Recent reviews by Somzie

Maybe I have ADHD but I got kind of bored. The parts with parkour were fun, but the sections where you just had to walk forward or slowly climb a giant wall were too numerous. It feels weird to promote speedrunning in a game with these long uneventful sections.

I liked the sliding/platforming/wall jumping but the wall climbing was just kinda slow and boring. It's very similar to the wall climbing in Zelda or Genshin, my least favourite parts of those games. The game advertises scale as a good thing, but for me in many places it seemed too large for its own good, especially when it is not just merely background scenery to look at, but something to actively interact with. The atmosphere/scale is supposed to help with the slower sequences by awing you, but for me it did not look impressive enough to keep me engaged. Scale is more impressive when it is detailed, not so much when it consists mainly of big squares and cylinders.

I would play a version of this that removed the picks/wall climbing, scaled everything down, focused more on the parkour and kept the large-scale stuff as something in the distance for you to just look at. Or maybe just increased your running and climbing speed by 2-3x.

What a coincidence, my cat is also black and named Kitty, I can't believe they made a game about her!

When you make a retro game like this, you have a bunch of decisions to make. What do keep from those old times, what do you evolve, and what do you discard completely? I think you should strive to hit that sweet spot where you keep all the stuff that's fondly remembered, and trim everything else. However, it feels like Signalis made the choice to not just keep some of the "less fun" outdated stuff, but actually crank it up to be more annoying than even back then, "cuz it's so retro!" I assume being the reasoning.

I wouldn't say the game is bad, but I don't believe it deserves the 95% positive rating, and I think there are other games that can scratch that itch better. For me, I was recently recalling fond memories of Dino Crisis 1 & 2, and looking for something to bring those feelings back. Signalis was not it. I will list my 3 biggest reasons for why (without spoilers):

- Inventory management (size, equipment)

Signalis limits you to carrying only 6 items at a time. I played all the old games, and none of them ever felt this restrictive. It feels like there was an attempt to make it so restrictive as to essentially create a new gameplay mechanic, but the mechanic is just not fun. Say you have 4/6 slots filled, you enter a room and you see: 1 small medkit, 2 9mm bullets, 2 shotgun bullets. Guess what, time to pick 2 of them up, and head all the way back to the nearest safe room to unload, then come all the way back again for the remaining item.

The other problem is that equipping items is very cumbersome and basically not advised during combat. So you can't use your pistol and then easily switch to the shotgun. And again the question to ask is: Why? Old games allowed you to switch, even if it required a menu visit, the game was paused to let you (in Signalis it is not). Not being able to do it just makes it less fun. I have all these cool weapons but I can't use them sometimes because of an arbitrary limitation. Why even restrict something like this.

The inventory system feels like when games look at dark souls and their takeaway is "Aha, so the point is to make it hard!".

- Camera angle and transitions

One of the biggest benefits of having fixed camera locations in old games was that you could make everything pre-rendered, and it looked gorgeous for the time. Signalis uses a fixed camera angle for most stuff (with some exceptions) but still makes everything fully 3D, and gives it a very pixelated look (because retro I guess). This was a pretty big missed opportunity imo, even though the final result doesn't look bad.

The other thing that old games were forced to use was door transitions. They had no choice since they had to take the time to load all the high quality drawings somehow. Signalis doesn't have that problem (both because modern computers are fast, and because Signalis is not very heavy on the graphics). Yet, going through doors is noticeably slow. This is another case of taking something that is old and copying it without really understanding why it was there.

- Ammo balance

Simply put, there are too many enemies for how much ammo the game gives you. This only really means one thing, that at a certain point you begin to simply run away from enemies instead of fighting them. This isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, other games do this successfully, but I played this game specifically in an attempt to relive the past. And I never had this problem in any of the old games. If you played well, you were able to take out all the enemies without issue, it was satisfying. For a game trying to emulate the old, this was another puzzling decision.

- Final thoughts:
If you are looking to scratch the itch, I would instead recommend the Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes as games that took an old formula and elevated it to modern standards. They just do a better job on all of these points: They still have inventory management (but it's not annoying); they still require managing ammo, but allow you to kill everything if played properly; they allow you to switch weapons on the fly; they got rid of the door transitions and made everything seamless, while also making the graphics gorgeous.

For a positive I'll mention that the puzzles in Signalis were very good, but even then still tainted by the inventory management often involved.

Will update this review to positive when the enemy AI is fixed.

From someone who has played the first game: This game is a masterpiece. Easily a 10/10. Not only did it fully meet my expectations, it constantly went above and beyond and blew them completely out of the water. I wanted a game with some pretty sights and good puzzles and oh boy did it deliver. Very few minor glitches and so much goodness in this game, you can FEEL that the developers cared.

The views are stunning and have no right to be this good for a puzzle game. The puzzles themselves are challenging, and each one gives you something new to learn. New mechanics generally do not overstay their welcome and you quickly get something new to tinker with.

I suggest playing the first game first (don't have to 100% it, normal playthrough is enough), because the second one really makes you appreciate how much it built on top of it, and you'll get some experience that will help you beat this one as well.

I've read the complaints about the walk speed, and read the developer response, so I set my expectations going in that "Probably it's okay and everyone is just overreacting". With this in mind, having played the game I have to say, the walking speed is actually that bad. The explanation provided in the dev blog no longer makes sense to me, because not only is it immersion breaking (rather than immersive) to have the character casually stroll around during an urgent crisis, but most of the time there is actually no audio or anything to fill the void, you just walk... very slowly, in total silence.

To be honest it feels like the real reason it's there is to artificially stretch the length of the game, because I'm certain this piece of feedback probably came from many people during the development.

A few other head-scratching decisions mentioned in other reviews lead me to give this rating. It's a shame, as there are parts of the game that are quite well done.

Good game tovarishch.

Game tries to be like the Witness and, imo, unlike most copycats, actually succeeds on all the important points. That is to say, it's a really good puzzle game.

If you're like me and like to be occasionally stumped on some difficult puzzle for 10-30 minutes, you will enjoy this. I would say about 98-99% of the puzzles have a logical explanation and make sense. The remaining ones are imo either huge stretches or are very obtuse, but there's few enough of them that it doesn't really get in the way of the experience.

I recommend to play the Witness first and see if you like it. If you do, this game is a great follow up.

meow

Masterpiece