An extremely smart intersection of mechanics from orthodox Resident Evil and orthodox Silent Hill, very little in Signalis feels wholly new but the craft with which it's deployed contextualizes it in a new way. The burn mechanic (destroy a corpse or it will return to life eventually) is borrowed from REGCN, but it allows Signalis to make its infrequent and out-of-the-way save points risky to get to and from, recreating an emergent version of RE's iconic save economy despite the use of SH-style save points.

My favorite mechanical consequence is the way the strict 6-item inventory limit forces players to create their own ad hoc class. Sure, there are items that can heal you fast, items that can heal for a lot, items that can heal automatically—but when you're moving into a new room and you need three spare inventory slots just in case, you can only choose one. You can only choose one weapon as well, and you may have to choose between bringing any healing at all or a torch to dispose of corpses. How you do so defines your character and your experience of the game as surely as any stat selection.

Reviewed on Nov 08, 2022


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