I recently got a 3060ti and decided the perfect game to stress test this sucker was Signalis, a game that looks like it clawed its way out of a Playstation. Plus, uh, it never hurts to get really fucking depressed right before Thanksgiving.
I'm not going to write a lengthy review on its themes or its story, because frankly I'm not sure I can untangle it all. There's some excellent write-ups on this site already that really dig in to what Signalis means and what it has to say about identity, the loss of self, and the pain of losing others. It tells its story in a way that is intentionally confusing, always keeping you questioning who is who, what your motivation is, where you're even at, and when in time you're currently existing. There's a lot of great stuff going on with its narrative and I think it's best enjoyed without understanding anything more specific than what I just laid out, but I probably couldn't dissect it with any more accuracy than that if I tied.
As a game, Signalis is survival horror in the most old school way possible, with limited resources that need to be managed, and scant few inventory slots with which to do so. Enemies cannot be properly killed, only incapacitated for a period of time, almost like REmake's Crimson Heads, though without the added aggression on resurrection. Signalis uses respawning enemies to force the player to consider who to put down and who to spare. A tight corridor you often travel might be better to clear out than a wide open room where enemies can be safely juked, but you also have to consider that corridor will become dangerous again if you don't hustle. Enemies also patrol on set patterns regardless of whether or not you're in a room, which is at times problematic given their predilection to group near doorways, leading to some cheap shots; but the idea is certainly there, and it does nevertheless add to the tension when enemies aren't stationed in a way that's predictable.
Puzzle design is mostly good with a few clunky ones hampering the experience. On the one hand you have things like the Magpie frequency puzzle, on the other you have the pump room puzzle which is so bad they just write the solution down next to the pump station. The game bounces around between Resident Evil and Silent Hill in terms of how difficult these are to solve, though the vast majority are very engaging, and the story is woven in with progression in a way that feel quite seamless. Every problem you have to solve carries some narrative weight, it tells you more about the place you're in and the people who used to live there, so even the few that are mechanically iffy still have something there to draw you in.
One area where my criticisms aren't metered with praise is the controls. The targeting system is just not good, and it doesn't feel like it's by design. It frequently fails to target enemies you've got a clear shot at, and attempting to line up accurate shots in a crowd is a pain given its propensity to target whoever the hell it deems worthy of getting blasted, whether they're who you wanted to unload into or not. Going through doors can also be troublesome, as it sometimes just doesn't seem to register inputs. This isn't too much of a problem unless you're being chased by an enemy, in which case i just want the door to open please open they're coming for me oh god why is their head a leg open up please god please
But really, control problems and a few dodgy puzzles are absolutely not enough to take away from how good Signalis is. Every single survival horror game to resonate with me this much is at least two decades old at this point. That's not to say I don't like modern survival horror, but good god, I haven't played anything "modern" that feels so clued in to the design ethos of the genre's earlier days like Signalis.
A lot of this game is going to stick with me. Its story, its puzzles, its atmosphere... The game's art style is just gorgeous, I adore the way it mixes aliased graphics with pre-rendered elements. A few locations (such as Nowhere, the highlight of the whole game for me) seem to be clearly inspired by Silent Hill, while others reminded me of Myst in ways I'm not sure were really intentional, but impactful nonetheless. It's been a long time since I felt a modern game was made just for me, appealing to everything I love about not just the survival horror genre, but horror in general, with a presentation that is also so tuned in to what I like that it almost makes me a bit paranoid, like I'm being spied on. Like someone is in my head.
God damn. Go play Signalis.
I'm not going to write a lengthy review on its themes or its story, because frankly I'm not sure I can untangle it all. There's some excellent write-ups on this site already that really dig in to what Signalis means and what it has to say about identity, the loss of self, and the pain of losing others. It tells its story in a way that is intentionally confusing, always keeping you questioning who is who, what your motivation is, where you're even at, and when in time you're currently existing. There's a lot of great stuff going on with its narrative and I think it's best enjoyed without understanding anything more specific than what I just laid out, but I probably couldn't dissect it with any more accuracy than that if I tied.
As a game, Signalis is survival horror in the most old school way possible, with limited resources that need to be managed, and scant few inventory slots with which to do so. Enemies cannot be properly killed, only incapacitated for a period of time, almost like REmake's Crimson Heads, though without the added aggression on resurrection. Signalis uses respawning enemies to force the player to consider who to put down and who to spare. A tight corridor you often travel might be better to clear out than a wide open room where enemies can be safely juked, but you also have to consider that corridor will become dangerous again if you don't hustle. Enemies also patrol on set patterns regardless of whether or not you're in a room, which is at times problematic given their predilection to group near doorways, leading to some cheap shots; but the idea is certainly there, and it does nevertheless add to the tension when enemies aren't stationed in a way that's predictable.
Puzzle design is mostly good with a few clunky ones hampering the experience. On the one hand you have things like the Magpie frequency puzzle, on the other you have the pump room puzzle which is so bad they just write the solution down next to the pump station. The game bounces around between Resident Evil and Silent Hill in terms of how difficult these are to solve, though the vast majority are very engaging, and the story is woven in with progression in a way that feel quite seamless. Every problem you have to solve carries some narrative weight, it tells you more about the place you're in and the people who used to live there, so even the few that are mechanically iffy still have something there to draw you in.
One area where my criticisms aren't metered with praise is the controls. The targeting system is just not good, and it doesn't feel like it's by design. It frequently fails to target enemies you've got a clear shot at, and attempting to line up accurate shots in a crowd is a pain given its propensity to target whoever the hell it deems worthy of getting blasted, whether they're who you wanted to unload into or not. Going through doors can also be troublesome, as it sometimes just doesn't seem to register inputs. This isn't too much of a problem unless you're being chased by an enemy, in which case i just want the door to open please open they're coming for me oh god why is their head a leg open up please god please
But really, control problems and a few dodgy puzzles are absolutely not enough to take away from how good Signalis is. Every single survival horror game to resonate with me this much is at least two decades old at this point. That's not to say I don't like modern survival horror, but good god, I haven't played anything "modern" that feels so clued in to the design ethos of the genre's earlier days like Signalis.
A lot of this game is going to stick with me. Its story, its puzzles, its atmosphere... The game's art style is just gorgeous, I adore the way it mixes aliased graphics with pre-rendered elements. A few locations (such as Nowhere, the highlight of the whole game for me) seem to be clearly inspired by Silent Hill, while others reminded me of Myst in ways I'm not sure were really intentional, but impactful nonetheless. It's been a long time since I felt a modern game was made just for me, appealing to everything I love about not just the survival horror genre, but horror in general, with a presentation that is also so tuned in to what I like that it almost makes me a bit paranoid, like I'm being spied on. Like someone is in my head.
God damn. Go play Signalis.