such a boring game with outdated gameplay.
eu cumpri a promessa.
jogaço absurdo, estética impecável
owuehhhh i love you funny robot woman
i feel like my fellow gay bitches online are all lying to me on this one. big issue: i think its story kind of sucks. Signalis is more interested in cryptic lore dumps, ominous poetry, mysteriously censored documents, and spooooky german words than actually setting an atmosphere or crafting a world. the protagonists' romance is supposed to be the beating heart but it read as very bland and hollow, you never get to know much about them and (SPOILERS) they all used to read Word Up magazine anyways. i'm not interested in filling in its blanks because none of it made me feel emotions. this would be fine if it was better to play but Signalis is too easy - its toughest element is its limited inventory, combat is largely avoidable and not too challenging if engaged with. there's not enough friction here, your android girl is a great runner and a great shot. the art direction is very nice, the models and lighting look gorgeous, but there's not enough unique assets in the game. it felt like i was mostly in the same few places fighting the same few enemies the entire time. i do think it succeeds at having some pretty inventive puzzles and i do love the first-person segments, i wish there were more (non-narrarive) setpiece-oriented ones. Signalis had one last thing it could do to hook me, but it loses me here too - none of this game is fucked up! there's never any freaky shit going down, no psychosexual pervert nightmares or nasty stuff or even anything slightly disturbing. i like yuri, i crave that sicko shit!!! Signalis felt like a dystopian teen YA with a bit of sprinkle of Twilight Syndrome and sci-fi militarism, very tame for what was supposed to be a hellish pseudo-reality.
Signalis is game i thought i would pick up, finish in 10 or so hours but then forget about, but this game has stuck in my head for far longer than i thought it would and im not sure exactly why, the story of this game is genuinely incomprehensible on a first playthrough and i believe it is intended to be that way, the game will frequently break away from its fix perspective survival horror to delve into atmospheric walking simulators which seem entirely unrelated to the game at hand, these sections while confusing are a big part of why the game stuck with me, speaking of environments, the various locations the game takes place across are stunning, in a bad way (but its a horror game so i guess thats a good thing?) nowhere still sticks in my head with its fleshy design, and despite alot of the environment feeling like generic sci-fi filler, for some reason signalis manages to stand out with environmental story telling as well as having a lived in feeling to all the locations ive yapped alot about stuff secondary to the gameplay and its, well i cant call it great since survival horror gameplay is by design simplistic since it hinges more on scariness and the tension of resource management instead of the moment to moment gameplay itself, so all ill say is aside from a lack of enemy variety the actual gameplay was perfectly functional
An exhilarating and engaging thrill ride. It kept me on my toes start to finish and always threw in curve balls I didn't expect
The presentation here is masterful and just stunning. The music, the animations, the cuts and edits. Everything about this game is just striking and provocative. This makes it go beyond being an inspiration from Resident Evil or Silent Hill. It is something else entirely.
The gameplay itself is also pretty damn great. You have such limited inventory space that every venture out of the safe room is risky. Ammo is scarce. And enemies don't stay down unless you go out of your way to deal with them.
I have very minor gripes in certain areas, but not enough for it to majorly impact the game. In general most of the puzzles were great, but some I felt like leaned into more annoying tropes most games have. Having to write everything about it down and going back and forth and just repeating what you have been provided. Or needing to backtrack to a room just to get a code for something. It's hard to explain without going into detail, but some of the puzzles felt more like busy work than solving something.
Enemy variety is also lacking in this one. There are maybe 3-4 enemy types but they don't really function too differently from each other. And I also feel like it's too easy to just run past everything. There are certain rooms where it's tight and narrow and hard to get by without taking a hit. But you're way faster than any enemy so as long as you're moving they'll never catch you.
I think those are my major gripes. The game was excellent otherwise. One i won't forget about any time soon.
The presentation here is masterful and just stunning. The music, the animations, the cuts and edits. Everything about this game is just striking and provocative. This makes it go beyond being an inspiration from Resident Evil or Silent Hill. It is something else entirely.
The gameplay itself is also pretty damn great. You have such limited inventory space that every venture out of the safe room is risky. Ammo is scarce. And enemies don't stay down unless you go out of your way to deal with them.
I have very minor gripes in certain areas, but not enough for it to majorly impact the game. In general most of the puzzles were great, but some I felt like leaned into more annoying tropes most games have. Having to write everything about it down and going back and forth and just repeating what you have been provided. Or needing to backtrack to a room just to get a code for something. It's hard to explain without going into detail, but some of the puzzles felt more like busy work than solving something.
Enemy variety is also lacking in this one. There are maybe 3-4 enemy types but they don't really function too differently from each other. And I also feel like it's too easy to just run past everything. There are certain rooms where it's tight and narrow and hard to get by without taking a hit. But you're way faster than any enemy so as long as you're moving they'll never catch you.
I think those are my major gripes. The game was excellent otherwise. One i won't forget about any time soon.
This is definitely a really good game, but I think I just... played it wrong and didn't enjoy myself as much as I have in other survival horror.
Story and atmosphere are superb, just felt like all aspects of the combat was very meh and I regret playing on hard as it kind of gameified this much more narrative-driven piece.
Story and atmosphere are superb, just felt like all aspects of the combat was very meh and I regret playing on hard as it kind of gameified this much more narrative-driven piece.
quien para???
I love you Signalis.
Gonna need to stew on this for a while before I can write of a full review.
This is one of the best games I have ever played. An artistic and storytelling masterpiece, especially for people who love old school horror games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil and are not afraid of complex storytelling.
If you want a meaningful and beautiful but soul crushingly depressing story, play this.
I got it on game pass, couldn’t finish it because I wanted to buy it. Haven’t done it yet, but what I played was goated.
Signalis est un jeu qui nous signale dès son écran d'accueil qu'il a capté le signal suivant : « Industrie AAA décédée. Enterrement en permanence. Sentiments distingués.»
Il a donc décidé d'être un jeu indé absolument culte, ce qui est un choix des plus appréciables.
Honnêtement, avoir une longue discussion sur le gameplay de Signalis ne m'intéresse pas vraiment, il est là, il est peaufiné pour fonctionner avec son genre, le survival-horror et il faut jouer avec le mode de base contenant l’inventaire limité. Et les passages en 3D sont diablement magnifiques et goûteux.
Non, ce qui est vraiment appréciable avec Signalis, c’est la jonction formidable entre le fond et la forme. Alors c’est très drôle parce que comme ma dernière phrase, on pourrait croire que via ses références alambiquées, le jeu se donne un air intellectuel, un péché que transgressent en permanence les jeux “deeps” qui s’étouffent en référence toutes plus hasardeuse les unes que les autres.
Il y a un un spectre à observer ici pour rester honnête, il faut que le jeu porte des références cools juste parce que c’est stylé et qu’il assume que c’est stylé, ou, comme c’est le cas pour Signalis, que ses références fonctionnent avec ses thématiques. Entre ces deux cas, on a ce qu’on peut nommer très vulgairement, la branlette intellectuelle, ou le posing.
J’ai joué à ma petite dose de jeu et la catégorie penchant vers le spectre comportant Signalis semble aussi disparue que la matrice du protagoniste dans l’Étranger de Camus, et c’est pour ça que j’ai envie de pointer le télescope de cette analyse vers les élégants anneaux de références ( Toutes ! ) tournoyant autour de Signalis.
Dans le jeu, on a un cas d’école magnifique, comme si le jeu avait sélectionné sa référence pour expliquer avec la maîtrise d’un chef d’orchestre comment ça fonctionne ici.
“ Die Toteninsel “ ou l’Île des Morts, de Arnold Böcklin, est une série de tableaux du 19e siècle. Cette œuvre est réputée comme très profonde, très spirituelle, une véritable invitation à se griller une sèche, l'air pensif. De ce fait, (Kino Der) Toteninsel est très souvent utilisé comme placeholder de réflexion profonde ( deep ) .Il faut y voir une version annexe du Saturne dévorant un de ses fils, de Goya ( le tableau est dans le jeu très furtivement au passage ).
L’utilisation et la place centrale accordée à l’Île des Morts dans Signalis n’est pas qu’une coquille vide, sa présence est justifiée par la façon dont les thématiques abordées dans le jeu, ses mots, son ambiance et son symbolisme s’entrecoupent avec l’oeuvre pour dépasser son essence et l’amener vers une nouvelle île de réflexion. On prend la barque de Charon ( Χάρων ), et on lui demande de nous emmener derrière l’île.
Il en est de même concernant la présence récurrente du “ Roi en Jaune “ ( The King in Yellow ) de Robert W. Chambers, que l’on peut interpréter au passage comme une volonté de dépasser la sacro-sainte référence à Lovecraft dès lors qu’une histoire d’horreur se déroule dans l’Espace, Chambers proposant dans son recueil de nouvelles un pont entre Poe et Howard, au même titre que Signalis propose un pont entre l’ambiance du livre, la nouvelle de la Demoiselle d’Ys et l’essence du jeu.
La force des références de ce genre, que je vais cantonner à ces 2 exemples, car ils sont les plus présents et donc, ici, les plus forts, c’est la façon dont ils s’inscrivent dans un ensemble qui leur répondent, entraînant ainsi une cascade de réponses qui permet à ces références de se transcender et d’enfin, dans un élan quasi mystique tant il est délicieux de le vivre et de l’observer, proposer un intellectualisme propre et honnête.
Le jeu n’est pas en train de simuler qu’il est profond et très intelligent en utilisant des références qui le sont connotées elles aussi, il donne un sens et un contexte qui font repenser les références et font repenser le jeu. Et ça, c’est suffisamment rare pour être noté, c’est d’ailleurs ce qui m’a le plus secoué en jouant au jeu, la cohésion totale de son tout, la résonance entre ses parties.
Signalis est un jeu qui nous signale dès son écran d'accueil : « Le Fond et la Forme, le Fond pour la Forme et la Forme pour le Fond »
Il a donc décidé d'être un jeu indé absolument culte, ce qui est un choix des plus appréciables.
Honnêtement, avoir une longue discussion sur le gameplay de Signalis ne m'intéresse pas vraiment, il est là, il est peaufiné pour fonctionner avec son genre, le survival-horror et il faut jouer avec le mode de base contenant l’inventaire limité. Et les passages en 3D sont diablement magnifiques et goûteux.
Non, ce qui est vraiment appréciable avec Signalis, c’est la jonction formidable entre le fond et la forme. Alors c’est très drôle parce que comme ma dernière phrase, on pourrait croire que via ses références alambiquées, le jeu se donne un air intellectuel, un péché que transgressent en permanence les jeux “deeps” qui s’étouffent en référence toutes plus hasardeuse les unes que les autres.
Il y a un un spectre à observer ici pour rester honnête, il faut que le jeu porte des références cools juste parce que c’est stylé et qu’il assume que c’est stylé, ou, comme c’est le cas pour Signalis, que ses références fonctionnent avec ses thématiques. Entre ces deux cas, on a ce qu’on peut nommer très vulgairement, la branlette intellectuelle, ou le posing.
J’ai joué à ma petite dose de jeu et la catégorie penchant vers le spectre comportant Signalis semble aussi disparue que la matrice du protagoniste dans l’Étranger de Camus, et c’est pour ça que j’ai envie de pointer le télescope de cette analyse vers les élégants anneaux de références ( Toutes ! ) tournoyant autour de Signalis.
Dans le jeu, on a un cas d’école magnifique, comme si le jeu avait sélectionné sa référence pour expliquer avec la maîtrise d’un chef d’orchestre comment ça fonctionne ici.
“ Die Toteninsel “ ou l’Île des Morts, de Arnold Böcklin, est une série de tableaux du 19e siècle. Cette œuvre est réputée comme très profonde, très spirituelle, une véritable invitation à se griller une sèche, l'air pensif. De ce fait, (Kino Der) Toteninsel est très souvent utilisé comme placeholder de réflexion profonde ( deep ) .Il faut y voir une version annexe du Saturne dévorant un de ses fils, de Goya ( le tableau est dans le jeu très furtivement au passage ).
L’utilisation et la place centrale accordée à l’Île des Morts dans Signalis n’est pas qu’une coquille vide, sa présence est justifiée par la façon dont les thématiques abordées dans le jeu, ses mots, son ambiance et son symbolisme s’entrecoupent avec l’oeuvre pour dépasser son essence et l’amener vers une nouvelle île de réflexion. On prend la barque de Charon ( Χάρων ), et on lui demande de nous emmener derrière l’île.
Il en est de même concernant la présence récurrente du “ Roi en Jaune “ ( The King in Yellow ) de Robert W. Chambers, que l’on peut interpréter au passage comme une volonté de dépasser la sacro-sainte référence à Lovecraft dès lors qu’une histoire d’horreur se déroule dans l’Espace, Chambers proposant dans son recueil de nouvelles un pont entre Poe et Howard, au même titre que Signalis propose un pont entre l’ambiance du livre, la nouvelle de la Demoiselle d’Ys et l’essence du jeu.
La force des références de ce genre, que je vais cantonner à ces 2 exemples, car ils sont les plus présents et donc, ici, les plus forts, c’est la façon dont ils s’inscrivent dans un ensemble qui leur répondent, entraînant ainsi une cascade de réponses qui permet à ces références de se transcender et d’enfin, dans un élan quasi mystique tant il est délicieux de le vivre et de l’observer, proposer un intellectualisme propre et honnête.
Le jeu n’est pas en train de simuler qu’il est profond et très intelligent en utilisant des références qui le sont connotées elles aussi, il donne un sens et un contexte qui font repenser les références et font repenser le jeu. Et ça, c’est suffisamment rare pour être noté, c’est d’ailleurs ce qui m’a le plus secoué en jouant au jeu, la cohésion totale de son tout, la résonance entre ses parties.
Signalis est un jeu qui nous signale dès son écran d'accueil : « Le Fond et la Forme, le Fond pour la Forme et la Forme pour le Fond »
ho capito la nostalgia però no grazie
a disturbingly GOOOOOD romp through a mish mash of all the stuff i like (and the stuff you like too if the stuff you like is Ghost in The Shell and Lovecraft and Resident Evil 1/2 and Silent Hill 1 and Soviet era aesthetics(?) and Clive Barker and other such things) a beautiful, stressful, very good time. lesbians
seriously one of the best survival horror games I've played, with peak story, music, and atmosphere
Yuri.
A JOURNEY LIKE NO OTHER!
It starts off like a creepy, old school, silent hill inspired, game with cool graphic and top tier OST (might be my favorite of all time honestly) but ends with an even more amazing visuals and story that leaves you with a feeling of shock and awe. From the first moment you are greeted with an eerie theme of the opening of the game menu that sets the tone for the rest of the game.
The mix of melancholy, depressing and, in the right moments, inspiring songs is insane. Tracks like Emptiness and The Promise amplify the already beautifully visual game moments, while Double Back and Turned Around deepen the grim atmosphere while trying to stay alive.
Gameplay itself is a mix of basic, but well made and enjoyable, combat and puzzle solving that takes you all around the map with lots of details that subtly hint on the settings and morals of the outer world.
Enemies are not too hard and not too annoying to deal with but still challenging enough to fear them for hitting you, puzzles also aren't hard as to have to google some or most of them.
Main story is harder to piece together for the most of the game because of abstract, yet beautiful, and sometimes vague storytelling but if you persist you will be rewarded with a gut wrenching finale and conclusion, full of themes of perseverance and undying love.
The game is not too long and it makes good use of map design so that it keeps things interesting. There are several endings which i think fit well with the motif and the atmosphere but you still get the full picture of the story whichever one you get.
I'd say overall this is a must play for people who like silent hill/resident evil type game and also for people who enjoy surreal, macabre and abstract worlds.
It starts off like a creepy, old school, silent hill inspired, game with cool graphic and top tier OST (might be my favorite of all time honestly) but ends with an even more amazing visuals and story that leaves you with a feeling of shock and awe. From the first moment you are greeted with an eerie theme of the opening of the game menu that sets the tone for the rest of the game.
The mix of melancholy, depressing and, in the right moments, inspiring songs is insane. Tracks like Emptiness and The Promise amplify the already beautifully visual game moments, while Double Back and Turned Around deepen the grim atmosphere while trying to stay alive.
Gameplay itself is a mix of basic, but well made and enjoyable, combat and puzzle solving that takes you all around the map with lots of details that subtly hint on the settings and morals of the outer world.
Enemies are not too hard and not too annoying to deal with but still challenging enough to fear them for hitting you, puzzles also aren't hard as to have to google some or most of them.
Main story is harder to piece together for the most of the game because of abstract, yet beautiful, and sometimes vague storytelling but if you persist you will be rewarded with a gut wrenching finale and conclusion, full of themes of perseverance and undying love.
The game is not too long and it makes good use of map design so that it keeps things interesting. There are several endings which i think fit well with the motif and the atmosphere but you still get the full picture of the story whichever one you get.
I'd say overall this is a must play for people who like silent hill/resident evil type game and also for people who enjoy surreal, macabre and abstract worlds.
This review contains spoilers
Cryptic, tragic, suspenseful, and a loving homage to PS1 survival horror. I’ve seen the critique that this is anti-communism and, no??? It reads more as a condemnation of a totalitarian and militaristic nation which wants to reduce people solely to their role or profits. Governments that have done this are communist in name and name alone, using bastardized, extremist forms of that ideology. It’s moreso a critique of totalitarianism and weaponizing any ideology to fit it, and the metaphorical, or literal decay that is a product. It’s the same as when someone reads 1984 or Animal Farm, and concludes Orwell to be viscerally against Communism, which is simply not the case when the man was a Socialist who spoke against totalitarian states who would weaponize such ideals through his writing. In the case of this game, any indulgence is all but forbidden, or characterized as a fetish when Replikas indulge. When people are characterized only by their function and gross output in a society, love and happiness are luxuries. That’s the message I feel is here. And it’s a haunting one in a story where we have to piece so much together. I don’t think the game is PERFECT, and I wish the gunplay was better, with me finding aiming cumbersome at times. Great game, though. I understand it won’t be for everyone with how its storytelling can be vague, but that’s the intent.
I do think there’s a conversation to be had about its use of DDR iconography (the devs are from Hamburg), but to say that that’s its full message feels inherently wrong, and there’s more to it than that.
I do think there’s a conversation to be had about its use of DDR iconography (the devs are from Hamburg), but to say that that’s its full message feels inherently wrong, and there’s more to it than that.
Have to give it another play
i'll write a more complicated review later, but this game is genuinely beautiful.
its peak
If you are sad that bloober team is going to stomp on everything that Silent Hill 2 is all about with their eventual dogshit remake than don't worry because the best silent hill game made since 3 is right here! Enjoy this game while you can before people try and tell you it’s overrated or nothing but annoying people talk about it and get you mad
After losing my save when the game came out and putting off replaying back to where i was 2 years later i am happy i finally did it. I knew i would love it, i knew it would be amazing and still it blew me away.
After losing my save when the game came out and putting off replaying back to where i was 2 years later i am happy i finally did it. I knew i would love it, i knew it would be amazing and still it blew me away.
Que juego más bueno, visualmente es genial y el gameplay esta chulo (aunque a veces sea un poco jodido). Uno de los mejores indies que he jugado, de los mejores survival horrors por 10 horas
Masterpiece
damn, it only took me 6 months of processing to write this review
this game has hands down the densest atmosphere of anything i've ever played. a lot of this lies with my priorities- that is to say, sound design above all. even sitting in a brightly lit room, i can feel myself transported into the desolate corridors of signalis simply by listening to audio of the game on youtube. the whirrs and whines of the desktop. the click of elster's pointy feet on the metal floor. the muffled soundtrack that often blurs the line between the mechanical ambience of an automated place left abandoned and traditional composition. combine these immaculate soundsketches with the inky black visuals often only punctuated by the fuzzy lights of old tech and unforgettable art direction (top 10 coolest looking video game women list could consist of this entire cast) and you get a world that needs no scares to create tension. it feels like i myself am trapped there, am one with elster exploring these grim, haunted rooms. when simply walking around is so captivating independent of any mechanics, the decision to focus on a gradually disturbing non-linear story rather than straightforward scares (as would be default for modern horror games) is got damn poetry. that oneness i experienced with elster applies doubly as i watch her unfold this tragic penrose-ian mystery. i think it's notable how signalis primarily creates horror from the transhumanist and queer themes. it gives the story a heady cyberpunk edge i wouldn't expect from a survival horror title, but now that i've played this i don't understand why more games don't combine the two. for all of the blunt references, it's awe-inspiring how everything comes together to form that feels something new even for someone (me) who has experienced nearly all the media the creators are pulling from.
that being said the combat is piss-easy even on survival mode (i beat it in 5 hours carrying no health or weapons except for boss fights) and i kind of wish it was just like a puzzle game or something. not that the puzzles are tend to be fun or brain-stimulating either? the fact that the developer has had add a patch to make the game easier is so funny when you compare the difficulty to any ps2 survival horror game. kind of a massive milquetoast blotch on the game, but hey, what can you do. at least the low difficulty means that you'll spend most of the non-story time walking around, and damn, isn't this a great game to just walk around in.
this game has hands down the densest atmosphere of anything i've ever played. a lot of this lies with my priorities- that is to say, sound design above all. even sitting in a brightly lit room, i can feel myself transported into the desolate corridors of signalis simply by listening to audio of the game on youtube. the whirrs and whines of the desktop. the click of elster's pointy feet on the metal floor. the muffled soundtrack that often blurs the line between the mechanical ambience of an automated place left abandoned and traditional composition. combine these immaculate soundsketches with the inky black visuals often only punctuated by the fuzzy lights of old tech and unforgettable art direction (top 10 coolest looking video game women list could consist of this entire cast) and you get a world that needs no scares to create tension. it feels like i myself am trapped there, am one with elster exploring these grim, haunted rooms. when simply walking around is so captivating independent of any mechanics, the decision to focus on a gradually disturbing non-linear story rather than straightforward scares (as would be default for modern horror games) is got damn poetry. that oneness i experienced with elster applies doubly as i watch her unfold this tragic penrose-ian mystery. i think it's notable how signalis primarily creates horror from the transhumanist and queer themes. it gives the story a heady cyberpunk edge i wouldn't expect from a survival horror title, but now that i've played this i don't understand why more games don't combine the two. for all of the blunt references, it's awe-inspiring how everything comes together to form that feels something new even for someone (me) who has experienced nearly all the media the creators are pulling from.
that being said the combat is piss-easy even on survival mode (i beat it in 5 hours carrying no health or weapons except for boss fights) and i kind of wish it was just like a puzzle game or something. not that the puzzles are tend to be fun or brain-stimulating either? the fact that the developer has had add a patch to make the game easier is so funny when you compare the difficulty to any ps2 survival horror game. kind of a massive milquetoast blotch on the game, but hey, what can you do. at least the low difficulty means that you'll spend most of the non-story time walking around, and damn, isn't this a great game to just walk around in.
I got it on game pass, couldn’t finish it because I wanted to buy it. Haven’t done it yet, but what I played was goated.
"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.