Signalis is a indie survival horror game was released in 2022 for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC. It was developed by rose-engine and both published by Humble Games and Playism.
Growing up with the likes of classic horror games that was a huge thing for gaming in the 90s, so stuff like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark, and Clock Tower are the major examples of creating the new style of genre known as survival horror, a term where it heavily focuses on survival aspects rather than relying more on the combat.
It involve puzzle-solving segments, revealing dark secrets, organising your inventories stuff like keys and items, avoiding many monsters as possible, and finding way to escape from nightmare is what made the genre quite interesting to play.
I also adored the modern horror titles like Outlast, SOMA, and Amnesia: Dark Descent are just took the genre into the next level scares thanks to numerous of horrifying chase sequences, unexpected jumpscares, and much disturbing gorefest design elements which really adds the gruesome moments that will make your body shivers as you play the horror game during the night time.
There's one of the game that I totally forgot about it since I've watched the game's trailer a long ago where I was normally visit on some of the gaming sites, as well as watching some YouTube gaming channel that talks about indie related stuff. I haven't had remembered the game quite a while, until a year after the game's release I saw it again as a reminder where I began to browse on online store like Ebay and Amazon had the list of the "suggested for you" item, so this is where I found Signalis.
It is a indie game which heavily focuses on the classic roots of survival horror genre that we know back in the old days of gaming, and also the horror presentation was influenced by the likes of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch helped the game's narrative themes itself, while the art direction pulls the inspiration from the 5th Gen's graphics particularly from the PS1 console.
Can this game really be good recommendation for classic horror fans? so this is why I am here to review this title to uncover all the pros and cons that the game had to offer.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game takes place in an unidentified planetary system that is ruled by the totalitarian Nation of Eusan which remains at war with a larger empire that it broke away from.
It employs androids known as Replikas made with copied human neural imprints as the bulk of its military and labor force, but unfortunately the neural imprints can lead to harm Replikas which causing them to destabilize and cease functionating.
The story at the very beginning of the game is somewhat sounds strange at first until when you continue to progress further more in the game gets pretty interesting, so it involve a specialist Replika technician named Elster sent out to parts unknown to find new worlds for humanity to colonise, but unfortunately the mission is quickly cut short due to the ship crash-landing on a remote snow-covered planet which is why she went off the ship in search for her missing partner named Ariane.
She stumbles into a metaphorical and hellish places of mining facility filled with emptiness spaces, dark settings, and dead bodies everywhere, as she's gathers the information from the documents or small remaining of people who worked in the abandoned facility to uncover the secrets relating to viral outbreak where it turns people into a monstrous creatures.
The main plot of the game is very well done because as you continue to go further more throughout the game to uncover a backstory behind the war, labor, and corruption had been written into documents or diaries is what I finding it quite interesting to know why these experiment causing to harm people minds.
Elster does sure looks like one of a female protagonist from Ghost in the Shell which I really liked her character design concept, as you can tell her robotic suit design are quite similar which I finding it quite cool with black and red colours with it.
Ariane which I believe Elster and her partner had been knowing two together for long time which is why she went on the quest to find her that been missing off from the ship.
The main things that matters in the game is the presentation design itself because I find the darker tone of settings are heavily inspired by the likes of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch in terms of psychological themes that gathers around between the narrative and sequences which depicts many weird illusion and dark atmospheres where you see the environmental facility changes from abandoned wracked places to internal organs rooms scattered around, and there are a dreamlike nightmarish cutscenes filled with disturbing parts of settings which adds the game's creepiness that made the player losing their sanity when seeing a stuff like this that are really a f***ed up.
I also liked the design of the creatures that are looked quite terrifying in entire rooms and floors, so stuff like EULR armed with knives, ARAR formed with sports inflated arms, KLBR will scream out loud causes to block your vision, STAR armed with baton and shield, MNHR fires with big huge flare gun, STCR are tall but also strong, and Chimera bundled with cage with multiple of arms and legs are similar to most of the H.P Lovecraft's creatures which I consider these monsters as just frightening as any of horror games.
Overall, it has darker psychological presentation themes and very well done plot.
Gameplay
You take control of Elster in third-person view with top-down perspective rather than the traditional fixed-camera angle like from classic Resident Evil games, as you must complete several of puzzles to obtain many key items that leads you to the next floor.
In gameplay, you'll move the player by pushing the left stick button to walk, while holding the right trigger or circle button to run around the areas, and you can pick-up objects and interact stuff like opening doors and turn on switches by pressing the cross button.
Pressing the square button to access inventory, so you will have inventory screen where you can only hold up to 6 items including weapons, ammo, and key items. Pressing the triangle button to access map, so you will have a map inventory where you can able to navigate the locations whereabouts such as undiscovered areas and locked rooms.
For combat play, you'll hold left trigger button to ready for aim while pushing the right stick to target aim till the hit-boxes indicates red-square, then pressing right trigger or cross button to fire weapon at enemies, but you can also perform quick stun at the enemies in close-range by hitting with the left shoulder button if you had one of the stun item added in your inventory.
When one of the enemy is still on the floor paralysed, you can also finish them off by stomping them with the cross button, but these enemies are undeaded which are likely to resurrect soon after 4 or 5 visits of same location, so be really careful with these.
You can reload your weapon by hitting with the right shoulder button if one of your weapon had ran out the ammo, so be very cautious with using the ammunition otherwise you'll lose it very quickly because remember this isn't about killing many creatures, instead you had to defend yourself for survival in order to save plenty often unless use it when its necessary if you had no other choices.
Like from classic Resident Evil games, there are safe rooms that allow player to save progress, as well as store their items for future use.
The horror aspects are heavily focused on puzzle elements which switches into a first-person point and click mechanics which allows you to interact stuff like objects or stuff that involves manipulating switches and dials to unlock stuff like new path and key items. There are an radio-puzzle part in the area where you start searching for the certain frequencies to broadcast in Elster's radio implant can be accessed through the inventory menu which allows you to change any frequencies number to detect available stations to reveal the password and matching the correct biometric sounds.
I did mentioned earlier in presentation about gathering information from the documents and diaries which are also contains stuff that gives you a clues on the exploration and puzzle-solving can be found in any of rooms.
You will also entered into a first-person perspective where you will uncover the disturbing imagery of nightmarish event which is basically a 5 mins roaming of simplified walking simulator stuff with lot of creepy stuff going on throughout the part.
So far, the game just plays really great which I am really impressed with the game's design elements that are reliant on survival aspects including the stuff that I've mentioned above.
As I grew up playing the classic horror games, I like roaming around the corridors, rooms, and floors where I need to find a way out of these nightmarish places that filled with numerous of encounters nearby and had to sort out the puzzles to obtain key items that leads to new path is what made me kept playing until at very end.
I'm sure the exploration are the good thing which encourages me to gather much of the useful items like ammo and health can be stored into safe room's storage box, but sometimes the backtracking can be bit a pain in the ass because you had to go all the way back to safe room to grab stuff what you needed, except the documents for clues and info which can be recorded into your inventory's memo list which is helping because you didn't had to backtrack all the way to the same room you had discovered because all the clues and info you had read before are still in your inventory's memo list which can be accessed by hitting the touchpad button.
I also wanted to point out the limited six items in the inventory screen are rather too short which makes it even frustrating when you aren't able to grab important items that you needed like most of the key items for use in puzzle-solving and unlocking doors, so try not to grab something too much otherwise you won't have a space for the future key item throughout the game.
Speaking of puzzle-solving, I did had fun with stuff like ultrasound lock picking mechanics, shifting the reservoir drainage system, changing incinerator settings of co2 and gas power, linking up correct nodes on blank keycard from computer's printing machine, cracking codes for symbol lock and wall safe, powering up fuse box, and broadcasting the antenna signals which I got to say it's a well executed part of the game that does the job just right.
The controls feels smooth and responsive thanks to game's configuration gives you an option to customise your playstyle such as modern controls are basically 360 degree movement which you can freely move the player in multiple direction, where as the classic tank control are just plays like from classic Resident Evil games with rotations and forwards/backwards.
It worked precisely better with the modern controls configuration because these right stick control feels very precisive to aim things with no signs of delays which means that I can able to point at in different direction while I can able to strafe around with the left stick control, as opposed to classic style configuration where you just stood there aiming with no strafing movement makes it not suitable for the newcomers that didn't experienced the classic horror games from the past.
I also wanted to praise the great balance of survival and combat system because you have a choice whether if you want to skip through the areas without fighting the enemies back just for saving up some ammunition and health packs or fight them if you think its necessary to do it with no choice whatsoever which could lead you wasting all your two important things, and also the game does involve the stealth part where you had to go sneak past through the corridors without alerting the enemies nearby depending on how good these enemy A.Is could react things like player's footstep noises or if the player are get too close to them just works incredibly well.
The game also shares with multiple endings depending on how you play and progressed throughout the campaign which based on player performance such as the number of enemies killed and time spent exploring the mysterious base will show different outcomes in this game adding a significant overall of replay values which makes it even worth to play the game again to reveal different kinds of ending that you'd like to see in the game, so this is pretty good indeed.
Overall, it has well executed puzzle-solving, responsive controls, and great balance of survival and combat system.
Graphics
As the indie game standards, the art visuals are looking spectacular with the mix of anime-drawn technique and old-school pixeled-style design felt like it really close to the PS1 era in terms of heavy and rough environmental areas with few numbers of lighting and shades effects are just really adds the game's darker atmosphere, and I also liked the way the enemy's design tends to be a blocky figure just like you normally see it from the PS1 horror games where all the character's animation are all in flat-shaded which in fact this adds up a creepiness when they walk slowly or run towards at you really proves that the game are in fact terrifying.
The game does have the use of special effects such as the film grain and CRT filters that changes the texture images to appear as blured and grainy details which I normally switched off from the option menu because it would make the game a bit grouchy to play as it made it too difficult to see things.
So far, I'm really happy with the visuals choices they featured in this game just adds the appeal to the classic horror fans.
Overall, it has spectacular art visuals, darker atmosphere effects, and creepy enemy's design.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack which I consider it as well executed with some chilled out in it, while the others are the mix of gritty industrial and ambient style noises just screams out Silent Hill everywhere in entire part of the game, yeah it does give us Akira Yamaoka vibes to it.
It was composed by 1000 eyes and Cicada Sirens did really a solid job of creating a mix of dark and depressive track that adds the game's haunting tone of moodiness, and some others are quite horrifying to listen.
The sound effects does have dark environmental sound design and screaming voices echoes throughout the floors and corridors are just really creeps out which is why it is well built and done absolutely right that made the genre quite known for its terrifying atmospheres and has distressful surroundings all over the places that made everyone's shivers their skin.
Overall, it has haunting soundtrack, gritty industrial and ambient style noises, and terrifying sound design.
Special Features
Unfortunately there's not any of additional features, so it would have been nice if they added a small mini-game with it just like how Capcom did with the Resident Evil games for battle mode which sadly not any indie game developer had experienced it which is why it's not on this game.
Overall, it just really needs additional features.
Advantages
Darker psychological presentation themes
Creepy enemy's design
Well executed puzzle-solving
Great balance of survival and combat system
Has replay values
Spectacular art visuals
Terrifying sound design
Disadvantages
Limited 6 slot in inventory
Backtracking stuff
Lacks additional features
Final Verdict
Presentation 8.5/10 - darker psychological presentation themes and very well done plot.
Gameplay 8/10 - well executed puzzle-solving, responsive controls, and great balance of survival and combat system.
Graphics 7.5/10 - spectacular art visuals, darker atmosphere effects, and creepy enemy's design
Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - haunting soundtrack, gritty industrial and ambient style noises, and terrifying sound design
Special Features 1/10 - lacks additional features.
Overall 8/10 - I can honestly say that the game does not really disappoint me at all, thankfully because I am glad this indie game title turns out to be a definite love letter to the classic survival horror genres that we grew up playing in the 90's era.
You had a spectacular art direction closer to PS1's era, darker psychological settings with many creepy monsters and disturbing imagery content, solid story development, and great balance of gameplay design shares with combat, puzzles, exploring and survival aspects is what made Signalis an astounding horror title that I did not regret playing it on my PS4 system.
I can't believe it's one of the horror game that took me awhile to remember it again since the year after the game's release, so this is where I had a PS4 copy bought it off from the online store that I am happy to say this is a worthy purchase for my gaming collection, which I really love spent collecting the physical stuff being added to my shelf.
The physical copy for both the PS4 and Switch are worth £25 or less, where as the digital copy for available platforms including PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam are slight cheaper just for £16, but you can also access to this game freely on Xbox Game Pass subscription as well.
For those who loves playing games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill then this game is definitely for you to give it a go because it's a pure solid recommendation for classic survival horror fans will likely to enjoy this type of indie horror title.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Skip it
Rent it
Buy it
If you like my recent blog, please hit like and comment below for further questions.
This is Zeeshan Mirza's Blog and I'll see you next time, happy blogging everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment