Beat SIGNALIS last night! Quick spoiler-free review and thoughts:
Was pleasantly surprised! I really liked it. Not that I expected it to be bad- I've only ever heard good things. I just didn't have many expectations for it initially.
The thing that I think most people recognize this game for, and the thing that really stood out to me from the start, was the presentation. Music, audio, art, UI, all that stuff, and the way it's used to build onto the overall experience is really well done. I genuinely think there are very few games that come close to this one in this regard. It does a lot of really neat things in really effective ways. And while that part of the game was great from the start, in the first few hours, I was curious how much the story and gameplay would hold up in comparison. And in the end, I think they surpassed my expectations.
The gameplay was enjoyable! I feel like most problems that I could have with it either come from my own incompetence, or are just intentional design choices. There were somethings that felt a little obtuse and frustrating (inventory management, saving, traversing the map etc.) but I also understand why these are intentional design choices. With it being a survival horror game, some of that stuff just comes with the genre. And even if a little unforgiving sometimes, ultimately, I think the game is better off being designed this way, even if I might been a little annoyed and bitchy about it in the moment lol. Also, the puzzles! I liked them a lot. Admittedly, I did use a walkthrough once or twice when my patience was thin... but solving all the other puzzles on my own was very satisfying. Using context clues and my own understanding of the game's world, from a game play
and story perspective, to solve puzzles felt great. Lots of little aha moments.
As for the story, this was the most surprising part for me. In the first few hours, even though there wasn't much to go off of, I was still interested in the story and willing to be along for the ride. But because so much is hidden from you in vagueness and abstraction early on, the cynical part of my brain was questioning if all that obscurity was just there to make what was really a just serviceable and decent story more intriguing and deeper than it really was. But as time went on, especially towards the end of the game, I was very delighted to realize that underneath all that mystery, was an actually really touching and emotional story. It tugged at my heartstrings in a way I did not expect. And a lot of stuff that initially seemed vague and unimportant, actually bared a lot of thematic weight. Getting to uncover that mystery and story piece by piece, not just through cut scenes and stuff, but on my own through documents and papers scattered around the game world, proved to be really engaging. And in the end, I think this story is probably gonna stick with me for a while. For a multitude of reasons lol. Great story. Thank you, lesbians.
All in all, I recommend it! Really enjoyed it. One of my favs now, for sure :)
