When it comes to gameplay, Signalis doesn't do much special. It's a well executed Silent Hill inspired survival horror, with a smattering of Resident Evil style puzzles. It's good, but nothing revolutionary and you can point to almost every mechanic and go "Oh, it's like that game!"
Where Signalis excels, however, is in presentation. Drawing heavily from NGE and MGS (truly made for me, I love big block letters on a black background,) the cutscenes are striking, at times and assault on the senses as vague memories, dreams, thoughts are all blasted at you rapid-fire. Characters are rendered in a hi-fi low-poly style; enemies are unsettling, frightening, and threatening. Locations are ominous, cold and corporate, with tons of detail and lore spattered about leading to a very well-realized world. The soundtrack is tense and heart-pounding; I was constantly feeling rushed in situations where I needed to keep my cool, just because the music was shaking me so much and I wanted, or needed it to stop. The story is beautiful, it's tragic, it's haunting.
Though it's presentation is so slick and polished, I did have quite a few gripes with the gameplay itself. I played on mouse and keyboard due to some hand pain I'd been having recently, so this might not apply to controller, but I was frequently finding myself getting caught in rooms and taking unnecessary damage, or in some cases outright dying, because the slick menus wouldn't pop-up correctly. This was so consistent I eventually had to swap from survival difficulty down to casual, just because I was running out of resources from simple button prompts not functioning.
I also understand this is a survival horror game, but the lack of any form of inventory upgrade was truly a choice I do not agree with. There are so many items for so many puzzles and so many weapons and so many consumables and so many tools, I very quickly gave up on half the resources I had simply because it required too much backtracking to be worth it. Even going from 6 slots to 8 slots with some form of upgrade would have been such a huge quality of life feature.
Also, and this might purely be a "me" problem, but I found the game to dragon on a little long, just because I was so invested in seeing the rest of the story that when I was handed an entirely new area to get through, I found myself rolling my eyes and just trying to rush the whole zone. Again, this might be seen as a boon to most, who like to get their money's worth, but I would have been happier with the last 3 hours trimmed a bit.
I honestly had enough gripes that I was flipping between giving this 4 or 5 stars, but I've always been more style over substance. The actual game here is pretty good; even with my gripes I would definitely recommend it to survival horror fans. If you've been yelling about not getting Silent Hill since P.T. came out (please stop) then here you go! This is what you've been waiting for. Cherish it and enjoy.
But the presentation pushes it past that. A simple recommendation I would only give to genre fans becomes a total must play, for anyone into sci-fi, anime, horror, romance, hell, even games in general. It's really something special.
Where Signalis excels, however, is in presentation. Drawing heavily from NGE and MGS (truly made for me, I love big block letters on a black background,) the cutscenes are striking, at times and assault on the senses as vague memories, dreams, thoughts are all blasted at you rapid-fire. Characters are rendered in a hi-fi low-poly style; enemies are unsettling, frightening, and threatening. Locations are ominous, cold and corporate, with tons of detail and lore spattered about leading to a very well-realized world. The soundtrack is tense and heart-pounding; I was constantly feeling rushed in situations where I needed to keep my cool, just because the music was shaking me so much and I wanted, or needed it to stop. The story is beautiful, it's tragic, it's haunting.
Though it's presentation is so slick and polished, I did have quite a few gripes with the gameplay itself. I played on mouse and keyboard due to some hand pain I'd been having recently, so this might not apply to controller, but I was frequently finding myself getting caught in rooms and taking unnecessary damage, or in some cases outright dying, because the slick menus wouldn't pop-up correctly. This was so consistent I eventually had to swap from survival difficulty down to casual, just because I was running out of resources from simple button prompts not functioning.
I also understand this is a survival horror game, but the lack of any form of inventory upgrade was truly a choice I do not agree with. There are so many items for so many puzzles and so many weapons and so many consumables and so many tools, I very quickly gave up on half the resources I had simply because it required too much backtracking to be worth it. Even going from 6 slots to 8 slots with some form of upgrade would have been such a huge quality of life feature.
Also, and this might purely be a "me" problem, but I found the game to dragon on a little long, just because I was so invested in seeing the rest of the story that when I was handed an entirely new area to get through, I found myself rolling my eyes and just trying to rush the whole zone. Again, this might be seen as a boon to most, who like to get their money's worth, but I would have been happier with the last 3 hours trimmed a bit.
I honestly had enough gripes that I was flipping between giving this 4 or 5 stars, but I've always been more style over substance. The actual game here is pretty good; even with my gripes I would definitely recommend it to survival horror fans. If you've been yelling about not getting Silent Hill since P.T. came out (please stop) then here you go! This is what you've been waiting for. Cherish it and enjoy.
But the presentation pushes it past that. A simple recommendation I would only give to genre fans becomes a total must play, for anyone into sci-fi, anime, horror, romance, hell, even games in general. It's really something special.