I LOVED this. Visually stunning. Bleak and European; greater than the sum of its parts. Cinematic, but not in the way Uncharted is, more like in the David Cronenberg way. But uniquely also a video game. Interactivity allows the thin narrative to be expanded in your head. Also, seems to be greatly inspired by old point and clicks, like Giger's own Dark Seed or I Have No Mouth.

Obviously wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but surprisingly goes to new places with the material, and keeps your imagination running throughout. However, I do have to dock a point for the actual frequency of combat in the mid game. It's mostly tedious and sometimes frustrating.

I appreciate that this is a genuine freak game for freaks, we need more of that. I will recommend this to you online or if you do not know me, and I would likely never tell someone who could see me in person to play this.

What represents to you the most valuable part of survival horror as a genre of video game? Most modern games have decided it's the action, with tense gunplay and over the shoulder cameras. Some, most notably rose-engine with the recent Signalis, have emphasized the exploration aspects, creating a sort of miniature Metroid style of play with tense inventory management, looping environments, and limited resources. Chilean developer Dual Effect decided that their horror game, Tormented Souls, is a puzzle game first and foremost.

This game has no limited inventory, and the fixed camera means old school lock-on is utilized for gunplay. It commits hard to these old school tropes, with beautiful backgrounds that closely resemble GameCube era Resident Evil, inventory reloading, and a nearly useless map. But committing to these things showed me, at least, that these are not gimmicks - they hold up even today, and still make for an enjoyable game. Some of the puzzles are far too obtuse to be easily solved, but most of them can be accomplished without a guide with a bit of head scratching. If anything, I just wish the map marked when you had everything in a room, like the RE2 remake - this would help signpost when you had everything you needed to solve a puzzle. Other things I hope they fix in any future games would be the excessive backtracking (a few more shortcuts would have made this perfect!) and maybe a sortable inventory. Also, this is my own fault, but I didn't realize you could equip a crowbar as a melee weapon until a significant way through the game, and I weep for the ammo I lost finishing off floored enemies - a ground stomp or some sort of heads up about the crowbar would have been excellent.

In some ways, I like this a lot more than other modern attempts at survival horror. It is a very flawed game, so my score is being heavily impacted by "reviewer's tilt" - basically, I like this way more than I should on paper.

Also, the story is terrible, which I guess you could see as a problem, but I personally adored. It's survival horror, a terrible story with bad voice acting is perfect - I had a great time with it. What's less good is the main characters model and outfit, which I found to be exploitative in a lame and unfun way, and not really matching with other aspects of the game. There was apparently a patch to add a new outfit to the game, so this was partly resolved. Sexy is fine and all, that's not my complaint, it just looked really weird when placed inside the beautifully rendered environments with their The Suffering-esque enemies.

Anyway, I think I've been more negative than I actually feel about the game. For fans of classic Resident Evil, play this! It's absolutely worth the entry fee, and the brisk 7 - 10 hour playthrough doesn't drag.

An expertly crafted survival horror game which leans heavily on atmosphere over outright scares. Signalis flaunts its own influences proudly, with direct homages to Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Kairo, Evangelion, and more. While this was charming at first, it sometimes took me out of the game, only for the next big cutscene or story beat to draw me all the way back in.

The inventory management is strict - stricter than Resident Evil, even, but this creates an incredibly satisfying tension during exploration. I don't want to say too much, but this game evokes the best aspects of old school survival horror gameplay. I think there was a sentiment that this style of game was out of date or died with Resident Evil 4, but Signalis proves otherwise. In fact, I think this may be my favourite gameplay loop of 2022.

I will be watching rose-engine closely for whatever they decide to make next. For now, fans of survival horror games should do themselves a favor and play Signalis. I only hope this marks a larger comeback for the genre, as Signalis has reignited my appetite for this style of horror.