Signalis has cool aesthetics and a lot of style. The gameplay is very close to being Resident Evil (which doesn't overly appeal to me) but not quite as successful.
The visuals and audio here are incredibly striking. This is one of the coolest renditions of an abandoned space facility I have seen. Rose-Engine has nailed the aesthetics and doing it with graphics that look like they were ripped straight from Metal Gear Solid is impressive and inspired. This facility creaks and groans, with intense music cues kicking in to warn you of encroaching enemies and heighten the tension in all the right ways. Though I found myself growing desensitized to the enemies themselves, the visuals and audio never stopped working.
I found Signalis hard to play in a few ways. This is gameplay that is a lot like Resident Evil -- equipment scarcity and puzzle solving through crest/key/socket wrench collection with the occasional environmental brain teaser.
Combat works fine and plays well but with enough friction that I was never quite comfortable. Enemies (especially bosses) feel like they take an arbitrary number of bullets to kill, preventing me from having a clear idea of the power of my weapons or character. This is exactly like RE.
Equipment scarcity makes expending bullets on enemies a weighty decision, but running by most of them is so easy that it soon becomes the obvious, repetitive strategy. The inventory limit is extreme and adds to this scarcity in a way that is more tedious than challenging.
The key/lock mechanics here never seem to be tied to anything, which makes fetching keys and opening doors often feel perfunctory and meaningless in a way that is unsatisfying. Keys are found sitting on a random desk or in a locker, giving no sense of place to the puzzles or sense of life to the people that were in this facility. This sort of level design works best when the player can make intentional plans based on information they are gaining and have those plans pay off. Through my time with Signalis the only plan I made was "I guess I explore the only place I haven't been."
The environmental puzzles were mostly cute little brain teasers that work well and are similar to things you have seen before. Connect fuses in a fuse box in a certain order, hit switches in a certain order, etc... The one exception is a water leveling puzzle that is a bit tediously complicated, though it seems like the developers identified this, since there is a note in the room that just gives you step by step instructions (!?!?).
The environments themselves, though evocative and cool, are too samey and feel too arbitrarily connected for me to ever really have any sense of place or direction. I never had a clear idea of where I was or the layout of the facility.
The narrative felt very overwrought to me during my time with Signalis. It seems like something interesting might be going on, but it is plastered over with no-context quick cuts, shaky-cam or glitchy footage that is meant to be disturbing, and heavy-handed references to tropes or other media. This type of 'horror' storytelling often feels like it gets in the way of whatever is interesting about the narrative, and I found that to be true for me here as well.
If you love survival horror games, this one may strike a chord and it is probably even worth checking out for an hour or two for the expertly crafted visual and audio experience. It is unfortunately definitely not for me, so I have abandoned it.
The visuals and audio here are incredibly striking. This is one of the coolest renditions of an abandoned space facility I have seen. Rose-Engine has nailed the aesthetics and doing it with graphics that look like they were ripped straight from Metal Gear Solid is impressive and inspired. This facility creaks and groans, with intense music cues kicking in to warn you of encroaching enemies and heighten the tension in all the right ways. Though I found myself growing desensitized to the enemies themselves, the visuals and audio never stopped working.
I found Signalis hard to play in a few ways. This is gameplay that is a lot like Resident Evil -- equipment scarcity and puzzle solving through crest/key/socket wrench collection with the occasional environmental brain teaser.
Combat works fine and plays well but with enough friction that I was never quite comfortable. Enemies (especially bosses) feel like they take an arbitrary number of bullets to kill, preventing me from having a clear idea of the power of my weapons or character. This is exactly like RE.
Equipment scarcity makes expending bullets on enemies a weighty decision, but running by most of them is so easy that it soon becomes the obvious, repetitive strategy. The inventory limit is extreme and adds to this scarcity in a way that is more tedious than challenging.
The key/lock mechanics here never seem to be tied to anything, which makes fetching keys and opening doors often feel perfunctory and meaningless in a way that is unsatisfying. Keys are found sitting on a random desk or in a locker, giving no sense of place to the puzzles or sense of life to the people that were in this facility. This sort of level design works best when the player can make intentional plans based on information they are gaining and have those plans pay off. Through my time with Signalis the only plan I made was "I guess I explore the only place I haven't been."
The environmental puzzles were mostly cute little brain teasers that work well and are similar to things you have seen before. Connect fuses in a fuse box in a certain order, hit switches in a certain order, etc... The one exception is a water leveling puzzle that is a bit tediously complicated, though it seems like the developers identified this, since there is a note in the room that just gives you step by step instructions (!?!?).
The environments themselves, though evocative and cool, are too samey and feel too arbitrarily connected for me to ever really have any sense of place or direction. I never had a clear idea of where I was or the layout of the facility.
The narrative felt very overwrought to me during my time with Signalis. It seems like something interesting might be going on, but it is plastered over with no-context quick cuts, shaky-cam or glitchy footage that is meant to be disturbing, and heavy-handed references to tropes or other media. This type of 'horror' storytelling often feels like it gets in the way of whatever is interesting about the narrative, and I found that to be true for me here as well.
If you love survival horror games, this one may strike a chord and it is probably even worth checking out for an hour or two for the expertly crafted visual and audio experience. It is unfortunately definitely not for me, so I have abandoned it.