I loved the atmosphere and the obvious homage to old survival horror games, however Signalis felt to me like little more than a hollow impersonation of the classics... A black bean burger posing as the real deal. While containing similar component parts, Signalis simply lacked that secret sauce that made games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill great. This genuinely upset me as I really wanted to like it but the minute to minute gameplay just didn't hold my interest enough to care about the plot and pretty much every encounter can be easily avoided so most of the tension disappears a little over an hour into the game.

Reviewed on Mar 14, 2023


5 Comments


1 year ago

I think to most people it's just alright but i got a lot from it, maybe because more than silent resi it's the blame vibes game I never made. I do think they have a deep undertanding of resi and sh though

1 year ago

I was super into the world at first, I take notes as I play games and my notes are praising the awesome dystopian world and environmental story telling. Idk what exactly it is that made me dislike this game compared to the RE and SH. All I can think of to rationalize my opinion is:

a. The game felt really repetitive really quickly. Get to new location find key to unlock a room that has a key in it that unlocks another room that has a key in it that unlocks another room ad infinitum. To some extend RE and SH do this same thing but maybe they were just better at disguising the gameplay loop.
b. The enemies felt too easy to avoid and thus killed the tension. And I just recently replayed the RE HD remake and I didn't feel the same way even though you can dodge a lot of those enemies pretty easily as well.
c. Because it emulates the classics so well it fails to really add anything to the genre and therefore doesn't feel necessary to me.

I am glad people like it though because you can tell a lot of time was spent creating the world and atmosphere and I think it nails that aspect for sure.

1 year ago

planning how to go from a to be to c is basically the game in all of these games. You plan to go to a place, take enough resources with you and something is likely to go wrong, let's say a patrolling enemy moves in front of the door you just opened, is how resi and signalis make backtracking interesting while in silent hill it's just a long trek from a to b. Interestingly, resi is the one that stalls the most among the 3 because the player checks every room to find every item even though he's supposed to move on with the game. This gets worse in big maps and it's a reason signalis deals with smaller maps, with a camera that shows you every item at once in each room so that you clear them quick.
But you don't have to pick everything up. On one hand, you don't have enough ammo to kill everyone, on the other enemies are immortal so you kill mostly when it's the fastest option. This is where signalis draws a line, if you keep on playing like a resi veteran you are likely to unlock the memory ending and basically end up playing resident evil again, if you move closer to an inefficient (by resi standarts) but arguably more exciting playstyle where you go into a killing spree, consume resources instead of saving them, stop searching rooms and by extension stop stalling the game you end up closer to the signalis horror experience instead. It's actually about getting different endings the silent hill way according to playstyles, where narrative justifications and a deep knowledge of how people play resident evil are needed. And horror games in general too. Immortal enemies are meant to allow for the actual signalis' take on how survival horror should play rather than being a resi clone, and are sources of negative emotions that don't leave your mind. It's similar to how different types of horror games such as slender man, amnesia, alien isolation and such do it. Because an interesting thing is resident evil has one main way to mantain tension by limiting resources and saves, while both these kinds of hide and seek games and signalis try to have every trick to mantain it. They put what resi and silent hill did (limited resources+keeping save rooms far from one another so that you dread losing a lot pf progress from dying) along stuff other games do all in one game.
So in short while i don't exactly agree. It's fine if it's not your jam because it's a different way to do survival horror stuff.

1 year ago

Thanks for the insight about the multiple endings. To your point about the gameplay loop: I think RE disguises that a to b to c loop better though. For example in RE you find a key and now have access to a handful of rooms you may have unsuccessfully attempted to open before so you backtrack, curious to see what new paths are opened. In some of these new rooms there will be ammo, health items, maybe a new weapon, and in one of the handful will be a key item used in a puzzle to progress. It feels almost like a metroidvania in this sense. In Signalis however, every key opens exactly one door and behind that door is usually another key to another lock. I remember this stood out badly throughout the whole Sierpinski map (and egregiously bad for floors B6-B8). The only part that I recall that opened up multiple paths was getting the flashlight module, and guess what... That part was pretty fun to me lol. I guess I felt more like I was on rails in Signalis than in RE. Still getting my thoughts straight with this one to be honest so thanks for talking this out with me haha.

1 year ago

np