SIGNALIS is a game that has received an immense amount of praise since its release. It caught my eye shortly after, as I’ve only really gotten into survival horror games in the past year or so and they have quickly became one of my favourite genres, so seeing a brand new indie game paying homage to the old RE games, and in a way that people were loving, was an exciting sight, so I decided soon after to buy the game. It was a bit unfortunate to come out of the game with disappointment and confusion, mainly due to not understanding entirely what people love so much about it, but I think some people are overlooking some pretty blatant flaws in the game.
First of all, is the often times clunky controls. There were multiple occasions where I was trying to leave a room in a hurry while being chased by enemies, only for the button prompt to either not show up, or show up and not allow me to activate it, leading to me getting hit. The enemies themselves are also a very flawed area of the game for me. It felt extremely unfair for enemies to be able to hurt you just from being next to you. If there was an attack animation, then fair enough, but that isn’t the case. All you need to do is stand beside any enemy and you will instantly take damage for no apparent reason. But that isn’t the only thing with the enemies. They tend to lean more towards frustrating obstacles that halt your progress and drain your healing items and ammo, rather than engaging challenges to improve the overall game and your progression. Placing large numbers of enemies in rooms is way too frequent and tends to be a massive nuisance where you either have to push your way past and almost always get hit, or waste all of your ammo on to get rid of. The controls don’t help either. When you press the aim button, it feels to me as though the crosshair should go straight onto the enemy, rather than requiring you to manually aim at them (This is more of a personal issue than one with the actual game, but it still damaged my impression of it to be honest).
The boss fights were also a fairly disappointing aspect of the game. The first one can be very tedious to fight, especially if she is stunned next to a pillar, which makes shooting the weak spot nearly impossible. Apart from that, the fight was pretty fun. The second boss fight was pretty pathetic though. You can very easily stunlock it with the pistol or the revolver, making quick work of it and allowing you to get past it without even getting hit. Final boss though was awesome. Proved to be quite a solid challenge with a nice, varied moves. Definitely a strong way to end the game.
Level design is, for me, the most important aspect of a survival horror game, with it being the crux of whether or not I’ll stick with these types of games. I can certainly say that the game delivered in this area. The simple grid-like layout of most of the areas in the game was a bit concerning at first, making it look quite simple, but it ended being quite effective. The puzzles were often times complex and engaging, but there were some exceptions that tend to be too far on the convoluted side. A few nitpicky things for me, for example, are when you use a key to open a new room, which only contains one item… another key. I find these kinds of things really annoying, as they’re so unnecessary and feels like its just there for padding.
The radio mechanic was a refreshing change of pace for the genre as well. It brought quite a few new and original challenges for both combat and puzzles, which was definitely an interesting and successful addition.
I know I’ve complained so much about this game, but I promise this is the last one: the inventory system. I shouldn’t need to backtrack to storage boxes as frequently as I did. 6 item slots feels like no where near the amount you should be given. It was incessant. I played through the game on survival difficulty and only really felt comfortable if I had heals, stun prods, and a gun. So that’s 3 slots filled straight away, leaving me with just 3 slots for key items and other pickups. I was probably returning to the storage boxes every 10-15 minutes. This is probably one of the biggest areas the game suffers honestly. It really halts the game’s momentum at certain points. I feel like the developers should have either given you 2 or so extra slots to begin with, or do what RE2 Remake did, and allow you to obtain items that increase these slots. Maybe even change it so key items can be picked up infinitely and regular items are what take up inventory space?
But anyway, I feel like I need to mention that I did enjoy the game for the most part. Filling this review with complaints was not my intention, I just find it easier to pick flaws than to point out what gets done well. The story was really interesting (amazing ending) and there was clearly a huge focus and a lot of care put into the game’s world and lore. The cutscene after finishing the nowhere area was absolutely phenomenal. Honestly, all of the cutscenes were great. The art design of them was brilliant. I’m definitely curious where rose-engine will go next if they continue with this level of passion. I think the problems with the game would’ve been easier to deal with if the game was shorter. For me, survival horror games work way better in a shorter form. Perhaps the game could’ve been cut down to 6-7 hours?
First of all, is the often times clunky controls. There were multiple occasions where I was trying to leave a room in a hurry while being chased by enemies, only for the button prompt to either not show up, or show up and not allow me to activate it, leading to me getting hit. The enemies themselves are also a very flawed area of the game for me. It felt extremely unfair for enemies to be able to hurt you just from being next to you. If there was an attack animation, then fair enough, but that isn’t the case. All you need to do is stand beside any enemy and you will instantly take damage for no apparent reason. But that isn’t the only thing with the enemies. They tend to lean more towards frustrating obstacles that halt your progress and drain your healing items and ammo, rather than engaging challenges to improve the overall game and your progression. Placing large numbers of enemies in rooms is way too frequent and tends to be a massive nuisance where you either have to push your way past and almost always get hit, or waste all of your ammo on to get rid of. The controls don’t help either. When you press the aim button, it feels to me as though the crosshair should go straight onto the enemy, rather than requiring you to manually aim at them (This is more of a personal issue than one with the actual game, but it still damaged my impression of it to be honest).
The boss fights were also a fairly disappointing aspect of the game. The first one can be very tedious to fight, especially if she is stunned next to a pillar, which makes shooting the weak spot nearly impossible. Apart from that, the fight was pretty fun. The second boss fight was pretty pathetic though. You can very easily stunlock it with the pistol or the revolver, making quick work of it and allowing you to get past it without even getting hit. Final boss though was awesome. Proved to be quite a solid challenge with a nice, varied moves. Definitely a strong way to end the game.
Level design is, for me, the most important aspect of a survival horror game, with it being the crux of whether or not I’ll stick with these types of games. I can certainly say that the game delivered in this area. The simple grid-like layout of most of the areas in the game was a bit concerning at first, making it look quite simple, but it ended being quite effective. The puzzles were often times complex and engaging, but there were some exceptions that tend to be too far on the convoluted side. A few nitpicky things for me, for example, are when you use a key to open a new room, which only contains one item… another key. I find these kinds of things really annoying, as they’re so unnecessary and feels like its just there for padding.
The radio mechanic was a refreshing change of pace for the genre as well. It brought quite a few new and original challenges for both combat and puzzles, which was definitely an interesting and successful addition.
I know I’ve complained so much about this game, but I promise this is the last one: the inventory system. I shouldn’t need to backtrack to storage boxes as frequently as I did. 6 item slots feels like no where near the amount you should be given. It was incessant. I played through the game on survival difficulty and only really felt comfortable if I had heals, stun prods, and a gun. So that’s 3 slots filled straight away, leaving me with just 3 slots for key items and other pickups. I was probably returning to the storage boxes every 10-15 minutes. This is probably one of the biggest areas the game suffers honestly. It really halts the game’s momentum at certain points. I feel like the developers should have either given you 2 or so extra slots to begin with, or do what RE2 Remake did, and allow you to obtain items that increase these slots. Maybe even change it so key items can be picked up infinitely and regular items are what take up inventory space?
But anyway, I feel like I need to mention that I did enjoy the game for the most part. Filling this review with complaints was not my intention, I just find it easier to pick flaws than to point out what gets done well. The story was really interesting (amazing ending) and there was clearly a huge focus and a lot of care put into the game’s world and lore. The cutscene after finishing the nowhere area was absolutely phenomenal. Honestly, all of the cutscenes were great. The art design of them was brilliant. I’m definitely curious where rose-engine will go next if they continue with this level of passion. I think the problems with the game would’ve been easier to deal with if the game was shorter. For me, survival horror games work way better in a shorter form. Perhaps the game could’ve been cut down to 6-7 hours?