Systems: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One & Series S/X, and Windows
Release Dates: October 27, 2022
I heard a bit about Signalis from Dr. Potts a while back and so in June, when I saw the game on sale in Nintendo's eShop and not hearing anything about shortcuts and downgrades taken with the Switch version, I thought this would be my preferred platform, although Steam Deck was a close second.
What I love about
Signalis is that it feels like a very pure survival horror game. There is a lot of confusion as to what is going on story-wise, but it feels the same way that
Amnesia: The Dark Descent felt, that by the end of the game, everything was going to make sense; or at least nearly everything. Like the original
Resident Evil playing as Chris, there is an emphasis on inventory management, often coming across items that you cannot pick up because your inventory is full so you would need to either run back to the storage box (which functions the same here in that all storage boxes magically contain your items no matter where you access the storage box) or decide to use a consumable to make room. Ammunition is also in short supply with enemies not dropping additional rounds, which makes every single shot count, but thankfully there is an optional ability to stomp your enemies for the final kill otherwise they pop right back up and you have to shoot them another one to three times (on average anyway).
Being a survival horror game, I knew that this was going to be an enjoyable stressful experience. I tend to like my survival horror games in this vein as I don't want to be stressed out the entire time either because of game mechanics, difficulty, or any combination thereof. In the Resident Evil remake from 2002 when the devs first introduced the Crimson Heads, the zombies that would reanimate as more aggressive and faster versions of their previous form, it offered a new take on zombies in this genre. Signalis does something different with the enemies that you kill. After a predetermined amount of time, they will come back to life which means you either have to kill them all over again, using up more ammo, or run around them on your way through the next door; and thankfully they haven't figured out how to open doors. However, unlike the Resident Evil remake, these risen enemies do not stay dead after you kill them a second time.
From what I read online, they continue to come back as a way to prod the player to keep moving and to prevent them from staying in one area too long. That's all well and good if you know what you're doing and what you're looking for, but if you're someone like me who tends to overthink puzzles (just ask The Kid on a recent conundrum I found myself in Icewind Dale dealing with a suit of armor and some priests of Ilmater) which leads me back-and-forth across the map multiple times for longer than what might normally be prescribed. Now, I know that I'm not that far into the game, maybe the third or fourth new area (the one with the flooded bathroom that you drop down from) so there might be an additional consumable item you can use to permanently put down the enemies so they don't come back, and I have gotten pretty good at avoiding enemies altogether so I am not really killing every enemy; and I don't think that there is enough ammo in the game to actually do that.
All of this is to say, that I am really enjoying Signalis although I am finding it more stressful than usual because I know for certain that I am going to run out of time and the enemies I killed are going to come back before I figure out how to earn/gain/find all of the keys I need to open the door to find out whatever is beyond that foyer-to-the-boardroom-looking-room.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Bring Corruption to All that You Touch
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