It's hard to rate Signalis. I did enjoy it a bit, but its imperfections kept troubling my experience.
Signalis is a beautiful take on classic survival horror games. It feels obvious to say this, but some of its inspirations will be thrown at your face at times and I actually liked this. It is a solid mix of the OG Resident Evil and Silent Hill, while trying to create its own identity. And it kinda does! With beautiful visuals, bloody character designs, haunting environments, ominous use of sound and cryptic story.
That is what I liked the most about Signalis. It manages to convey a retro horror portrait filled with style and mystery. The shooting mechanics work alright, weapon variety is good, soundtrack is beautiful, level design flows well, the atmosphere is great and the final boss is technically and visually impressive!
At first, it seemed like I was going to love this game, but after watching the credits, I realized that... I did not.
One of Signalis' major problems, in my opinion, is enemy placement and enemy respawn. From the moment you fall down the elevator shaft until the end of the game, levels will be FILLED with fast respawning enemies. As usual, the focus here is survival and exploration, not combat, so you're not really encouraged to do it, but you either get maimed by everybody or you waste all of your ammo. Avoiding them doesn't always work.
This messy design choice absolutely hurts exploration and story telling. To make matters even worse, there's a whole chunk of the game where you won't be able to access the map. It's frustrating and gets tiresome quick, especially while solving puzzles.
Speaking of puzzles: I didn't like most of them. Admittedly, I'm not a puzzle guy, but I know how to appreciate the clever ones. Here, they are original, sure, but ultimately unclear and overly complicated. Most of the times I was left looking at confusing and obtuse things on the screen.
And lastly but not least, the story. It is... fine, I guess? You can see influences from Evangelion and Ghost in the Shell in it (especially aesthetically), but there's something missing. Characters were interesting, the mystery kept me going, but it just didn't pay off in the end. In any of the endings, in fact. Also, there are, like, only 3 bosses in the whole game. They're good, but it could be SO much better!
Again, this is a conflicting one. I liked and disliked playing Signalis. But in the end, I just feel like not wanting to go back to it. Good idea, but wasted potential.
Signalis is a beautiful take on classic survival horror games. It feels obvious to say this, but some of its inspirations will be thrown at your face at times and I actually liked this. It is a solid mix of the OG Resident Evil and Silent Hill, while trying to create its own identity. And it kinda does! With beautiful visuals, bloody character designs, haunting environments, ominous use of sound and cryptic story.
That is what I liked the most about Signalis. It manages to convey a retro horror portrait filled with style and mystery. The shooting mechanics work alright, weapon variety is good, soundtrack is beautiful, level design flows well, the atmosphere is great and the final boss is technically and visually impressive!
At first, it seemed like I was going to love this game, but after watching the credits, I realized that... I did not.
One of Signalis' major problems, in my opinion, is enemy placement and enemy respawn. From the moment you fall down the elevator shaft until the end of the game, levels will be FILLED with fast respawning enemies. As usual, the focus here is survival and exploration, not combat, so you're not really encouraged to do it, but you either get maimed by everybody or you waste all of your ammo. Avoiding them doesn't always work.
This messy design choice absolutely hurts exploration and story telling. To make matters even worse, there's a whole chunk of the game where you won't be able to access the map. It's frustrating and gets tiresome quick, especially while solving puzzles.
Speaking of puzzles: I didn't like most of them. Admittedly, I'm not a puzzle guy, but I know how to appreciate the clever ones. Here, they are original, sure, but ultimately unclear and overly complicated. Most of the times I was left looking at confusing and obtuse things on the screen.
And lastly but not least, the story. It is... fine, I guess? You can see influences from Evangelion and Ghost in the Shell in it (especially aesthetically), but there's something missing. Characters were interesting, the mystery kept me going, but it just didn't pay off in the end. In any of the endings, in fact. Also, there are, like, only 3 bosses in the whole game. They're good, but it could be SO much better!
Again, this is a conflicting one. I liked and disliked playing Signalis. But in the end, I just feel like not wanting to go back to it. Good idea, but wasted potential.