I don't really know how to feel about this game. On one hand the game has a nice aesthetic and starts strongly with enjoyable puzzles, but the more I played it the more cracks began to show. On the gameplay end, this game almost rivals Hexen with the amount of backtracking through the same looking hallways. It's not scary it's just boring and with your abysmally small inventory space you will be backtracking more than progressing through the story.
You have a 6 slot inventory (which is one of the classic RE staples which this game should not have replicated) and half of it is taken by a healing item, your weapon and its ammo. Why can't your weapon not take space when you have it equipped? Then around the halfway point you get a flashlight which also takes space, so now you only have two free slots. I reckon I can carry more stuff on me than the protagonist of this game. Then there's just a bunch of dumb oversights. Why can I get hit by an enemy during the door transition animation? Is it so hard to program the enemies to not attack you until you get full player control after the door animation? Why do I take damage by touching enemies when they don't actually swing at me?
Then there's the story which is just a convoluted mess. It felt like I was watching a shitty youtube analogue horror video with "creepy" pictures flashing on screen and random cryptic text flashing on screen that's trying to seem all existential or philosophical. It got to the point where I picked up a note covered in blood that only read PLEASE KILL ME about 7 times and I actually laughed because it felt like it trying so hard to be frightening or somewhat depressing. I almost expected a scene where a character with realistic bloodshot eyes would stare at the screen with the text GOD IS DEAD flashing on screen that's how low the bar was set for me after that note.
Overall Signalis was a good game that I did enjoy my time with but it was held back by some gameplay issues and a confusing story that you'll only understand if you watch a video essay on it.
You have a 6 slot inventory (which is one of the classic RE staples which this game should not have replicated) and half of it is taken by a healing item, your weapon and its ammo. Why can't your weapon not take space when you have it equipped? Then around the halfway point you get a flashlight which also takes space, so now you only have two free slots. I reckon I can carry more stuff on me than the protagonist of this game. Then there's just a bunch of dumb oversights. Why can I get hit by an enemy during the door transition animation? Is it so hard to program the enemies to not attack you until you get full player control after the door animation? Why do I take damage by touching enemies when they don't actually swing at me?
Then there's the story which is just a convoluted mess. It felt like I was watching a shitty youtube analogue horror video with "creepy" pictures flashing on screen and random cryptic text flashing on screen that's trying to seem all existential or philosophical. It got to the point where I picked up a note covered in blood that only read PLEASE KILL ME about 7 times and I actually laughed because it felt like it trying so hard to be frightening or somewhat depressing. I almost expected a scene where a character with realistic bloodshot eyes would stare at the screen with the text GOD IS DEAD flashing on screen that's how low the bar was set for me after that note.
Overall Signalis was a good game that I did enjoy my time with but it was held back by some gameplay issues and a confusing story that you'll only understand if you watch a video essay on it.