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 I think there was a sentiment that this style of game was out of date or died with Resident Evil 4, but Signalis proves otherwise.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.

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.

Oh man what an incredible game. This is peak classic Castlevania in my opinion. The improvement on control makes this game feel amazing, Simon controls so well with 8 direction whipping and all. I can't help but feel like the future entries took a step back with the control, the Belmonts would never control this amazingly ever again...

Every annoying thing about old Castlevania like stairs, bs deaths, and all that is gone. The stage design, graphics, and music not only hold up really well, but I think its the best in the series, at least for the classic Castlevania games. This game really pushes the SNES's limits graphically, the 16 bit still looks awesome today. Even though this game drops the alternate level paths and characters, I still find that I will come back to this game pretty often, as it's a perfect Castlevania game. If only Konami made games like this today...

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk! Have at you!"

In my eyes very few games are on par in quality or can even be in the same ballpark as Super Metroid. So when a game is on par with Super Metroid not only in its own genre but as a perfect video game in general, you know you have a game that's an undisputed masterpiece. That's exactly what Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is.

It makes sense that after many action platformers, Konami would try to create a Castlevania game in the same style as Metroid with its own interesting ideas integrated to make it something completely unique. Somehow the world of Castlevania effortlessly translates into this genre. Everything is perfect, the progression, the castle map, the music of course, the replayability, the fun and simple story, it's all here. The many bosses and enemies are incredible, there's so much detail and creativity in this world. The fact that once you beat the castle, you still have so much to do left, because of the inverted castle, where you will finally find Dracula.

I also love that the further you get in this game the more and more overpowered Alucard becomes. Oh and I might as well mention that Alucard is one of the coolest characters ever. There is truly nothing wrong with SOTN, it's by all means a flawless game.

Circle of the Moon is just alright. It doesn't do anything inherently wrong, it just comes off as really generic. The castle design is okay, it was fun at first but once I got to the later parts of the game I got pretty sick of it, as it's not really well designed and all the areas are basic. The card system is ok, but pretty forgettable. The artificial difficulty spikes near the end also kinda ruin the experience.

Even Nathan himself is kind of a meh protagonist, I mean he plays like a Belmont without really being a Belmont, so that's lame. Castlevania isn't known for it's stories but here it's way too bland, nothing in the story interested me. So all in all, it's a pretty generic Metroidvania that I'm sure was great for it's time, but there are so many better Metroidvania experiences to be had, especially on the Gameboy Advance. Maybe I'll come back to this some day and love it, but for now its just meh.

If mods are what saved Skyrim from mediocrity, they're an elegant addition to Fallout 4. While you could argue that this is a weak Fallout game (I wouldn't know; I own all of the games, but that doesn't mean I've played them), the base game is still pretty solid in terms of its gameplay and presentation. Yes, the main quest is (oh god, this will age so poorly) mid, but it's competent enough to occupy your time neatly.

I will say this; if you're going to play Fallout 4 modded, I would recommend playing on Survival with these mods:
- Gas Masks of the Wasteland,
- Agony (with the animation patch),
- Fallsouls (just make sure to configure it to your liking; I personally don't like the game not pausing, but not having the world pause when I pull up my Pip-Boy adds tension that isn't present in the base game),
- Survival Needs 76 and Hunter of the Commonwealth,
- Darker Nights and Pip-Boy Flashlight,
- Uneducated Shooter,
- Arbitration,
- Weapons of Fate,
- No Combat Boundaries,
- Realistic Ammo Magazine (not compatible with many weapon mods, but works with all base-game weapons),
- Immersive Fallout
- Enhanced Lights and FX,
- True Storms,
- WET (Water Enhancement Textures),
- True Grass,
- Badlands 2,
- Full Dialogue Interface,
- Start Me Up

And additionally:
- Pilgrim (it's not on Nexus anymore, but the mod author still has links for it up on their Discord server. Not compatible with Darker Nights, but a good substitute if you're looking for a more horror-themed atmosphere),
- Whispering Hills (I don't believe this is compatible with Pilgrim. Aside from that, it provides a very special experience that may not be to everyone's liking. I, personally, uninstalled it after a while, but if you like the idea of a Fallout and Silent Hill crossover, it's a fun time)
- Survival Options (the only reason I didn't include this is because its only function in my modlist is to include the ability to quicksave in Survival mode. You can already modify survival needs in Survival Needs 76, and Arbitration changes damage variables. But no other mod makes it so you can quicksave in Survival mode, and because I'm a cheap bastard, I like that.)
- Loot Logic and Reduction/NPC Loot Drop Rebalance (Unsure of how this works with Realistic Ammo Magazine because I haven't tried playing with both installed at once),
- Combined Arms and its expansion (Not compatible with Realistic Ammo Magazine. Combined Arms also lets you craft ammo freely, which may make any attempt at difficulty trivial. But on the flip side, these are probably some of the best weapon mods out there)
- War of the Commonwealth with the additional MCM patch (I originally had this recommended, but unconfigured, War of the Commonwealth is fucking BRUTAL. I intended to make a difficult, but fair, modlist, and having tested it myself, I can say with a certainty that I'm having a hard time recommending this one unless you have a save file that's past the starting area)

These mods will add additional layers of challenge to the game, but it should be balanced enough not to be completely unfair.