(For Reference this game was a gift from a friend)

I'll be straight forward in starting this review i enjoyed this game for some time when i was playing through it i immersed myself into the story and took in whatever it had to throw at me as the game progressed. For a while i did enjoy it and i wanted to continue enjoying it but as the game progressed my immersion was kind of totaled beyond any imagining of the terminology the word was meant to represent. How about we start off with the game and atmosphere set by Signalis.

Signalis is a quiet but graphic Indie title with a generalist genre of Sci-fi horror. Its protagonist Elster is from what i can assume a cross between a Synthetic and Organic being containing both parts from a clearly robotic base strewn with some organic biological mesh included; who is clearly animated with a clean cut goal of finding her Gestalt through any means necessary. Taking place across various locations from a Scout ship crash site to a few facility's across multiple planets. denoted with a few side characters that operate independently in the background while you as the protagonist go about their own quest.

On the surface this is a pretty ripe universe just begging for exploration and this is why i was so drawn into the game earlier on; Sci-fi is my forte and i love me a good Dead Space clone which at first is what i got from the atmosphere set early in the game. For the prologue to about the halfway point of the game i must say i was well immersed in this setting prepared by the game; it had all the denotations of your generic Sci-fi horror survival game from a limited inventory to the limited ammo in portions of the game making you have to choose where and when you expend your limited supply of self-defense weaponry.

However the plot for this game i can summarize is one giant mobius strip in which the game repeats itself after you get the first "Ending" where you die, come back and repeat the first portion of the first chapter again but with more zombies and all your equipment available ; ultimately frees you up to get the actual endings of the game which after viewing them for myself relativity bothered me to be honest. As i was following the plot as small and rather lackluster as it was, i was still drawn to it up until about the half way point of the game where the atmosphere proceeded to veer into the proverbial off ramp at high speed proceeding to crash and burn spectacularly while attempting to go from Dead space to Silent hill in the span a tiny few scene changes. which at first i let go figuring that maybe it would be explained why there is a giant dungeon with flesh everywhere and blood sacrifices going on under a military complex, however.... it isn't.

That is what really bothers me when it comes to plot details, what eventually is explained in the setting vs what isn't. Sudden shifts like that is what derailed my immersion and made me stop playing the game and ask myself "WHAT AM I PLAYING ANYMORE?!?" For what derailment it did i hoped that maybe, just maybe theirs an explanation to all of this somewhere up ahead. Which is when my curiosity got the better of me and i looked ahead in a guide instead and found out all this exploring gets you nowhere in the endings. the endings to the game are just an anti-climax where the protagonist completes their goal in one way or another which left me with all the baggage the game off loaded in its setting being completely unanswered. To give you an idea of my dilemma ill just illustrate in the form of questions below listed.

• Whats the backstory in this world?
  
• What star system am i in?
  
• What is with all these replika's? is humanity going extinct?
  
• Who is the empire and why is there a rebellion going on against them?
  
• Why am i abiding by a six item rule? when everythings going to hell and back?
  
• What is this infection? is Elster infected?
  
• Is the facility abandoned? is there no Clean-Sweep teams coming?
  
• How am i able to pick up items in a train i'm not in or get a radio from an array I've never been to?

All that and plenty more i wont list due to how little is explained to begin with. Despite my enjoyment, its overshadowed by so many plot holes and reference shoe horns that it ultimately bumbles over itself as the game tries too hard to check mark each respective title it attempts to make a call to. Speaking of which about 90% of all the references in game flew completely past my head; This is an out of genre game for me i am an Real Time Strategy guy and the reference reliance does not compensate for the lack of plot explanations the game gives for every time it throws something completely new at you. Bickering about the plot aside let me try to move onto the actual game-play offered here.

Game-play is pretty standard which makes it rather tedious after getting used to it. Your given a number of weapons as you progress through the game that you don't have to use, but kind of have to unless you want the Infected to carve you into a blood fountain. the ammo and guns taking up a portion of your much needed inventory space feels like i have to rely on one gun for the majority of the games play time unless i want to backtrack every other minute when i find a new story item. Arguably what makes things worse is if you think using a melee item is easier, its not all melee items are limited too which made me hope and pray at some point i would get a reusable melee item like a crowbar or a pipe wrench or something. But you don't so all the weapons you use in game have limits but hey maybe once i kill a zombie i wont have to put up with it again right??? Except the zombies don't stay dead; which not even Dead space made that blatant of a game mechanic in their own franchise. The combat gets stale pretty quickly if your going to just grind kills for a specific ending which yes for some endings its required that you get a boat load of kills and damage so if you want them best be ready for the GRIND.

Combat aside the game loop is pretty stale too, the majority of the time your getting trapped around one-way doors you have to open from the other side, a plot important door that requires a key thats locked behind 8 other puzzle with their own key grinds so you can move the plot two inches, and managing your tiny inventory and having to guess whether or not that zombie you just killed will get up before you find the key to the next locked door or puzzle your trying to complete. All of that comes up as busy work which gets you little to nowhere faster then if you were to power fist doors like a souped up space marine from Warhammer 40K. Busy work that only works as filler which just pads the game out to make it feel like their is something going on, but there really isn't. If you dont like that you gotta suck it up because this loop is about 2/3rds of the game play;so oh joyous day a puzzle grindulator with sub-par combat mechanics fantastic! Remember when resident evil and dead space forces you to grind your way through the game as it flaunt its mechanics in your face every other minute? no? yeah me neither.

This is not to say that the game dosn't look great the graphics and sound design are on their own merit damn good. For a game that emulates the PS1 era graphics you'd find in resident evil it nails that well and i can see why some people prefer to play this on console or the steam deck for that matter. I myself have already searched a few times for the official sound track to compare it to other titles within its genre because it sounds that good. The creepy feels creepy, the adrenaline areas give you a rush, the unsettling feels rightfully unsettling; as it should be.

I wont recommend this game to anyone but if you enjoy this good on you. But as someone outside of the Genre. its going to be a hard no from me.

7/10
Brother. get the Plot and lore. The Actual Plot and Lore.

(For Reference this game was a gift from a friend) I'll be straight forward in starting this review i enjoyed this game for some time when i was playing through it i immersed myself into the story and took in whatever it had to throw at me as the game progressed. For a while i did enjoy it and i wanted to continue enjoying it but as the game progressed my immersion was kind of totaled beyond any imagining of the terminology the word was meant to represent. How about we start off with the game and atmosphere set by Signalis. Signalis is a quiet but graphic Indie title with a generalist genre of Sci-fi horror. Its protagonist Elster is from what i can assume a cross between a Synthetic and Organic being containing both parts from a clearly robotic base strewn with some organic biological mesh included; who is clearly animated with a clean cut goal of finding her Gestalt through any means necessary. Taking place across various locations from a Scout ship crash site to a few facility's across multiple planets. denoted with a few side characters that operate independently in the background while you as the protagonist go about their own quest. On the surface this is a pretty ripe universe just begging for exploration and this is why i was so drawn into the game earlier on; Sci-fi is my forte and i love me a good Dead Space clone which at first is what i got from the atmosphere set early in the game. For the prologue to about the halfway point of the game i must say i was well immersed in this setting prepared by the game; it had all the denotations of your generic Sci-fi horror survival game from a limited inventory to the limited ammo in portions of the game making you have to choose where and when you expend your limited supply of self-defense weaponry. However the plot for this game i can summarize is one giant mobius strip in which the game repeats itself after you get the first "Ending" where [spoiler] you die, come back and repeat the first portion of the first chapter again but with more zombies and all your equipment available [/spoiler] ; ultimately frees you up to get the actual endings of the game which after viewing them for myself relativity bothered me to be honest. As i was following the plot as small and rather lackluster as it was, i was still drawn to it up until about the half way point of the game where the atmosphere proceeded to veer into the proverbial off ramp at high speed proceeding to crash and burn spectacularly while attempting to go from Dead space to Silent hill in the span a tiny few scene changes. which at first i let go figuring that maybe it would be explained why there is a giant dungeon with flesh everywhere and blood sacrifices going on under a military complex, however.... it isn't. That is what really bothers me when it comes to plot details, what eventually is explained in the setting vs what isn't. Sudden shifts like that is what derailed my immersion and made me stop playing the game and ask myself "WHAT AM I PLAYING ANYMORE?!?" For what derailment it did i hoped that maybe, just maybe theirs an explanation to all of this somewhere up ahead. Which is when my curiosity got the better of me and i looked ahead in a guide instead and found out all this exploring gets you nowhere in the endings. the endings to the game are just an anti-climax where the protagonist completes their goal in one way or another which left me with all the baggage the game off loaded in its setting being completely unanswered. To give you an idea of my dilemma ill just illustrate in the form of questions below listed. [list] [*]Whats the backstory in this world? [*]What star system am i in? [*]What is with all these replika's? is humanity going extinct? [*]Who is the empire and why is there a rebellion going on against them? [*]Why am i abiding by a six item rule? when everythings going to hell and back? [*]What is this infection? is Elster infected? [*]Is the facility abandoned? is there no Clean-Sweep teams coming? [*]How am i able to pick up items in a train i'm not in or get a radio from an array I've never been to? [/list] All that and plenty more i wont list due to how little is explained to begin with. Despite my enjoyment, its overshadowed by so many plot holes and reference shoe horns that it ultimately bumbles over itself as the game tries too hard to check mark each respective title it attempts to make a call to. Speaking of which about 90% of all the references in game flew completely past my head; This is an out of genre game for me i am an Real Time Strategy guy and the reference reliance does not compensate for the lack of plot explanations the game gives for every time it throws something completely new at you. Bickering about the plot aside let me try to move onto the actual game-play offered here. Game-play is pretty standard which makes it rather tedious after getting used to it. Your given a number of weapons as you progress through the game that you don't have to use, but kind of have to unless you want the Infected to carve you into a blood fountain. the ammo and guns taking up a portion of your much needed inventory space feels like i have to rely on one gun for the majority of the games play time unless i want to backtrack every other minute when i find a new story item. Arguably what makes things worse is if you think using a melee item is easier, its not all melee items are limited too which made me hope and pray at some point i would get a reusable melee item like a crowbar or a pipe wrench or something. But you don't so all the weapons you use in game have limits but hey maybe once i kill a zombie i wont have to put up with it again right??? Except the zombies don't stay dead; which not even Dead space made that blatant of a game mechanic in their own franchise. The combat gets stale pretty quickly if your going to just grind kills for a specific ending which yes for some endings its required that you get a boat load of kills and damage so if you want them best be ready for the GRIND. Combat aside the game loop is pretty stale too, the majority of the time your getting trapped around one-way doors you have to open from the other side, a plot important door that requires a key thats locked behind 8 other puzzle with their own key grinds so you can move the plot two inches, and managing your tiny inventory and having to guess whether or not that zombie you just killed will get up before you find the key to the next locked door or puzzle your trying to complete. All of that comes up as busy work which gets you little to nowhere faster then if you were to power fist doors like a souped up space marine from Warhammer 40K. Busy work that only works as filler which just pads the game out to make it feel like their is something going on, but there really isn't. If you dont like that you gotta suck it up because this loop is about 2/3rds of the game play;so oh joyous day a puzzle grindulator with sub-par combat mechanics fantastic! Remember when resident evil and dead space forces you to grind your way through the game as it flaunt its mechanics in your face every other minute? no? yeah me neither. This is not to say that the game dosn't look great the graphics and sound design are on their own merit damn good. For a game that emulates the PS1 era graphics you'd find in resident evil it nails that well and i can see why some people prefer to play this on console or the steam deck for that matter. I myself have already searched a few times for the official sound track to compare it to other titles within its genre because it sounds that good. The creepy feels creepy, the adrenaline areas give you a rush, the unsettling feels rightfully unsettling; as it should be. I wont recommend this game to anyone but if you enjoy this good on you. But as someone outside of the Genre. its going to be a hard no from me. 7/10 Brother. get the Plot and lore. The Actual Plot and Lore.