Eternity in a Box
Signalis gets under your skin. I will, past it’s runtime, continue to live within you. This horrible tragedy, horrifically engrained in your mind. Twisting and turning in your psyche until it cements itself as one of the most impactful experiences in recent memory. If you’re not put off by the dozens and dozens of references and homages to other media, it will manipulate you to love every frame of its horrifying tale of dying in a long dead machine.
I am shaken to the core by this experience and it became one of my favorite games of all time. I feel lucky to having been born in Germany and thus being able to read most of the untranslated text on screen, with the exception of maybe the Japanese text. It is a game deeply tied to the DDR and other eastern countries under the Soviet Union. All of my ancestors lived in eastern Germany and thus have I been heavily influenced by the tales of my parents and grandparents alike, for all of my post Mauerfall upbringing. Signalis is a punch in the gut. A sweet one. A pain I did not want to end. Having the historical cultural knowledge to view Signalis through a lens of the divided Germany’s elevated my experience a lot in that sense, I believe.
Mechanically a wonderfully done Survival Horror game with lovely puzzles and very well executed difficulty curve that never felt unfair to me, narratively a shiver inducing psycho-horror mindbend that will stick with me forever.
The soundtrack goes from somber to hectic and chaotic in a heartbeat, pulling one into the many locations of Signalis world.
I’m in awe of this masterpiece and by no means done thinking and writing about the game, while probably replaying it a hundred more times before I go under the ground. I can’t express my love in a totally for me satisfying way yet, but eventually I will find the words to do this masterpiece justice.
Signalis gets under your skin. I will, past it’s runtime, continue to live within you. This horrible tragedy, horrifically engrained in your mind. Twisting and turning in your psyche until it cements itself as one of the most impactful experiences in recent memory. If you’re not put off by the dozens and dozens of references and homages to other media, it will manipulate you to love every frame of its horrifying tale of dying in a long dead machine.
I am shaken to the core by this experience and it became one of my favorite games of all time. I feel lucky to having been born in Germany and thus being able to read most of the untranslated text on screen, with the exception of maybe the Japanese text. It is a game deeply tied to the DDR and other eastern countries under the Soviet Union. All of my ancestors lived in eastern Germany and thus have I been heavily influenced by the tales of my parents and grandparents alike, for all of my post Mauerfall upbringing. Signalis is a punch in the gut. A sweet one. A pain I did not want to end. Having the historical cultural knowledge to view Signalis through a lens of the divided Germany’s elevated my experience a lot in that sense, I believe.
Mechanically a wonderfully done Survival Horror game with lovely puzzles and very well executed difficulty curve that never felt unfair to me, narratively a shiver inducing psycho-horror mindbend that will stick with me forever.
The soundtrack goes from somber to hectic and chaotic in a heartbeat, pulling one into the many locations of Signalis world.
I’m in awe of this masterpiece and by no means done thinking and writing about the game, while probably replaying it a hundred more times before I go under the ground. I can’t express my love in a totally for me satisfying way yet, but eventually I will find the words to do this masterpiece justice.