In short, Signalis is a work of art.
A fun yet cerebral survival horror experience with difficult yet satisfying slow burn puzzles and combat that requires careful thought to succeed in, to the extent that I found every encounter with enemies to be a puzzle in its own right; which weapons to use (there are 7 unique weapons that are all fun to use and best used for different situations, 8 if you count that one of them has two ammo options. Two of them require solving missable puzzles to unlock so keep your wits about you), which enemy to shoot first and even if I should even take the fight at all and instead attempt to sneak or run around them. The game has a strict inventory system that forces the player to think carefully about exploration and objectives. Leaving space in the inventory for things you might find, the decision of whether to bring spare ammo, a repair spray for emergencies etc. An added incentive to not take more trips than necessary is that the vast majority of the enemies DO NOT STAY DEAD, lest you dip into a limited, precious resource that you should only use for securing frequented paths.

The overarching theme of the story is one of oppression, the nature of self, the struggle to be free, and, most importantly, love. However, to uncover this story, it requires one to immerse themselves within the game. There are a LOT of things to read in the game. The documents and notes you find range from hints to puzzles to background lore of the two great powers of the solar system and everything in between. Despite this, there is an awful lot of things throughout the game that are left rather ambiguous and this is clearly on purpose; the game actively tries to make the player draw their own conclusions as to what is going on by how the game makes them FEEL. There's a lot of metaphysical chicanery at play here, along with references to weird fiction such as The King in Yellow and the Cuthulu mythos. The lore is well written and simultaneously frustratingly vague enough at the same time that I expect it to live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future.

I suspect that other people did not take as long on their first playthrough, but I ended up spending a hair under 21 hours making my way through the levels, scavenging, solving puzzles, fighting and just... Taking in the atmosphere. The aesthetic choice is odd, to say the least, especially the cutscene sequences displaying a "cutesie anime girls in horrific situations" aesthetic that unfortunately turned me off of the game as an outsider looking in when the game first game out at time of writing, one year and 364 days ago. I suppose it does not help that I have seen little to none of the supposed inspirational media that the two person dev team used at time of writing this but I digress. I have grown to rather like the way Signalis looks, in any case. My understanding is that it's a homage to both classic sci-fi anime and PS2 games. The sound design, music and animation quality are top notch. I am seriously considering purchasing the OST.

Now, this ain't a video essay and I would also like to avoid spoiling a potential buyer of the story, so I'm just going to go ahead and say that I give this game a ten-out-of-freaking-10, advise you to not touch any videos related to the game on youtube to avoid spoilers until you have played it through once AND PAY NO HEED TO THE FANDOM UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE SO, EITHER. No, the sesbian lex is not actually in game. I shall leave a couple links to a couple videos on Signalis that I quite liked after I had finished the game though, in the comments of this review.

Bravo, Rose Engine, Bravo.
Ich erinnerte mich an mein Versprechen.

In short, Signalis is a work of art. A fun yet cerebral survival horror experience with difficult yet satisfying slow burn puzzles and combat that requires careful thought to succeed in, to the extent that I found every encounter with enemies to be a puzzle in its own right; which weapons to use (there are 7 unique weapons that are all fun to use and best used for different situations, 8 if you count that one of them has two ammo options. Two of them require solving missable puzzles to unlock so keep your wits about you), which enemy to shoot first and even if I should even take the fight at all and instead attempt to sneak or run around them. The game has a strict inventory system that forces the player to think carefully about exploration and objectives. Leaving space in the inventory for things you might find, the decision of whether to bring spare ammo, a repair spray for emergencies etc. An added incentive to not take more trips than necessary is that the vast majority of the enemies DO NOT STAY DEAD, lest you dip into a limited, precious resource that you should only use for securing frequented paths. The overarching theme of the story is one of oppression, the nature of self, the struggle to be free, and, most importantly, love. However, to uncover this story, it requires one to immerse themselves within the game. There are a LOT of things to read in the game. The documents and notes you find range from hints to puzzles to background lore of the two great powers of the solar system and everything in between. Despite this, there is an awful lot of things throughout the game that are left rather ambiguous and this is clearly on purpose; the game actively tries to make the player draw their own conclusions as to what is going on by how the game makes them FEEL. There's a lot of metaphysical chicanery at play here, along with references to weird fiction such as The King in Yellow and the Cuthulu mythos. The lore is well written and simultaneously frustratingly vague enough at the same time that I expect it to live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future. I suspect that other people did not take as long on their first playthrough, but I ended up spending a hair under 21 hours making my way through the levels, scavenging, solving puzzles, fighting and just... Taking in the atmosphere. The aesthetic choice is odd, to say the least, especially the cutscene sequences displaying a "cutesie anime girls in horrific situations" aesthetic that unfortunately turned me off of the game as an outsider looking in when the game first game out at time of writing, one year and 364 days ago. I suppose it does not help that I have seen little to none of the supposed inspirational media that the two person dev team used at time of writing this but I digress. I have grown to rather like the way Signalis looks, in any case. My understanding is that it's a homage to both classic sci-fi anime and PS2 games. The sound design, music and animation quality are top notch. I am seriously considering purchasing the OST. Now, this ain't a video essay and I would also like to avoid spoiling a potential buyer of the story, so I'm just going to go ahead and say that I give this game a ten-out-of-freaking-10, advise you to not touch any videos related to the game on youtube to avoid spoilers until you have played it through once AND PAY NO HEED TO THE FANDOM UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE SO, EITHER. No, the sesbian lex is not actually in game. I shall leave a couple links to a couple videos on Signalis that I quite liked after I had finished the game though, in the comments of this review. Bravo, Rose Engine, Bravo. Ich erinnerte mich an mein Versprechen.