This may be the closest we’ll ever get to a psychological survival horror game in the same vein as Silent Hill, which out of all the PS1 era survival horror titles, is clearly the one Signalis pays most respectful tribute to while injecting key elements into something totally fresh. The presentation is stellar and visually stimulating. Might be one of the very best in recent memory that pays attention to and great care for UI design, general character designs, and overall art direction. It also controls near perfect, with the only technical hiccup I have gripes with is how aiming can sometimes be but it can be easy enough to ignore.
It’s hard to talk about the story because I still don’t quite have a good grasp on what’s being told here with these characters in the setting they're in. This is intentionally abstractly told, leaving it designed for player interpretation, which I think is an aspect of older Silent Hill that this doesn’t really nail well. I’d compare this more easily with the first Silent Hill because their storytelling is very similar in approach in how they put great importance on emotional vibes over straightforwardly comfortable comprehensibility but Silent Hill gave me grounded enough characters that I can navigate through this surreal experience. Harry Mason is a boring protagonist, but he’s the awkward “straight man” we can immerse ourselves in compared to Elster who is conceptually already pretty cryptic in an even more cryptically designed world that’s hard to digest unless you know German or Japanese very well. It creates this emotional disconnect with the protagonist and therefore my attachment to this kind of narrative that’s being unfolded by me. People gravitated towards the story despite what I’ve said, and I can understand why, there are some pretty interesting and strong vibes this game carries really well. I only wished it completely worked for me to get the hype.
Other than that, my other problem is this could’ve been reasonably cut shorter by an hour or so. The last stretch is pretty annoying because of this. I think having the inventory limit being strictly just six made managing your items way too tedious because of how many special items you need to collect to finish certain puzzles to progress through the story. Taking away your map felt like an interesting challenge because of how you probably relied on it alot to move around easily but I think they began relying on this too much than necessary. The combat folds into an easy formula that starts eliminating some of the tension; the game is kinda aware(?) and just throws swarms of different enemies in rooms to compensate, and the map design was falling into samey territory of just lifting straight from Silent Hill 1’s last stretch but this time in space. The final boss is pretty cool in concept but misses the mark with how it tries a bit too hard to be mindfucky, literally. What’s just a straightforward boss to beat became almost unplayable at certain moments because of how hard they tried to make it feel distorted and critical.
I’d still say this is worth playing if you really miss that classic survival horror itch and want to play something new rather than just replaying. Especially if you’re looking for something close enough to the vibes of older Silent Hill and want something to fill in that endless void Konami created. It’s ambitious and was made with tons of artistry and passion by the developers, even if I didn’t love I still commend and enjoyed seeing it bleed throughout the game.
It’s hard to talk about the story because I still don’t quite have a good grasp on what’s being told here with these characters in the setting they're in. This is intentionally abstractly told, leaving it designed for player interpretation, which I think is an aspect of older Silent Hill that this doesn’t really nail well. I’d compare this more easily with the first Silent Hill because their storytelling is very similar in approach in how they put great importance on emotional vibes over straightforwardly comfortable comprehensibility but Silent Hill gave me grounded enough characters that I can navigate through this surreal experience. Harry Mason is a boring protagonist, but he’s the awkward “straight man” we can immerse ourselves in compared to Elster who is conceptually already pretty cryptic in an even more cryptically designed world that’s hard to digest unless you know German or Japanese very well. It creates this emotional disconnect with the protagonist and therefore my attachment to this kind of narrative that’s being unfolded by me. People gravitated towards the story despite what I’ve said, and I can understand why, there are some pretty interesting and strong vibes this game carries really well. I only wished it completely worked for me to get the hype.
Other than that, my other problem is this could’ve been reasonably cut shorter by an hour or so. The last stretch is pretty annoying because of this. I think having the inventory limit being strictly just six made managing your items way too tedious because of how many special items you need to collect to finish certain puzzles to progress through the story. Taking away your map felt like an interesting challenge because of how you probably relied on it alot to move around easily but I think they began relying on this too much than necessary. The combat folds into an easy formula that starts eliminating some of the tension; the game is kinda aware(?) and just throws swarms of different enemies in rooms to compensate, and the map design was falling into samey territory of just lifting straight from Silent Hill 1’s last stretch but this time in space. The final boss is pretty cool in concept but misses the mark with how it tries a bit too hard to be mindfucky, literally. What’s just a straightforward boss to beat became almost unplayable at certain moments because of how hard they tried to make it feel distorted and critical.
I’d still say this is worth playing if you really miss that classic survival horror itch and want to play something new rather than just replaying. Especially if you’re looking for something close enough to the vibes of older Silent Hill and want something to fill in that endless void Konami created. It’s ambitious and was made with tons of artistry and passion by the developers, even if I didn’t love I still commend and enjoyed seeing it bleed throughout the game.