Wow, what a masterpiece. This definitely made its way into my all time favorite games and is one of the best horror games I’ve ever played. It’s an incredible piece of survival horror with its own unique style and some of the best art direction I’ve ever seen. What it takes and honors from its predecessors it does masterfully.

I’m still in awe of this games style and imagery. The way it mixes dystopian future, multiple languages, with this lovecraftian Silent Hill esque gore is amazing. It also has potent themes that give this existential horror dread. The gameplay is a blast and I love all the Resident Evil item management mechanics. The puzzles are tough but really fun to figure and really well made. The level design is perfect as well. The soundtrack is hauntingly eerie, but beautiful.

All in all one of my favorite games ever and had a really big impact on me

it's very easy to just write "waow scary robot yuri very good" for signalis, and that's because god damn its all of that. but i think it's better to really talk more about it, because signalis is simultaneously an extremely tight package and an open ending showcase of melancholy atmospheres and tragedy. there's a lot of focus on a lack of focus, levels slowly bleeding into each other and becoming more and more hazy and nonsensical as time goes on. story actively refusing true clarity, damning the wiki based lore worldbuilding for a deeper emotional understanding that seeps into your brain. the controls are precise in ways that are alien to immediately get to grasp, especially if you're weird like me and played with the original tank controls. i think most people who play signalis have a deep understanding of the story, and the world, and the emotions of it, but when asked would probably struggle to give you a directly accurate picture of it. and i kinda love that. it's made to sit in your mind in places games rarely choose to, and that alone makes it incredible.

The art style, atmosphere, and gameplay introduction to this game really set it up to be something special for me, but as soon as the main loop of gameplay was introduced it lost all of its luster.

The combat just straight-up sucks, it is not fun to fight these zombies. Maybe I am just not into survival horror as a genre because I did not enjoy how the inventory system is handled at all. The puzzles also left a lot to be desired, they felt clever a couple of times but were mainly frustrating to get through.

The environments all look the same, the enemies all look the same, and the music is pretty non-existent from the parts that I have played. From what I have heard and watched of this game's story it also seems like it is not for me.

All of the above made it so that I couldn't continue it, I 100% understand why people like this game. It has a very specific audience it is trying to appeal to and it does a great job at it, but I am not a part of that audience.

Maybe I can give it another shot in the future but it won't be any time soon.

What an amazing piece of media.

Signalis is a lovecraftian, sci-fi spacial game that behaves as a silent hill game with a lot of emphasis in the narrative, there's a lot of foreshadowing and hints everywhere.

The music is great, the ambient is mindblowing, the references from art, literature and history are great, the puzzles are really interesting too, and the whole idea of the story is really crazy.

The vibes from resident Evil creep in from the first launch of the game. But this game is several times more mature than its predecessors and much smarter, the riddles are original and not too difficult (most often solved quickly), but there are some stereotyped ones at the level of “collect 6 objects and push them into one hole.” The plot is open and rather peculiar, but thanks to the notes, almost everything can be put together and better understand this world. Signalis is a mixture of horror and with the same horror that I experienced while playing the games of the Silent Hill line and it is worth playing.

Вайбы от резидента евила проскальзывают с первого запуска игры. Но эта игра в несколько раз взрослее, своих предщественников и намного умнее, загадки оригинальные и не слишком геморойные (чаще всего решаются быстро) но есть шаблонные на уровне "собери 6 предметов и запихни их в одну дырку". Сюжет открытый и довольно своебразный, но благодаря запискам почти все можно собрать в кучу и получше понять этот мир. Signalis это смесь хоррора и с тем самым ужасом, который я испытывал проходя игры линейки Сайлент хила и в нее стоит поиграть.

Signalis is a really good survival horror game that takes inspiration from Resident Evil and Silent Hill, mixes it with a bit of Lovecraft and leaves you with a brilliantly tragic title that left me wishing there was more of it.

Some of the coolest stylization of any horror game I've experienced, each cutscene was done really really well and it managed to be both scary but also stunning in its beauty. This game is more about the world and the story than its combat and enemies, but I found this tragic tale more than enough to satisfy me where shooting didn't.

- strong aesthetic
- memorable, atmospheric music
- depressing ass story
- well done lesbian romance
it's peak , i fear

i fuckign live for things like this

Esse jogo é espetacular! (e tenso)

Signalis é um jogo de survival horror hardcore (difícil que só o caraio) no estilo de jogos antigos de franquias como resident evil. Temos como protagonista Elster (LSTR-512), uma Replika (uma espécie de ciborgue) que tem como objetivo de cumprir uma certa promessa... Agora que promessa é essa? Jogue e tente descobrir!

Ao começar a jogar, senti que o jogo seria diferencial logo no começo. O jogo consegue passar seu tutorial de forma imersiva no universo do jogo, através de banners dentro das instalações.

Sua ambientação é simplesmente fantástica! Você está preso em uma instalação vazia, apenas com criaturas sinistras (e inspiradas em silent hill). O Jogo passa, através dos cenários, uma incrível sensação de vazio e perigo...

Poderia ficar 5 anos aqui discutindo sobre os simbolismos desse jogo (acredite, ele abre MUITA margem para interpretações, até mesmo da forma que o controle vibra no final pode simbolizar algo).

A gameplay é simples e muito bem feita. Ela se baseia nos clássicos survivol horrors do passado, então você deve se manter atento para não apanhar atoa, já que recursos são limitados.

É muito bom explorar nesse jogo! toda a base subterrânea é incrível e recursos aqui são estritamente limitados, fazendo você passar as áreas na corda bamba.
O sistema de inventário te limita a 6 itens, o que pode te atrapalhar muitas vezes, sem conseguir pegar itens chaves e ter que voltar para pegar, o que deixa o jogo muito difícil e muito interessante também.

Esse jogo só tem um problema, e um grave: Ele não tem tradução para PT-BR! Talvez você possa correr o risco de ficar perdido por não falar a língua inglesa.

Estudei bastante a história desse jogo para a sessão de spoiler de hoje, porém eu NÃO vou comentá-la já que eu prefiro que vocês possam experienciar esse jogo!

Eu recomendo esse jogo a TODOS! Joguem essa obra prima!!!! Esse jogo merece muito reconhecimento!!!

9/52

Above all else, Signalis captures, molds, and refines its atmospheres and themes in such a deliberate way that you feel like you know exactly what you're in for - but never exactly when.

Never knowing quite how or why you've come to this place becomes only more terrifying the deeper you dig; discovering and piecing together the scattered facets of who you are, were, and should have been. I don't think I've ever been so compelled to keep a promise, especially so for not even knowing what it was.

When I play this again, it will be to open that damned safe.

A beautiful game with striking visuals, mixed perspectives, great directing, excellent sound design, and a bit challenging to top it off.

And while it certainly passes the Vibe Check and is the exact type of graphics that appeals to me, a gamer, I just couldn’t click with it in the end—literally. It’s a great game and one I recommend, but your mileage will vary WILDLY on the story, how it’s presented, and what it ultimately leads up to.

I simply didn’t understand what the hell was going on nor why I should care, period. I barely even know the name of who I’m playing until an NPC finally said it. The mix of German and Chinese for a sort of… I suppose aesthetic choice also doesn’t help, as there are key moments in cutscenes that aren’t in English. Yes, to my ignorant semi-monolingual brain it LOOKS cool, but I’d’ve rather understood what was literally being said over pure aesthetics. My feelings eventually pivoted to it being too pretentious.

And to that end, what cutscenes there were made no sense to the average player, not unless you were a YouTube video game lore analyzer like VatiVidya whose actual livelihood depends on it. They chose the FromSoft method of story telling, but forgot that it was a story-centric survival horror game and not a gameplay-centric action RPG. Even Silent Hill gives you some fucked up idea of what’s going on some times.

Simply put, 10 hours is what it took for me to beat it, but it would take another 10+ just to figure out what’s going on—and that’s not taking into account the multiple endings, which was visually great but who the hell is that and why did any of it happen?! I swear I’m not that dumb, please make it make sense!

To sum up, it’s a visually incredible, creepy, challenging indie horror game worth your time. And while I personally love vague storytelling, it was far too opaque for my taste—almost like the famous novel Roadside Picnic, with cool ideas but no central thread to latch onto.

I still recommend it, I enjoyed a great deal of it, but was let down by the Who, What, and Why.

SIGNALIS starts by following an android named Elster searching industrial sites for a lost human companion. Along the way, reality proves unreliable as identity, physics and recollection fracture. The world depicted is a totalitarian interplanetary regime which ruthlessly exploits human and synthetic beings. Elster served alongside a human companion called Ariane onboard a doomed spacecraft called the Penrose which seemingly became lost to deep space. Much remains enigmatic regarding promises made between the two amidst shared trauma and the true nature of the psychic force called "bioresonance”. But tender bonds endure despite inexorable forces eroding the integrity of their bodies and memories.

SIGNALIS is a also a love letter to classic survival horror titles Silent Hill and Resident Evil, on a surface level. But it goes beyond cheaply referencing them in crafting its own unique world and narrative, which has been the subject of much subsequent discussion in the form of video essays and discussions online. The true nature of the story is intentionally ambiguous on some levels, and so those looking for a cut-and-dry linear tale which puts all its cards on the table might be frustrated. But for those who derive satisfaction in delving into the symbolism, decoding strange puzzles, and considering questions about personal identity, what's real and unreal--you may well enjoy SIGNALIS's enigmatic, intricately crafted story. Though it's not necessary to do so in order to enjoy the haunting atmosphere, soundtrack, and familiar, retro style survival horror gameplay.

I've been thinking about this game for a long time since finishing it, and since it's simple enough to finish it in well under ten hours, I even played through it again (which is rare for me!). So for these reasons, I can happily recommend SIGNALIS.

I really enjoyed this game. Honestly, my only complaint was that the inventory should have been 8 slots instead of 6. Signalis is the type of game where the storytelling is vague but gives just enough story and context for the player to form their own opinions on what really happened and I think it pulled it off well. Most of the game's story is told in notes, which may be a turn off for some people, but the notes were so interesting to read for me that I just loved how each note unveiled more and more of the lore. Signalis wears it's sh2 inspiration on its sleeve but by no means copies it and is a very unique game. Good game for horror fans. Elster/Ariane forever <3

Ojalá me gustaran los juegos de este género. Me encantaría decir que he disfrutado muchísimo de los sustos, de los sonidos estridentes o de los enemigos que se recuperan súbitamente para darle un golpe a tu corazón. Pero no es así y, pese a ello, he disfrutado muchísimo de lo que ofrece Signalis.
No hace falta darle muchas vueltas a que el juego lo hayan hecho sólo 2 personas, que ha estado en desarrollo por más de un lustro o que recupera lo mejor de los clásicos del género, porque aunque no fuese así, Signalis es un juego que se disfruta muchísimo.
En gran parte, esto se debe a un cuidado detalle a todos sus apartados, favoreciendo una ambientación que corrompe de la misma manera al jugador como a la protagonista. Ofreciendo en todo momento pequeños trucos que no nos permiten sentirnos a gusto pese a tener una escopeta en las manos.

this feels like it was constructed specifically for me and my tastes: a throwback survival horror with low-poly ps1 graphics and brutalist retrofuture aesthetics that goes all in on questions of identity, queerness, companionship, memory, trauma, and decay. in ways, this feels like a sort of grand greek tragedy; in others, it feels like an evolution of the kinds of impressionistic vibes-based horror games that spewed out of the 2000s rpgmaker scene. the ending (i got memory) legitimately destroyed me, and the narrative felt so finely tuned yet so intentionally vague and open to interpretation that i can already tell this is going to live in my head for a while as i turn over what i think happened.

this is a game that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, be they ludic (resident evil 2, 3, and the 2002 remake of re1, silent hill 1 through 4, nier, metal gear solid 1 & 2) and not (david lynch, evangelion, lovecraft/cosmic horror, eugen bracht, kubrick and the shining, cronenberg, blame!, ghost in the shell). for some, that is to the games detriment; for me, signalis feels like it is in conversation with those other texts, rather than being simply derivative. everything blends together nicely and feels cohesive, and the various elements that have been taken from other works are used effectively to contribute to and build on the thematic ideas that people like lynch, anno, cronenberg, and lovecraft explored in their own work. also, i always appreciate it when a video game takes inspiration or influence from non-video game works of art beyond aping blockbuster action movies or taking a novel art style!

i blasted through this, and even when i wasn't playing it, i was still thinking about signalis. it has pretty much instantly shot up into maybe my top 5-10 games of all time - i'm looking forward to replaying it immediately on survival difficulty and getting that secret ending, too.

I was interested in this one for a while & was gifted this one from a friend. As someone who recently played Silent Hill 2 I was craving for another survival horror game.

The visuals have that low poly feel but it works beautifully & the cutscenes are so stylish with the gorgeous red backgrounds & sprite work. The use of horror is amazing & requires you to be careful with your resources though I would say they were times that backtracking to pick up older equipment can be a bit tedious. The story is fantastic too living things up to the player to their imagination but leaves up enough information for the player to get the gist of it. If you love sci-fi & horror stories & enjoy survival horror games like Silent Hill 2 pick up Signalis.

To preface this review: I would like to state that I'm exceptionally unfamiliar with the Survival Horror genre- outside of multiplayer titles I've been convinced into playing, it's never really been a genre I've given a second thought towards. That isn't to say I didn't think I would like them- hell, some of my favourite pieces of media tackle very harrowing subjects, but it's just not something I've really played often. With that being said, please take my inexperienced, biased opinion into account with this perspective on Signalis.
[I played on Survival mode as well. I do somewhat regret this.]

In addition to this, I'd like to keep it short, sweet, and light on plot.] This is, as its core, a plot-driven experience. I'm not here to dissect the lore, the relationships or the story itself. Infact, I would go as far as to say if the game looks even mildly intriguing to you- it's not long. Go and play it, and come back to see my criticisms if you want.

Given the above, I'll briefly mention that I'm an absolute sucker for environmental world-telling and non-linear narrative structure. Having to piece together what's happening with little aid from the game itself is really fun- I found myself trying to make sure I interacted with, engaged and read most of the text in the game. I don't doubt that I likely missed a thing or two, but I'll get onto that later.

The visual and audial presentation of this game was absolutely great. The technology of the game is reminiscent of the late cold war- so to reflect that by purposely choosing to have the game be presented like a PSX title, CRT filter and all, is charming. It's not ground-breaking, but it is very endearing. It allows for a simultaneous familiar, homey feeling whilst also being able to capitalise on the innate eeriness of the setting, complimented by plenty of subtle environmental effects that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Mechanically speaking, I enjoyed a number of the puzzles the game had to present, especially given the fact that some of them will allow you to simply bypass collecting the required passcode/etc. in a future playthrough, whilst others will still ask you to seek out preliminary items first. The radio signal itself is used "frequent"ly, but sparing enough to the degree where I never found it to be an intrusive design choice.

Now- I would like to stress this, the obtuse design choices made for the gameplay of Signalis did not kill my enjoyment of the game, though it is primarily what is preventing me from bumping my review score any higher.

Chiefly. Six. Inventory. Slots. No shade, of course, but I feel like you have to be really spineless to design your game around backtracking [which I just unequipped the gun to carry more key items for a lot of the second half of the name,] double down on your decision shortly after release, only to then backpedal on this decision by introducing inventory slot options post-launch. Whilst I think having the option to have eight inventory slots is a good idea- it should probably be the default, and I'm shocked that the decision to keep six slots made it into the initial launch. It isn't so bad until you get the modules, the flashlight being nigh-required for all exploration in the second half of the game; which then reduces the amount of spare slots you have to [very likely] two. A realistic inventory looks like this:

Flashlight Module
Healing [X]
[Gun of your choice]
[Ammo of your choice]
X
X

Which then means that you're suffocating yourself to only one slot if you want to bring a utility tool as well, or you simply sacrifice usage of them once you obtain the Flashlight Module. This is a shame, because I feel like there would be a lot more strategy involved in my play-through if I actually were able to use tools like the thermite flares more frequently- I only found myself utilising them once or twice after the first boss.

The enemies themselves are generally annoying more than they are engaging or challenging. The challenge stems moreso from their placement than their AI, the most challenging rooms are those that are either loaded with enemies, or place enemies in corridors that make engagements almost unavoidable... or a combination of both. As a result, there are a number of late-game rooms that just weren't fun to navigate through, especially when trying to ferry a number of key items that prevented me from carrying a larger arsenal.

Finally, and this is more of a personal gripe than an actual fault of the game's design- I think the map system in place is perfectly functional- so to have it be taken out of a third of the game was... Frustrating. Especially in combination with the puzzle its attached to. As someone who is very easily disoriented- both in meat-space and in virtual space, this area was one part where I admittedly used a companion guide to help me navigate where some of the doors were, because I kept on going in circles.

In closing, Signalis isn't the game I expected to wind up playing at this current point in time, but I'll hand it this: It's the second time I've cried at an ending to a game featuring a queer robot's solemn, "'Till death do us part" promise. Again- If you are even remotely interested in setting, I wholeheartedly recommend it, even though it does unfortunately seem to stumble in some departments.