Signalis

I've now beaten Signalis. This review is going to spoil the game immensely. For your sake as a potential buyer, I will leave a small spoiler-free review here at the top. Everything else will be [spoiler]redacted[/spoiler]. This makes me... embarrassed to say this, but I expected less from this game when I first started. Most of what I've heard have been surface level jokes about the main characters and their sexual orientation. I'm uncomfortable because this game is so much more than a joke about sexual preference. It hits all the proper notes of an older Resident Evil inspired game. The combat is a little unwieldy, but on purpose. The puzzles are fun, and force you to explore the entire map. The progression is meaningful in that way, and resource management will punish you if you get a little reckless with clearing rooms. It is stressful, it forces you to think. I really enjoyed the AM/FM tuner, it is a fun mechanic that was used extensively throughout the game that gave it multiple uses. The art is amazing, unlike anything else I've seen on the market for the job it is doing. I have 47 screenshots taken in one playthrough, the color theory, background setting, and so-on are all jaw-dropping. The story is complex, tangled, and largely open to being interpreted by the player on what's happening. At first this seems much, but if you read everything given to you via lore drops or notes, you will put together your own understanding of the events happening on S-23 Sierpinski. If you went in blind like I did, knew just these surface level jokes or assumptions about the game, I urge you pay full price and play it. Even better at a discount, but I think there's something to say about a game that has earned its value. I truly cannot find anything to complain about here in Signalis, it is really that good. This is it for my spoiler-free review. I'll remind you not to read further if you don't want spoilers, because I really get into it. [spoiler]I'm struggling to collect myself right now, this game has left me speechless since I finished it. I'm gonna have to force something out though, so I'll start with this: It isn't about lesbians, it's about love. Signalis has this shallow stereotype about it being "It's about cyborg lesbians in space" when really it isn't. The characters are lesbians sure, but that isn't what is important about their relationship. The love they share is so... real? honest? genuine? It's just two people loving each other, by the end I didn't really see the genders, just the great lengths someone will go through for the one they love most. Doing the things you need to do, not the things you want to do. It's a complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you're in some sort of time loop? Your consciousness seemingly keeps reuploading to other LSTR units that are all pursuing the same goal. You're reliving memories that are not your own, but others. This concept of bioresonance is used to describe "deja vu" like we have in the real world, but in-game is used to describe willing something to happen, or to exist, or for example the game talks about the Pauli effect. A term used to describe critical equipment or hardware that fails in front of certain people. I.e. A server rack that you're in charge of starts to crash right in front of you while your boss is standing next to you. Certain things happen in certain ways because of certain circumstances, that are all comingled together by bio-resonance. This is important, because it is the core lore bit that explains almost everything that is happening. For the themes of the game, it functions as this bridge between spirituality, technology, and our main character, LSTR. A "Replika" that is a human being casted onto a titanium shell, effectively a clone of another conscious that lore-wise is seen as equipment or a robot. Speaking of lore, the lore is deep. Incredibly deep. In a 10hr playthrough to complete I am left begging for more. The world-building of the Eusan Nation and the Replikas have me begging for another step back into this universe. It's an alternate future where somehow the nation you represent uses a modified East German flag, you've colonized space, you live under a totalitarian government, and there's a war that you don't even see. The replikas are "cloned" versions of people that are put into robotic endoskeletons with printed skin and organs, filled with "oxidant" blood, and have the consciousness of the original "Gestalt" flashed into them, bringing them to life. The replikas themselves are fascinating, with different types, they form social cliques, they are treated like equipment and even have psychological screenings done to be able to tell whether or not they are worthy of continuing service. "Decommissioning" is just a bullet to the head for them, if that tells you anything on whether or not they are human. Signalis uses this vehicle of akira-style body horror, resident evil gameplay, and a really challenging world in order to tell a story about love. Not that pretty-pretty love, but that love where you have to do what you need to do, not what you want to do, for the person you love most. Like I said before, this is spoiler territory, this is the biggest one so if you've gone this far okay with the spoilers, you won't be with this. Stop here. Love demands a lot from you. Love demands that you do what you need to do objectively, not subjectively, and it does that by putting you in a position where you have to kill the person you love the most, because if you don't then their suffering will continue. Your partner, Ariane, has cancer. You spent 3000+ cycles on a starship where after a couple thousand the reactor coolant lines failed, and started leaking radiation throughout the whole ship. She develops cancer, and since you're the Replika, the nations policy is that it is your job to kill your Gestalt pilot when it gets to this point. However LSTR and Ariane aren't in that work-relationship anymore. They love each other, and LSTR promises Ariane that when it comes down to it, she will kill her. There's four endings to the game, and in mine I strangled her to death at the very end. When the person you love most is suffering, they are dying in front of you, you don't want to kill them. Nobody would. You won't see them ever again, and it will be at your hands.... but if you don't... they're going to suffer in the worst ways possible, in ways worse than death. Skin peeling and falling off from radiation exposure, cancerous growths pushing their organs together, blood struggling to flow, they are completely unable to function on their own. Death is the only thing left that would help... and you have to kill them as a mercy. It is absolutely brutal, but you see it as true love, because if we don't do what loves demands of us, we aren't in love, we're just enjoying what it can bring. Signalis gives you one of the most powerful experiences any person can have in life, in a neat 12hr~ package. I want more of this universe. A spin-off, a new title, a book, a movie? There is so much potential here that it would be a waste of world building to be confined to just this game alone. I cannot emphasize just how amazing this game was. Top marks across the board, I can't find anything to complain about.[/spoiler]

SIGNALIS is definitely a game you should experience atleast once. What's amazing about SIGNALIS is the most confusing story i've experienced (Not kidding) Even after beating the game, reading notes and everything I went through in the journey, I still don't understand the story and I am stuck with bunch of questions. I'll also mention this. I have watched some essays about SIGNALIS before I even played (hence how I got hooked into this game) And still, It doesn't click with me. And I think that's a good thing. Im probably not the only person that doesn't understand the story, hence why we are actually interpreting SIGNALIS in our way about how the story goes and what it is about. And if that was the ideal plan all along by the developers, then they definitely have nailed it, spot on. SIGNALIS is full of complicated references, lore and a lot of confusing and hard puzzles that tests your brain to the limit. What I am going to remember about SIGNALIS is: ACHTUNG ACHTUNG ACHTUNG And don't forget: "REMEMBER OUR PROMISE"

This game gave me goosebumps with its art, philosophy, literature and eargasm music. Absolute art and psychological horror... It puts you in a neon-lit, melancholic artful nightmare. Every corner feels heavy with isolation. The game explores what it means to be human and dealing with grief in an abstract way. It's profoundly devastating. If you love solving puzzles, intense atmosphere and endings that give goosebumps then you should play Signalis. Peak hidden indie gem. Above all PEAK YURI!!!