inventory space to five.

Enemies are rather boring and don’t come in too many types, about five total. Again it’s not really till the end until they really start making hard rooms with lots of big enemies. There are only two bosses, not that great but serviceable. I much rather have more as they usually serve as big show stopping moments to break up locations.

Signalis is a well done survival horror indie game. It nails the spirit of the games and the puzzle solving side but I think failed at the item management and survival part of the game. There are games with better level and enemy designs, I would say Tormented Souls is better at the classic survival horror homage. Still clearly Signalis hits home as many people love the story and it’s still well made.

Score: 6.8

Una premisa buenísima y un estilo artístico y narrativo influido por los survival horror de PSX y animes como Evangelion hacen que este juego sea una auténtica pasada en cuanto mundo, temas y narrativa.

SIN EMBARGO. Sin embargo, el "homenaje" a los survival horror antiguos no le hace ningún favor. El sistema de seis objetos se hace increíblemente frustrante y dar la sensación de solo alargar artificialmente el título, así como un combate que se siente casi superfluo e innecesario.

Una pena, a veces ser más pureta no te hace mejor.