My reasons for recommending this game will be a bit weird.
The story of Signalis, much like some Soulslikes, is left deliberately obtuse and could be interpreted in many different ways. I would even argue that the game's story and narrative go so out of their way to be as complicated and misconstrued that the whole purpose of the game is to just fish around for clues and just make up whatever you think is going on with the story. If you like that you like that, for me the story and narrative are easily the weakest parts of the game and the characters weren't particularly interesting for me. Everything in the game you read and the random vague cutscenes serve to just fuel speculation and build what, to me, feels like a community like the Souls games built on theories and a genuine love for the characters and their designs. In this regard the game succeeds, but I found myself very much wanting something concrete to latch onto, lots of this game's story just feels like grasping at straws to understand anything. The game's several endings also do little to alleviate my gripes after watching them online, and I did not feel at all compelled to go back and replay the game to see them all, let alone try and figure out the ALSO vague criteria the game uses to give you certain endings.
I love the gameplay and experience of playing the game. The music, to the environments are spectacular and the game's visual identity is very strong and echoes some of the great anime of old like GitS. The gameplay is tight and can be properly nerve-wracking thanks to some enemy density in some dangerous rooms. I think the game succeeds at unsettling the player, but doesn't go for jumpscares to outright shock you. I really enjoyed the Resident Evil type gameplay loop of stumbling across puzzles, and then having to piece together the means to solve them whilst dealing with the enemy groups in the game. I also appreciate how you don't really have to fight many enemies at all if you are smart, this game allows you to be as conservative as possible with your munitions and gear. Overall the gameplay aspects of the game and the atmosphere of the environments is what carries this experience for me.
So I just spent a paragraph praising the game, so what are my issues? Well I think there are some puzzles are quite obtuse, but I can only count them on one hand. I had to straight up look the resolution to two puzzles up because I was so confused on what to do because it wasn't made very clear. Also the enemy variety is pretty lacking, which I think kind of sucks for a survival horror title. There is maybe 4 types of enemies you can identify by look but all of them besides 1 behave the exact same. Lastly, there are two specific areas of the game that really suck due to them having no map but that's just my preference.
Overall, the game was a cool experience and fun to play as a survival horror title. I would say Signalis is very much on the easier side of survival horror, the game is very generous and allows you to avoid many groups of enemies. But the overall atmosphere and enjoyment I had out of the puzzles and exploration made me appreciate my time playing this title, even if I have some misgivings on it's narrative presentation. Overall I feel comfortable giving Signalis an 8/10.
