Signalis

Many people skip past this game as it is in a very specific niche, just the fact that it has achieved (somewhat mainstream) popularity in survival horror on Steam is already a huge accomplishment. This is a major breakthrough for the devs and perfectly done considering it was only made by two people. It's best to go and play the game without checking anything because the more you learn about it the more it (kind of) takes away the mystery.

If you still want to read, this review doesn't contain any spoilers but does tell you the premise and describes elements of the game that may take away from the experience. I will try to describe in as much detail as I can without revealing anything that is considered a spoiler. Keep in mind some of this will be the actual description that may be a bit opinion based but mostly just describing and some will be my opinion on the game.

Now, focusing on the core elements of this game, everything is either excellent or done to a good degree. Excellent design, presentation, story and narrative, characters, worldbuilding and lore, gameplay music and ambiance, and almost everything else you could think of. It's a return to classic survival horror tropes while also keeping it fresh by adjusting some of the finer points to create its own category. A game that, yes, takes inspiration from masterpieces like Silent Hill 2 and early Resident evil games, but happens to be a breath of fresh air. A game that makes you actually think and creates such pure substance for tense situations and survival horror that it perfectly epitomises the genre while taking a step forward. While also maintaining a fabulously creative and believable story and world throughout, with great atmosphere and visual design so that you never get bored.

Characters are very unique and well designed, with very good links the the world of Signalis, but I also particularly like the main character and how they aren't your typical main 'guy who needs to get from A to B while fighting scary creatures'.

Yes, maybe the backtracking and solving puzzles may become boring for some people but I was amazed at how good the level design was and specifically how they managed to keep it short. This isn't a super long game by any means but it manages to have a good amount of runtime for, again, a game made by TWO people.

However this game is specific and not for everyone by any means some people may not even like the story and that is totally understandable. This isn't 'average' in almost any category, it's incredibly unique, which sets it apart from almost any game (In my opinion) but also could make it suffer in the eyes of some people as not everyone will like it, firstly for the deviation from normal horror, secondly, the unique story and the philosophical questions it raises may be out of interest for a lot of people.

Although you can't deny that this game is real horror, something about it that should be known is that it does contain some heavy topic (and philosophical ideas), and could affect certain types of people such as with anxiety or depression so I suggest that you do some type of research on how well you can handle this. This is just a small warning though.

I have included some of my opinion up until this point but have mostly described this game.

Besides what I just said before there is nothing to worry about this is a fantastic game and experience, someone else reviewed this and said that it's really like a movie. They were right, it is an experience that some games can only hope to offer.

My opinion: This is one of my favourite games and a fantastic idea that was also brilliantly executed, literally everything is stylistically selected and art-oriented to create a perfectly packaged from start to finish masterpiece of modern horror. Obviously nothing is perfect but I gave this a 10 based on my own opinion.

Go play this game, it is like nothing you have played before.

I can understand the average score because this isn't your classic game, your usual gamemodes or your average survival horror, this is a story told within a game, you're only visiting it and playing it to come to know about it. But, within doing so, you will find yourself very intrigued with incredible and really creative puzzles (not your classic "oh, the door is only opened when there's weight on that plate, but maybe that box there could be of help..") and misteries that will have you in the edge of your seat; I can't explain how satisfying was when I got to solve these puzzles due to the level of difficulty they held.

In addition to that the mechanics are accompanied with a great soundtrack that I'm going to listen in depth now, great coloring, great design and great art for the cinematics. It really is like a movie.

A little warning: this game is really criptic, this is real horror, depression inducing tbh. But great nonetheless.