Fantastic game about early internet subculture and how much lives can change through tight-knit online communities. The websites and posts were incredibly authentic and nostalgic. Huge fan of the music as well, it was catchy, memorable, weird, varied.

This was the 3rd time starting this game though, because at a point the gameplay loop gets... tedious? It's hard to describe, I don't think the game is HARD necessarily, just, not enough changes for the amount of backtracking and scouring you have to do. There's a lot of pages in the game, a lot of secrets and tricks, and it becomes hard to parse what actually matters or not. The puzzle hints are vague, which is fine, but it often felt like they were leading me down paths that didn't actually exist.

Still, I liked the narrative enough to keep at it and I liked how the game made me feel. Really didn't expect this game to get me so misty-eyed when so much of it is dripping in irony and comedy, but they do a fantastic job setting up a world and setting up these characters. They all feel so real to someone who grew up with these kind of online experiences and it really got at my heartstrings at times. Looking forward to the next titles in this world.

ow1 was fun at the start but quickly became a miserable slog due to the way the meta evolved, horrible balance, and overly toxic player base that formed due to the prior 2 points.

ow2 is less annoying and i have fun with friends.

p2w is dumb, banning prepaid phones is dumb, gender verification is OMEGA dumb.

play team fortress 2.

the gamplay is so fun. snapping on fools feels so satisfying and i love the bitesize matches. feels good to win and if you lose it wasn't more than 3 minutes of your time and you can just get back in there.

but it's so lame, i'm sorry, marvel is so whack. i hate how the cards look, i hate the themeing on the UI, i hate the music, it's all so cringe and i hate using that word. if this game has been literally any other IP, or even something brand new, i would be obsessed. but marvel ain't the way.

i respect this game a lot. incredible art and atmosphere. they were going for a vibe and they nail it. the world is sorrowful and filled with sin and guilt. it's like hollow knight but all the bugs are replaced with european catholics.

but the gameplay just wasn't for me. the movement wasn't interesting and the combat was very bland. mechanics seem obtuse just because "lol dark souls did it" and i was constantly feeling like i was missing something major. felt like i was just mashing attack and then hitting dodge to mash it on the other side.

i might go back to it. but i don't know. i spent a lot of time with it and never got grabbed. might just check out a longplay to see the visuals towards the end.

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.

my gut reaction to this game was just average. seemed solidly put together but didn't capture what i liked about guilty gear. after letting it breathe some and giving it more time, it's definitely grown on me. it's definitely different from old gear, but the dna is still there. it's still a blast to play. i think this is a sentiment more fgc players need to adapt. if you enjoy the old game, play the old game, and try to see the new as something new. if you still don't like it, well, the old games aren't going away and plenty of people will stick with the game that really hits for them, so you can keep playing what you do like.

the music truly is abysmal though. most of the character in the songs comes purely through the lyrics, with the instrumentation taking a backseat and largely sounding very samey, and naoki's performance is almost satirical, sounding like a theater kid playing the role of a metal musician in a high school play. a lot of the song structures just don't fit a high intensity fighting game either, with too many tracks having odd low energy interludes. i really like the themes of faust, baiken, and hc, but all of them just have terrible sections that completely kill the momentum during a round. i wish they had been chopped and edited so the in-game versions would've flowed better in a match, and left the full versions for the ost album. i love the lyrics as a lore fiend and think they do well at displaying the character they represent, i just wish they were performed better, or there were optional instrumental versions just due to my disdain of naoki's performance. i will admit that (most of) aisha's performances were really nice and shine through the sludge that is the majority of the soundtrack.

I definitely understand why Tokimeki is the titan of dating sims that it is today. Art and presentation is fantastic and all of the girls are super fun and full of personality. They each have such charm that I really want to see them all to completion.

That being said, in the modern time, the game kind of sucks. Gameplay loop is super repetitive and dull. Mechanics are obfuscated seemingly just to be frustrating. Basic actions take forever to complete (calling Yoshio sticks out as being so unnecessarily time consuming) and it feels very unfulfilling to play. Definitely a series that I will go back to appreciating from a distance.

Also, Yoshio, why the hell do you know your little sisters BWH?

This sure is "one of those" and yeah, it's fine. Not offensively bad, does what these games do but doesn't do any of it in a particularly interesting or banner way. Played 2 and a half hours of it and think I'm done. Thought I could play the bullethell-arena-roguelike genre or whatever the hell you want to call it forever but this squashed that thought. Best thing I can say about it is that I really liked the music. I don't think it fits the vibe of the game but it did make me very nostalgic for gameboy music in a way that most other chiptune stuff doesn't.