Signalis Review

Coming from a guy who never really cared for the survival horror genre as a whole, this game was a good time overall. If the remake of the first Resident Evil, the Silent Hill games, anime like Ghost in the Shell and Evangelion and the character designs and asthetics of the Blame manga ever had a baby, you'd get this game.

It really does a good a good job gameplay wise at combining the best of both worlds of RE and SH. You got the firearms, inventory manangement and constant backtracking of RE while you have the more challenging puzzles and cryptic nature of SH. Firearms have a decent punch to them all though it feels like with how limited inventory space is, the amount of ammo and guns you get and with enemies getting ressurected after killing them, it feels like all this could be better balanced. I like that the crimson head system in REmake makes an appreance here but I did wish the game gave you the option to take them out in permanently without needing to use thermite because you get too much ammo in this game on normal difficulty and lots of guns some like the rifle and SMG I never even used since the game discourages you from killing due to the enemy ressurection. That and I also wished the game had REmake's map system of it being a certain color to know if you got all the items in the room and more inventory spaces since I was save room trekking a lot in this game, I think having one or two more slots can help. I also feel the game can be a bit too cryptic at times which fits the game but maps like Nowhere which is the worst level in the game can really frustrate me since there is no map and I have been using the map so much up until that point in the game, I did wish at the very least the game filled in a map as you were exploring it. It may sound like I am complaining a lot but I feel this game which is already very good can be utterly fantastic with some more refinements. I did enjoy my time with it.

I also think the story is intriguing from what I saw of it, I didn't understand it, but I am thinking about looking up videos where someone pieces things together since what I saw is interesting, that Ghost in the Shell homage before the fake out ending was also a good way keep my eyes glued since I am quite the GITS fan. The bosses overall are okay, 2nd boss being the most basic, and the final boss being a great way to cap off the game since it actually is a surivival horror boss that requires you to do more than just tank hits, fire your strongest weapon and hope you can kill it before your health runs out. It actually requires various degrees of recognizing patterns and moment to moment decision making of picking of healing items and ammo but having enough where you can hold a spear in your inventory.

Overall, like I said before, I am not a big survival horror fan but Signalis reminds me of how good the genre can in fact be when it's firing on all cylinders and not making questionable decisions.