Signalis

[Grinning Serpent]

Y'all picked this one up yet? Got it through gamepass and it's pretty spectacular. Kind of like Dead Space mixed with Silent Hill and East German dystopia. Gameplay is much closer to Resident Evil than Silent Hill, though, as you have a limited inventory (which never expands) and dividing space between combat items and key items is central to the game.

Combat is pretty barebones and there's not a lot of enemy variety, but games like this don't really need good combat, it just needs to be functional. And functional it is. It's a bit awkward fighting multiple enemies at once and maximizing ammo efficiency requires good spacing and timing, but you aren't playing as a fighter, so it's natural that your character isn't adept at combat skills.

Highly recommend it based on story alone - even if you don't much like gameplay in these games, there's a casual difficulty that makes it a cakewalk and the story is absolutely worth visiting. Survival difficulty is a pretty solid survival horror experience, tuned in line with stuff like REmake Hard, RE2R Hardcore, and so on. You can afford to waste a little bit of ammo and healing, but not a lot.

Presentation is excellent, targeting the end-of-life PSX retraux look and it accomplishes it pretty damn well. Kind of a 90's anime vibe to the overall looks and design, with a lot of lo-fi retrotech involved as well - though more 80's Soviet era type stuff rather than, for example, Alien's late 70's aesthetics.

Big recommend so far. Three endings, which are reliant on actual gameplay rather than pushing dialogue buttons (think Silent Hill 2 endings), and the third "secret ending" basically requires you to be a shortwave radio nerd, or copy someone who does the work for you. Given the importance of the use of radio in the game, it's a pretty nice touch. Finished round 1, working on the other two endings (this time on casual to make it faster) and I can definitely recommend this one.

[ldev]

Y'all picked this one up yet? Got it through gamepass and it's pretty spectacular. Kind of like Dead Space mixed with Silent Hill and East German dystopia. Gameplay is much closer to Resident Evil than Silent Hill,

Wowowo, dead space, silent hill, resident evil. *checks screenshots* - some anime indie 2d pixel garbo.

lol

[Grinning Serpent]

Wowowo, dead space, silent hill, resident evil. *checks screenshots* - some anime indie 2d pixel garbo.

lol

Pretty much judging a book by its cover, huh?

[MrPaladinGuy]

Pretty much judging a book by its cover, huh?

Yeah, in this case it shows us it's some anime indie 2d pixel garbo

[Grinning Serpent]

Yeah, in this case it shows us it's some anime indie 2d pixel garbo

I don't understand. If you're just going to shitpost like this, why are you posting at all? You really don't have anything better to do with your time?

[xmirrors]

The game is really, really good...

[MrPaladinGuy]

I don't understand. If you're just going to shitpost like this, why are you posting at all? You really don't have anything better to do with your time?

You not liking someone's opinion doesn't make it a "shitpost".

[Hotmail]

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy Lone Survivor - Director's Cut.

And frankly, I don't get the indie pixel hate. Some of the most profoundly impactful games that I've ever played (Gods Will Be Watching, to name one) were retro games. People constantly bitch that they want better writing or gameplay in their games yet when it comes along, they cry that it doesn't look the way they want it to look lol.

[Grinning Serpent]

You not liking someone's opinion doesn't make it a "shitpost".

No, them making a shitpost is what makes it a shitpost. Notice that I didn't object to your original post, but I did object to theirs. Because yours was a valid opinion, while theirs was just a blatant shitpost.

On topic, it's not really an anime game. The cutscenes have that 90's anime style, but everything else (environments, models, and all of the textures for them) don't feel "anime" to me, unless you'd say that Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and other similar games of that era look anime. You don't get a lot of close-ups of character and monster models, but when you do, they look more like something out of Silent Hill or even Quake than anything from an anime.

[Fencers]

I played this for a bit on Gamepass. Pretty good. I enjoyed the sense of dread throughout the game but I think they didn't do enough to make interactable visually distinct. I often wasted a lot of time looking around not being able to clearly tell what I could interact with or where I could tread.

I'll finish it in all likelihood because I dug the vibe though.

[Grinning Serpent]

I didn't find it too hard to differentiate things since key items were usually a distinct shape and you just memorized what health and ammo pickups looked like. I think the intention was to simulate having to search for those items being in drawers and stuff.

Only thing that bothers me about the game is how it's incredibly picky about angles. I've died more than once trying to go through a door I was standing in front of, but was apparently *too* close to for the button to appear. To me, that's pretty awful design and I don't know why I can't just hit the use button to go through a door without having to click the button. The use key isn't shared with any combat keys or other functions so it's not like they have to be concerned with a context-sensitive button using the wrong thing.

It's the only flaw I've found, so far.

[Zenfoldor]

I'll try it on gamepass, thanks.

There are plenty of folks who only care about AAA games.

The best content will often be artisanal. The AAA crowd might never play a "hidden gem."

In a world with plenty of AAA rehash, and way too many games, there is a strong pull to marginalize content that is too difficult to discover.