gaydarade
@gaydarade

things i like about signalis:

  • gorgeous
  • flavorful
  • robot girls having a bad time
  • the implication

things i dont like about signalis:

  • its not very enjoyable to play
  • i got to the halfway point and realized that the plot hooks hadn't hooked me

so i read about the endings and realized that even if i played through the whole game and got to any of them (and i'd probably get to whichever one you get from dying a ton - which is an annoying paradigm - i really don't care for games that corral high player death counts into one bucket, and lower player death counts into another bucket), i probably wouldn't really get it? i didnt feel any appreciation about what it was going for based on the synopses.

i think its probably a me thing. i have trouble caring a lot lately. i think my brain is broken in that regard.


gaydarade
@gaydarade

itemized list of things i noticed and liked:

  • general vibe and aesthetic
  • as conveyed through things like the posters
  • that one biorez replika who didnt get infected
  • the biorez library, how they like books, the library vending machine
  • robot girls in uniform
  • the tension of going into first person mode in elevators and fearing a jumpscare that never comes
  • scanning around on my radio for number stations
  • the infected mindcontrol girls just want to listen to the radio
  • adler as a villain(?)
  • the one mynah who was bleeding out, was very nice
  • the stcr who refused to leave the security room on principle
  • basically any of the one-off npc's like those were doing something i found interesting

itemized list of things i no longer remember, but liked:

  • the different replikas having the sense memories that make them relate to each other in specific ways. bunch of things i liked there. adler and mynah, i feel i probably enjoyed but i dont really remember.
  • i liked that one dorm room where the worker girls were. there were also some funny notes in the upper floors, with, like the work orders and stuff.

itemized list of things i didnt like:

  • enemies dont stay dead, so you cant make areas safe
  • enemies are slow moving and meant to be sidestepped, but they scream whenever you come close
  • lots of areas with lots of backtracking meant i was constantly getting screamed at.
  • savespots also fucking scream at you
  • the puzzles largely didnt feel good
  • boss fights didnt really click with me.
  • i kept getting introduced to People and Mystery, but at no point did i ever feel grounded enough to care about what i was doing or why.
  • adler being introduced as a villain and then not having much subsequent presence in the story after ive been asked to think about him so much.
  • the first eprson sequences are a mixed bag. its important to have them, but as they are, i dont like them. i think they need more love and dynamism. i think they should be tonally different.

i had a fiction professor who said that the two plot progressions are: the strange interrupts the familiar, and the familiar emerges from the strange. i feel like signalis was all strange all the time, and never took much time to properly convey the familiar.


You must log in to comment.