Hello all, with any work like this, there's bound to be conflicting readings, possibly even complete misinterpretation and here's where I want to highlight some helpful corrections/advice to both what I've said and in general: 1) On TwXtter, Yuri Stern didn't roast me but graciously responded to my complaint about the map requiring too many clicks to get to: "I would like to let you know that you can open the map in a single click, by simply pressing the dedicated map button (Y). Additionally, in the Steam version, you can also scroll the map with the right stick without an additional button press." So that's there for anyone led astray by my total oversight here.
Im telling ya. Im surprised i didnt see that but maybe that just speaks to how well defined the controls are, I didnt think there were anything but obvious uses to even know I needed to look at control screen XD
THANK YOU. I was getting tired of people bring up the same Yuri quote over and over again when ever I would try to make sense of this nonsensical game I am so glad that someone shares my views that this game's story should be understood and not completely throw out for the "does this ending make you sad or even sadder." approach.
@@MidnightMedium Very good. So far this video made me realise a glaring hole in my own theory of the game. I'd somehow got in my head that Elster's Gestalt was Isa's sister. My theory hinged on the ritual Isa is shown performing at the start. Isa, despite to find her sister (who I now realise isn't Lilith Itou), performs that ritual to bring them together. However, the ritual was unable to differentiate between the real deal and the bioresonant Elster replikas of (what I thought was) the same person. This brought all the Elster units together including the Ariane's Elster on the Penrose out in space. Sort of merging the physical locations of each Elster unit into one beyond the archway and taking a dying Ariane with it. Then Ariane's bioresonant abilities get involved and shenanigans ensue. I still like the theory and I still believe that beyond the gate is a sort of non euclidean space that connects multiple locations. However, now I'm a bit lost on how that would happen.
The fun thing about the butterfly puzzle is that there is a paper that explains paraeidolia in the game, in that same room and I couldn't figure that puzzle either.
Yeah its the great irony of it. Also pretty sure pareidolias not defined in that room specifically, just the word beneath the butterflies as shown in my footage but the definitions definitely in the game somewhere. Its quite a fun bit of keep away from the player that leaves you wide open to making a dramatically ironic mistake that just defines the word youre trying to understand :)
It's also funny because you cannot beat the game without completing the butterfly puzzle. You must engage in the supposed paraeidolia in order to progress. Is the game trying to say that much of it's perceived meaning is paraeidolia, or is the game mocking you for thinking that there isn't an order to the chaos?
To me, the Pareidolia memo that comes conspicuously close to the end of the game is Signalis showing its hand. The pattern recognition parts of our brains are hardwired to make connections, even when none actually exsist. But just because thoes connections don't exsist doesn't mean they can't be meaningful. The Red Eye of Rotfront is literally just a storm in Rotfront's atmosphere, but the Red Eye people saw in it became an important symbol and part of the culture of the people of Rotfront. Likewise, what a person takes away from Signalis isn't meaningful because it's necessarily literally true. It is meaningful because of what it reflects back on to them and what it reveals to others. What symbols stood out, what refrences carried weight, and what feelings all thoes things evoked.
What if this pattern recognition and replicating is not a meta-commentary on the player and game... but rather a hint as to what is happening to Replikas when they undergo persona degradation? Would explain a lot of the confused elements in the game, like Alina-Ariane, Rotfront's Red Eye-Ariane's red eyes etc. I think people are a bit too quick to jump on the "everything is subjective and no definitive interpretation can be made" bandwagon.
@@Wind_Falcon I mean, it's both of those things. Adler's diary lays that out pretty plainly. "A slow accumulation of reproduction errors." As someone who's thought about this game daily since I played it last year, and plays it at least once a month, all roads lead back to Elster and Ariane. We can chase our tails all day long mapping star charts and trying to piece together concrete timelines of events and theorizing on the nature of bioresonance, but all of those are just detours that eventually all lead back to the tragedy of Elster and Ariane. It's very much like Neon Genesis Evangelion, where getting caught up in trying to decode the religious iconography leads people down-dead end rabbit holes and ultimately distracts from the obvious and more important core themes of the difficulties forming and maintaining human connections. Not all art wants to be "solved." Some just wants you to feel.
@@raydaug4633 I wrote a huge comment and then lost it before posting. So I will be short. I actually completely disagree. The game intentionally sets up the false assumption in players regarding dreams, loops and "everything is possible space magic" bioresonance, and then nudges them to challenge these assumptions with all the peppered information throughout the game regarding persona degradation, Synchronicity, Pareidolia, copy of a copy LSTR units etc. I actually think that virtually everything, especially the most important aspects, can be concretely answered for with textual evidence without speculation or dream loops/dream dimensions/cycles/time manipulation etc.
the ship being named Penrose also reflects the fact that any "return trip" is illusory - The end might appear to line up with the start but it is actually disjoint
This is amazing! You managed to completely put together the story in a way that isn't just speculation; like you made use of all the references in the game to. Great job on all the work put into this
Minor spoilers for anyone considering playing this game: The chimera boss as well as the final boss can both be beaten with no ammo. The game detects when you run out of ammo and makes allowances for that. Isa eventually shoots the chimera and the final boss eventually self staggers if you dodge enough attacks. All you have to do is not give up (even though the situation feels hopeless). In defense of the inventory system, the game is trying to reward you for discretion and paying attention to your environment. If you leave an item for later, you will almost always revisit that location at some point in the future, and you will likely be able to pick it up on your second time through. If you plan your trips based on what you've seen, what you need and where you need to go, you can always leave things where they are and they'll be there when you need them. The game became way more enjoyable for me when I stopped grabbing everything I saw, and instead focused on what I needed in the moment (a good lesson for life). Also, I recommend playing on Survival difficulty, you will use pretty much everything you pick up just to survive, freeing up inventory space and reducing backtracking.
I posted a comment RIGHT before I read this. I think the Chimera can technically be beaten without wasting all your ammo, and that damaging it just helps wind down the "Timer" for where Isa actually gets her crap together and stands up, though I could be wrong.
Great review! A while ago, one of my friends just finished the game, and we had a long discussion about the story of the game too. But mostly about "What is the Promise"... I actually never thought of this before, assuming that the promise is something simple like to end Ariane's suffering or bring Elster to be with her... But then, my friend and I drew a conclusion that it's not our place to know. It's a promise made by two characters in the story, and we, as players, are just helping one of them navigate through the world to fulfill that whatever promise. Not our business to pry. I mean its like 4am. and we have to wake up for work in the morning... xDDD Such a great game!
I find it even more fitting to the theme of signalis that the chimes radio broadcast heard in the title card and the selection screen had a similar fate. If you hear the original broadcast it will sound very distorted, slow and creepy. This wasnt always the case as the chimes were once more clear and peaceful. But over time as they were played over decades, the tune slowly distorted and slowed. Just as each new loop slowly distorts in the game
@@MidnightMedium I feel like it just had to be an inspiration for the story and how each loop deteriorates the world as it continues. There's no way the developers heard that tune and just decided to include that specific one for no reason
Well, its a common thing in German phonelines Ive heard, essentially like the classical dial tone or busy signal we get here in the US and the creators heritage is German as well as Asiatic so Im sure theres some common familiarity there. But i wouldnt past it them at all, there are quite a lot of rippling connotations for most everything in the game
You can tell the gameplay portion (specifically the inventory system) of the video was made pre-Krahe update- but other than that, this was a really great analysis and critique!
I really appreciate that! Took me months but glad it got out of my system. Cant say its been a smash hit but Im pleased its gotten this many views. Some stuff just never takes off but this ones doing okay :) I wont turn away more though of course!
I've also read online that the numbers 512 could be related to infinity with pareidolia, 5+1+2 = 8, put sideways is infinity, a reference to the cycles that the number finds itself in over and over again.
This is one of the better analyses of the game I've found. Its a tribute to the game itself I suppose to note that there is so much packed into it in terms of detail, meaning, references etc that the multiple 2hr analyses of it that I've watched all bring many new things to the table. I think you do the best job however of pulling together the game's influences and the developer's comments to provide a narrative that's richer and, I think more accurate than most.
I sure appreciate it. That was the goal. Reddits done far more for interpretations than any RU-vid video ever has and was frustrated by how much summary there was without saying anything other than whats happening on screen
I appreciate you saying that. There's still some housekeeping factoids that are so overstated like the shape symbolism but I tries to make this more musings than bland recounting of what's on screen, which I'm amazed is all many have tried to do
Beautiful video. I was definitely left with a lot of questions by the time I unlocked all of the endings, but this really helped me tie it all together. Thank you!
Aw, thank you. Im glad it helped! I feel like theres def a more lithe interpretation out there that accounts for more things but this is best i could manage in 3 months of research and writing Xzd
Thoughts so far: 1) the inventory didn’t bother me very much, nor did the map or the backtracking but I’m also one of those annoying turds who likes this stuff so it was very “your mileage may vary” however I understand how it could’ve hampered your experience! Accessibility is good, I’m glad the update came out, very neat. 2) the note about world-building and when you dropped the Alan Wake/Stephen King quote, that’s perfect, that’s always exactly what I think about when consuming a “horror” or “new weird” story. It’s fun to draw your own conclusions, I love filling in the gaps! I don’t place much stock in “lore” or what The Proper Nouns do in the story, I’m a vibes-based entity and boy does Signalis excel on that. (Will update as I go)
Yeah, and turns out Yuri Stern even messaged me to let me know I totally missed a map quick key, which is just aces. I'm glad that exists, that really would've helped if I'd ever thought to look in the controller options XD. yeah, it's a big tightrope. If you listen to me whinge in my recent Virginia video, I talk about exactly the same idea Lynch mentioned, about how keeping the mystery alive is essential in his eyes, as opposed to tying up every loose end. Much to Signalis's credit, as much as it's open endedness frustrates me, I can appreciate how it supports but never quite confirms the King in Yellow's existence, the exact nature of reality, etc. I really appreciate you taking the time to go bit by bit. Look forward to chatting more with you!
A great interpretation of this game and one that finally helps me understand this game as I've watched other analysis videos on this game and they tend to start confusing me after the hour mark and when people try to explain the endings or give their interpretation. I always enjoy your videos and this one is my favorite so far
Im so glad it held value for you. Over 3 months of grinding out a script and scraping for what to believe in here was ah intense. It became my Roman empire for awhile, so much so that my wife whenever I get carried away talking about something, she goes "so what happened in Signalis was..." XD
This is a really good video! I love the amount of information and references you packed into here. With regards to the identity of Elster's Gestalt, I believe the woman we see in the photo and the flashbacks are the Gestalt. We can only speculate on her name though since there is nothing that actually ties a name to that person in the photo. both options that you presented seem to be the best candidates. I personally interpret it that her name is intentionally left to be unknown. As for the artifact ending, the Elster on the top right looks to be White Armored Elster without the chest armor and not Isa. Though you cant see the color of her chest in normal gameplay, you can recognize her blue arm and leg bands as well as the white armor on her arms. It's difficult to pull what that specific depiction of Elster could mean but if I were to make a guess it may reference Elster shedding her white armor in the Leave ending. This is still a bit confusing however since Elster seems to also revert back from her Magpie colors to her red configuration in that ending. Though this version of Elster could more generally represent her past failures to fulfill her promise, having removed her armor.
Hey there! Thanks so much! As hard as this video was to make, I was excited to finish it because I guaranteed that some people smarter than I was would help me figure some stuff out and here you are! Yeah that top right Isa looking thing was strange. It looks so much like her green outfit but someone didnt seem right to me about it either
Great video. I’m not sure if it was mentioned before but the Chimera fight can be beaten without wasting a single bullet. I’m not sure on the actual metrics but you’re supposed to basically give Isa time to fire her shot.
See thats what i read too. I noticed in my footage she endlessly fumbled for reloads and would never fire until i did enough damage. Maybe just a glitch that gave me a bad impression
@@MidnightMediumif my memory serves me right, post initial playthrough, I never fired a bullet and just ran around the arena until Isa finally decided it’s time to shoot
@@edindjc8735 I might be wrong but I think if you get close to Isa she shoots faster which might mean if the monster gets close enough to Isa she shoots it immeadiately
Doing damage to the beast decreases the time required for the shot, I highly doubt it actually took 10 minutes without dealing damage. For me the Beast went down in about 40 seconds, although I didn't test this to be fair@@MidnightMedium
@stopdeplommoninmeikweetdat9670 10 mins to get from topside down to him, not the fight itself. Im hearing i didnt find a save room nearby tho. I think my game was glitched or something cuz Isa just would never fire
I have a theory about 512: I have no clue if anyone else has said this before, but if you add the numbers together, you get 8. 5+1+2 = 8, and if turned sideways, 8 is the infinity symbol. This could totally be a huge stretch, but given some of the wild things this game does, maybe not? Who knows But I figure that this could be a nod to the entire eternal recurrence/ time loop shenanigans happening, and also, if Ariane does turn into a power goddess, essentially, then maybe there's that? Anyway, great stuff, super in depth. I'm working on another Signalis video rn, so I appreciate all of the effort, research, time, etc. that went into this, just bc I know it's a ton of work Great work!
Whatt. I like that infinity symbol idea. That seems very likely! Godspeed to you. Ill sub to you so i can see your video when it goes live. Thanks for kind words!
The Nue and Falke bosses are designed like Silent Hill bosses, in that if you run out of ammo they'll automatically stun after a short time allowing you to kill it (Nue) or use a spear on it (Falke). Nue is the amalgam in the cage with all the arms and legs.
You might be able to do this with the first boss, but you can kill it really easily with the shotgun and revolver, so I never had to wait around for it.
Yeah i think what im finding is the Chimera boss made me think it was unfair because it bugged out im thinking. In my footage, Isa fumbles the reload animation endlessly and wont fire that final shot, no matter how long i run around so the fight cant end unless i do max damage, which of course requires a decent amount of ammo
@HighFunctioningMedium yeah I nevernhad that problem. I only died once in the process of figuring the boss out. Second time ended pretty easily. Worth noting, you only have to stun Nue once (knock it down). The boss is technically defeated once you do that, you just need to wait on Isa to stop fumbling the gun and take the shot.
47:30 Do you think the origin of 512 is from the people's army photograph? It states that they were the 5th Vinetan Infantry division, Unit 12 Since elster's army group shows up so much, isnt it likely she is distorting the dreams too?
@@MidnightMedium I was just thinking it over, the origin of 512 is definitely between the army photo and the key of eternity. I am just debating which one is more trust worthy. The mirrored image of the 5 on the key is just too convenient but then again, the flashbacks (assuming they are not corrupted) have their unit name on it, the 5th division of unit 12.
@kickylol yeah well id start with the more realistic memory since thats likely whats echoing throughout the game in fantastic forms, being either dream or fractured memory
Yknow whats weird? Im a weepy boi (Alice in Alan Wake 2 and such) but Signalis has never made me cry. I got a burn in my chest once and got close and that Rachmaninoff riff is moving but somehow never broke. But reading that And Death Shall Have No Dominion poem messes me up, dawg
1:00 Oh my god I didn't even notice the letters I thought it was the first letter of the names of those butterflies or something and I'm like "how tf am I supposed to know" and I just guessed AEON cause I saw that word floating around in the medical documents.
That would've been the last word I ever guessed simply because it wasn't relevant to anything I was being asked to do or think about. I was trying LSTR and all sorts of other relevant combos and I was like how am I not gettting this oneee XD
Yeah it threw me for a loop when i played the demo but the final products a lot more zoomed out, less nausea inducing, and easier on the eyes. Came a long way
I finished this last night over dinner. Amazing work. I always thought SIGNALIS was good, but I had no idea. Thank you, the way you contextualise your essay and depth of your analysis, amazing. Thank you again
I sure appreciate you making such an effort to digest it all. I really tried to make this make sense. Sometimes these videos are much self help as they are aids to others to help them appreciate something
Godddnow I get why this took so long to write LOL. So much cross-examination. As per usual watching your videos I go into the media completely blind… and maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention to your tweets but I was notttt prepared for the doomed yuri genre 😭. Signalis has a beautiful style along with graphics and almost makes me wish that I’d heard of it sooner to experience it naturally, but this video only proves that I wouldn’t have ever appreciated it for my lack media analysis and maybe comprehension LOL. Anyways merry signalmas!!!
Happy holiday to you as well! Yeah, it was brutal. It prob sounds fairly conventional to read but I had to hew down the rough edges of doubt and contradiction quite a bit in my theorycrafting search
I find Adler's inclusion as the only man we see in the game very interesting, and whether under your reading he is meant to be a representation of the state itself? His relation to women in the game is hateful with the exclusion of Falke, who he fetishizes. It's possible he also personifies the Eusan Empire - an "other" who is the cause of much conflict, and who worships a bioresonant matriarch.
Yeah, I think his actions could easily be read to represent the will of Eusan Nation, the rigid, fastidious enforcer of every jot and tittle of the law. His role as the only man is more mysterious to me; obviously everyone else is female so thats an instant "what are you saying here" moment but maybe its just to make him stand out even more pronouncedly from all the others as the only who really cares about the imposed order. The most speculative interpretation is that he represents a masculine nature that the feminine is retreating from. I think one of the devs has more recently begun identifying as they/them and i know lots of folks from that community have said this story resonated with their experience
Same. Theres too much information to keep in your memory at one time and lots of backtracking and remembering where stuff while you have more immediate concerns
1:03:05 Just a nitpick - eternal recurrence is NOT a concept invented by Zoroaster nor is it representative of Mazdayasna's view of time(Zurvan). Merely an idea of Nietzsche, one that he voiced through the character of Zarathustra. Ashem Vohu.
That's great to hear! I can easily see people tuning it out. I kinda took it upon myself to reconcile with the game BY engaging it and taking it seriously, almost in spite of my first impression and it helped my appreciation tremendously
It's weird, I dont remember reading the bulbapedia article for Ariados but the link was purple when I thought of it and searched. It may be named after Ariadne, indeed a Cretan princess in Greek mythology associated with strings and mazes, as you pointed out for Arianne here in Signalis. In the myth, Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of twine before he entered the Labyrinth to slay the Minotaur, so that he may trail the strand behind him and find his route back to her.
This was one hell of a watch bro. Chapeau for the script. Excellent use of sources and significant detail for a mere RU-vid video. I loved your interpretation of the Swan Lake and your insights on the Artifact ending cleared up a lot about what was going on there. I knew immediately it was some sort (half baked) ritual but I don't know enough about magick and dark stuff to really have a proper opinion. But your remark about the stone really seems to work out. I just get the feeling that this game was not released in the way the creators intended. The ritual felt so out of the blue. "Oh hey dude, collect these three secret keys and I'll suddenly have an altar with 6 variations of me already sacrificed ready to go"- almost as if entire portions of the game were cut out.
Thanks so very much! Def spent prob too much time on this one, it kinda swallowed me for about 3-4 months! Yeah, some things I have a hard time justifying as "did this game need this" or is it "a cool SIlent Hill 2 nod" kinda deal
I've been getting into meditation lately, so I've been exposed to a lot of Eastern, mostly Indian, psychology. Something I didn't relaize back when I first played Signalis si that the concepts described in "The Song of the Gods" are very similar to the concept of Brahman in Hinduism. Basically, Brahman is a cosmic force that makes up all of the universe. It is pure potential in its natural form, like some kind of primordial chaos. This potential can vibrate on different frequencies like a probability wave, which causes it to break down into energy and matter and thus shape reality. One of the goals of meditation is to reach enlightenment by aligning your mind with Brahman and becoming one with the universe. If you've ever seen scenes of monks sitting and chanting "Oum" over an over, that's because it's a sound that is thought to be as close to Brahman's base frequency as the human vocal apparatus can reproduce, so they are trying to vibrate at the same frequency as the universe. Bioresonance sounds a lot like Brahman, except here we get people who are naturally attuned to it and can shape the universe around them using their own will.
Funnily enough, David Lynch feels like a big stylistic influence on Signalis and he is also heavily into Transcendental Meditation, getting in touch with the energy field, etc. You make a solid connection here; that's a great way to put it
Amazing video! You've shed light on a lot of things I haven't seen brought up anywhere else. I found the parallels to Swan Lake as well as your thoughts on the artifact ending in particular to be extremely insightful and eye-opening. I also agree that the fandom jumped the gun on the Lilith Itou thing, her name is like a textbook example of a red herring. There are a few details here and there that differ from my own interpretations and theories, but I found yours to be extremely interesting and plausible. I think the real triumph of Signalis is the way it manages to strike a balance between being a conventional mystery that can be solved and a purely abstract work of art left entirely to the player's interpretation. There's precision in it's vagueness. It's a paradox, an ouroboros, a fractal, an impossible object like a Penrose triangle fashioned into the form of a narrative video game. Ultimately, all of this serves to do what I love most about art: Leaving a lasting impression that stays with you for a long, long time.
Thank you! Yeah, thats why I wasnt satisfied with "its all up to interpretation." Surely some of it is arbitrary and just the way the devs felt it should be but the symbolism, numerology, and references are way too intentional and connotative not to be taken seriously and unpacked
1:33:46 In the artifact ending, all of the bodies are Elster. The grey one being Elster without her chestplate, and the one obscured being either lilith or huang, whichever you believe elster's gestalt to be
@rey3103 yeah guessing right and left cuz theres almost an intentionally hard to see amount of these people around the pillars. Thanks so much, it was quite an undertaking
Both the cage boss and the final boss, fun fact, can actually be beaten if you run out of ammo! :) If you notice as you were demonstrating the "Die and reset" for the cage boss, the girl in the corner had gotten up and raised her rifle anyways, same thing goes with the final boss and what's required to beat them.
I never minded the inventory system, maybe because i fought everything I saw. Even backtracking back to cases wasn’t at all annoying for me. Edit: also skill issue for the final boss that shits easy af git gud
Same! I feel the inventory is perfect. Reminds me of the OG resident evil and its remake. Claustrophobic inventory is valuable game design (sometimes). It's part of the experience, you really have to manage your items and think about what you absolutely NEED to carry everywhere. Sometimes going around the map with no weapons is the proper choice
@obliqua7169 yeah! Yuri Stern responded to me on Twitter how to do it. Totally overlooked it somehow. Funny i now do this with all games now, just hold down a menu button on controller instead of click and oftentimes itll jump right to the map
I also did not notice the pattern on the butterfly. The way I solved it is actually luckily guessing Aeon because I have seen that name pop up in various documents and the letters were there.
Personally, I think taking the world as taking place in a dream is taking certain notes a bit too literally? I think the referencing to dreamers is how the two strongest bioresonance weilders in the story, Ariane and Falke, causing the world around them to change in ways seemingly impossible manners, and I get that reading from how bioresonance being described as making the unreal real, to do the seemingly impossible with the power of the mind. Ariane causes everything around the penrose crash site to become this dreamlike he'll world from a result of her grief and wanting to die. This bioresonance is only made worse as it imprints upon Falke, forcing Elster and Ariane's memories inside of her and driving her mad, causing even more chaos in the facilities, after all, *she* was the first to get sick, everyone getting sick as a result of her bioresonance.
In-game, we learn that bioresonant individuals can: 1) Alter the world around them (the Empress, Klimaforming). 2) Communicate via telepathy (Kolibri units). We know that Ariane and Falke are bioresonant. It follows that if Ariane can alter the world around her, and can communicate/connect with Falke, then perhaps she can use Falke as a sort of signal booster or proxy for her ability to alter things. Falke units are said to have powerful bioresonant abilities, hence the corruption of the entire facility (which is 'taken apart and put back together' remotely by Ariane, through Falke, to reflect her own past/trauma). It's a fever dream, but it's pulled into reality by bioresonance (i.e. the core conceit that lets the story avoid _just_ being a dying dream). The part that I'm not 100% on is how Ariane actually connects to Falke in the first place. This is the titular Signalis, the point-of-origin of the events on Sierpinski, but I don't know if we actually find out the specifics of how Falke was 'infected'.
I applaud your approach to the game that more can be concretely figured out than most people want to believe. Very few people are so bold unfortunately. Funnily, in the beginning you say you are going to try to avoid mispronouncing names, but you mispronounced the name of the BLAME! manga. It's not pronounced like the English word, but like a pistol bang - /blam/. The debt to Silent Hill (PS1) is even greater than you let on. The whole narrative structure is primarily inspired by SH. Gestalt has different definitions depending on the field. I actually think the devs employ not the psychological, but the linguistic meaning of the definition. Bioresonance lets you reshape reality, like with the examples you gave (terraforming), so in a very materialistic way, not influence reality itself. In the story synopsis it would have been helpful to put on the screen the textual evidence you use as reference. I'm pretty sure most of what you said is accurate, but on a few points I'm wondering where exactly you got the details (like dates/how much time had passed between events). So far so good, but you lost me at the dream part. If you go strictly by the textual evidence, the game establishes only two elements that can be the key for untangling the narrative mystery. Bioresonance which I mentioned its limits earlier, and more importantly, Synchronicity (I count Synchronicity and persona degradation as a single narrative element here). Everything in the video that you said has to be attributed to dreams or Ariane having an influence on reality (which has zero direct textual evidence for in the game) can actually be explained by Synchronicity in a very straightforward manner. With the various boot up and crash screen sequences it's obvious we are experiencing (almost) everything in the game through a subjective POV, and not a third person objective perspective like in most media. On top of regular Replikas having Synchronicity problems, we also have the detail regarding LSTR units in particular that they are a copy of a copy - first we have the Gestalt Vinetan Soldier next to Alina Seo in the photo, then the "iconic white armor" LSTR, and then the regular "black and orange" looking LSTR whose neural pattern was taken not from the original Gestalt (whose data was lost when the Archive was bombed on Vineta) but from a white armor Penrose decommissioned LSTR unit. In this sense, after the onset of her persona degradation, Elster is struggling to parse reality not only between her memories with Ariane and the original Gestalt's ones, but also the white armor LSTR unit. Which is also why there is this switcheroo with the photo of Alina and Ariane in the beginning of the game. In the game we see a cutscene and play a section where a crashed Penrose LSTR unit is searching for Alina Seo on... a snowy planet. Then the last third of the game we play as a white armored LSTR looking for someone... on the snowy planet of Rotfront, and gaining information that was impossible for Ariane to know herself. This is not something Elster has ever done, nor are these Ariane's memories. These are the memories of the white armor LSTR unit, looking for Alina because of the Gestalt resurfacing memories. This reading also explains the numerous obvious connections the game makes between different pairings of characters. These similarities are the result of confusion due to a broken mind being incapable of parsing reality from foreign memory, and projection false meaning on different entities. And the final piece - Bioresonance lets you influence people's minds. We actually don't need for any mass reshaping of reality, dimension creation, time or dream manipulation to happen in order to explain what we see in the game. Falke goes mad - unwillingly corrupts the minds of the Replika's around her. A corrupted mind can then experience their environment and people around them in a totally different way to actual reality. Which is also the case with Ariane and Elster. The Red Eye is a real phenomenon on Rotfront (as the game's star system is actually based on our Solar system, Rotfront being Jupiter I think with its Great Red Spot). That moment where we see a giant red eye in the sky in a cutscene that looks like Ariane's is not a coincidence. But that's not because of Ariane creating anything, it's simple confusion on the part of Elster, projecting Ariane's red eye(s) on Rotfront's Red Eye while breaking down and experiencing persona degradation and Synchronicity. This notion that the events we experience as players are actually confused is further reinforced by the element of the forgotten promise. What motivates Elster to act if she has in fact forgotten her promise to Ariane? The answer by now should be obvious - because she is at least partially for a time confusing her with Alina (and with other characters like Falke). There is also one more important aspect we can explain by this straightforward approach - the dream about dreaming. We have established that Elster going through these false and faulty memories is something happening inside her head - something that her mind can generate on it's own. In that state, dying on the Penrose near Ariane's cryopod she is essentially dreaming. How does Ariane actually fit into this though? Well in her diary we read right before the final boss, we actually see that she has entries about experiencing the lives of different people while she is asleep. She is "peeping in" on their dreams. This is also what is happening on the Penrose - Ariane while asleep in her cryopod is "peeping" in on Elster's ongoing mental breakdown. She doesn't have to influence her at all (or at least not much, maybe stuff like some of the first person sequences, or the Red Eye that looks like Ariane's might be a slight influence) in order for the events we see in-game to happen. So Ariane has a dream about a dreaming Elster. And those lines about "awakening the dreamer" and "time to wake up"? Well right after an "awakening" - we see Elster finally confront Ariane in the cryopod. Pretty self explanatory. All of this is further reinforced by that Pareidolia butterfly puzzle. Many people take it to be some sort of meta-commentary on the part of the devs regarding players and interpretation of their game, but in reality it's a hint as to what is happening to a Replika as they experience persona degradation. They start seeing the same patterns repeated everywhere, even though they are not actually real. Which is what the whole game is, as we experience it from the subjective POV of Elsters breakdown and persona degradation. Again, what we see is not an objective reality (but that doesn't mean that everything that we see is not true, like for example we can be pretty sure that the readables are mostly true).
Lotta good stuff here. Very good way of keeping all the elements in play without having to discount much or any of them. Thanks for the suggestions/corrections! Yeah, very possible the limits of bioresonance are blown out of proportion and have become their own headcanon much like the Lilith Itou thing, where we use the most similar trope we know to keep explaining the thing in front of us
@@MidnightMedium Hey, thanks for commenting and acknowledging the effort. You have no idea how much (and how ridiculous) pushback I receive for these ideas, which to me seem extremely straightforward and well substantiated by the game itself. I actually haven't watched the whole video, might comment/edit the first post some more when I finish it. You did good work overall as well, nice job.
@@Wind_Falcon I sure appreciate it. And I kinda felt like I still had many things justifying dream theory wouldnt account for, but it helped account for more things, so I tried to make a video of it ;) Def one of those things where I think the lore is resting on the head of a needle and its so easy to be near but not quite on the mark. I felt like this interpretation accounts for the most things at once but still has blind spots but I spent like 3 months reading nearly every Reddit post and watching every RU-vid video out there and realized there was only so much people were figuring out. It was more like reading trivia about minutia than actual enlightening observation. Cool, cool, I look forward to hearing more from you!
@@MidnightMedium Yeah, my problem with the dream theory is exactly because most people justify something they can't explain with essentially something else they can't explain. So someone might point to the red eye in the sky cutscene and conclude that there is no other way to explain that other than Ariene dream influencing something or other (it always changes what, sometimes its reality, others its a different dimension...). Even though that's not a real argument, and definitely not textual evidence. It's a form of circular logic. Whats your evidence for dream loops? Red eye in the sky. What's your explanation of the red eye? Dream loops. Not a very... smart way of going about things. The most maddening thing is that people never ever employ actual textual evidence for these dream claims, and always ignore everything else that actually can be explained without the need for a dream something at all. And of course, they always top it off with "you're not supposed to be able to explain things, it's all subjective"... If they wrote that for a literature class they would get an F haha. There are some things I'm not 100% sure on yet as well (but those have slowly shrunk over the months), but it's not like the dream loop explanation accounts for them any better either, so I'm pretty confident at this point that the devs actually didn't intend for this dream loop reading, and its mostly false memories + some bioresonance mind influence. But definitely not corrupting reality/different dimensions/time loops related.
At 52:20 the top two screenshots are actually my own comments on the Steam discussion forums. I really don't know how I feel regarding all of this now (though I've always leaned more Anna Huang than Lilith Itou, even though from a story craft perspective that's less satisfying), other than that in the end it doesn't really matter who the LSTR Gestalt really is, it doesn't make a difference either way for the rest of the story. Other than maybe Ariane falling for a relative of her best friends being weird. Also, in those posts I was arguing for Lilith being Isa and Erika's mother, not LSTR's Gestalt, which the video implies.
So a thing about Lilith, while there's no concrete evidence for her being Elster's Gestalt I think she is the more likely candidate over Anna. First off, Ariane remarks in one of her diaries about Elster's Vinetan accent and since we learn from the medical records that the Itou twins are Vinetan, there's a good chance that the whole Itou family was originally Vinetan too. Secondly, in the 1.2 update a document was added stating that Gestalts chosen to be templates for Replikas are effectively erased from public memory. I think it's possible that the Itou family kept Lilith's photo illegally after she was chosen for Replika template, we know they already dabble with contraband books so smuggling in photos isn't too far-fetched, and the Itou bookstore is right next to the photo store where we find the picture as well. You also mentioned the Evangelion reference, but I think the more important connection is to the Lilith from Hebrew mythology. Lilith being the "first she-demon" would be a nice parallel to Signalis' Lilith being a template to all LSTR Replikas. I wouldn't cite this as evidence for Lilith but it would be a neat reference if it was true. That's not to say there isn't a case for Anna, I think the connection to butterflies is really good evidence, but Lilith has just a little bit more going for her overall in my opinion.
I appreciate your measured and reasonable take on this! Yeah, I think you make a valid point in that the Itous don't have to be closely related to be related and the Vinetanness of them may be the reason for the last names being the same vs trying/needing them to be close family for the theory to make sense. Lilith being the mother of all demons as she's commonly described in Judaistic mythology would be an interesting parallel to the mother of all LSTRS, even if I don't quite think the parallel matches up in that replikas dont seem to be a negative connotation even in world, even by prejudice. But thats all kinda arguable headcanon and preference, as I'm sure is the reason for the withholding nature of who the gestalt is. No kidding! I love that detail about the gestalts being erase from public memory. That is so cool. What a dark detail!
@@MidnightMedium Thanks! I agree the parallel isn't perfect, hence why I wouldn't include it as evidence for Lilith. I think in of the interviews Barbara even said people tend to find connection to media and real-life imagery that they didn't actually intend to reference so I'm trying to be careful about it. A cool piece of bonus lore tho. Anyways, really awesome critique! Indeed, there are so many details I would like to add, so many connections and references are hiding deeper in the rabbit hole... but I suppose such essay would be impossibly long. I think all the main ideas have been struck here so props to you, probably one of the best lore videos to date. And a little silly mistake I have to point out, the theme they dance to is Schubert's Serenade, not Swan Lake. This will haunt you forever now :p
The map DOES have a dedicated button though, (all of those tabs do if you have quick radio disabled) and you can move the map around with the right stick. You also don't need most of what you find at all. you also don't need the flashlight for "large portions of the game". you need it for a few rooms, the map tells you which ones need it.
Yes, Yuri Stern pointed out the dedicated map button to me. Well if you dont need it, its kinda silly to have it chilling in the wild at all. The point is that you need the flsshlight enough times that youre going to have to carry it around with most of the game so youre equipped when the need sporadically arises
@@MidnightMedium you really don't NEED it that frequently though. like, a handful of rooms that you can always come back to, a couple of which are optional use cases. that's the point of the box, store it away until you need it.
@@MidnightMedium yes you do, the map puts a different texture on dark rooms, so if the room you enter looks super dark, you can check the map to see if you need the flashlight. regardless, any trek back to a save room isn't difficult. the point is to backtrack. this is like complaining about backtracking in a Metroid game, this is the way it's meant to be played.
I'm torn between admitting that I will never finish the game myself (literally too scared to open a door to an already familiar corridor) and watching all the videos detailing its plot, or leaving the videos be until I figure out how - mechanically speaking - does one overcome fear.
I think its better to steel yourself and make it thru. Youll find out how you really feel about it all instead of taking our word for it and itll be an experience all your own
@@MidnightMedium I actually made it through! (and am now back to complete the game on Survival with Classic inventory). I jumped down the creepy flesh hole without much ammo, and found out that Isa eventually finished reloading the rifle - both this fight, and the final boss, can be (theoretically) fought without any weapons.
I know half-way through the second major area (with the 5 key door and shotgun), I was annoyed with how many enemies the game would throw at you despite being survival horror: meaning conserving resources and dodging encounters rather than burning through them and picking fights. So when I was playing something else with a friend and talked about how frustrating it is when the game throws rooms of up to 4 enemies at you, their attacks come out quick, there's contact damage, and it seems the game's combat system isn't built for the kind of encounters it's throwing at you: he thought I hated it. But I was gripped from the game's prologue and just frustrated in the moment when I looked back on it. Afterwards, I buckled down: struggled here and there between kiting and using the game's (admittedly ample, at least on non-survival difficulty) resources it feeds me. I didn't even die once on my first playthrough, I only found out that there was an achievement for it in my survival playthrough. My friend, however when he played it, became increasingly frustrated with the limited inventory space and backtracking - but admitted that he hated the tedium rather than the game itself.
Right! And thats the worse kind of frustration, where you really like what youre playing and engaging the challenge but the current difficulty is roadblocking the rest of that experience. Lots of Signalis is great to me but there are some really annoying stretches that tested me and probably had me a little vindictive towards the experience as a whole
Finally finished this out over the course of my day. I must say, you take an approach unlike any other video essay I've watched yet...and your conclusions are different yet not altogether incompatible with the general consensus I've observed from others. Very thought provoking, and I appreciate that it extrapolates the meaning and ideas in the game to the wider human experience. Most, anecdotally speaking, seem to focus their applications to creatives or those in the LGBTQ+ community, which is understandable since the game heavily focuses on characters in both of those demographics. But being able to apply its ideas as you have had always been something I appreciated about the game. I also love that you covered the more apocalyptic and almost theological implications of the work. Like you said, it's not a major focus of the game, but for someone of Christian faith like myself (and I can only assume by the few details you gave in the video that you are at least of a similar background if not a believer), I find the thoughts it does offer about the role of this game's "god(s)" to be intriguing from an an artistic and philosophical standpoint. It's not been covered nearly as much as the other aspects of the story. Overall solid work, and I apologize for any perceived hostility in my initial comments about the problems you encountered. I genuinely love seeing every different analysis on this game. God bless, my dude!
Yeah, I tend towards more literary or works of art centric commentary as I greatly value seeing how everything ties together and all the different levels of emphases each medium affords. Good eye there, that's definitely my background. You're good and I really appreciate you not only watching the whole thing but extending the olive branch. God bless you as well (also Mandalorians are my pretty much my favorite part of Star Wars so mad points there)
@@MidnightMedium you and I are very much alike in that regard. I love seeing those connections and have an appreciation for such things, thanks to being at a classical Christian school for the tail end of my education. Though I'm really only just now starting down that path of discovering the beauty of classic art and literature (and games like this are a big inspiration for that). And apologies again, I do have a bit of a toxic gamer in me that flares up from time to time! (And yes love me some Mandos, but my name is actually a reference to clones being Jango's heirs - the last true Mandalore in legends...you could say I'm a bit of a clone nut 😅)
One bit of lore in the game that bothered me for a while was the part where it mentions that the current Elstr is a copy of another Elstr unit from the Penrose program. But the Penrose program launches an Elstr unit and a gestalt way out into space so how did they get the data for the copy of the Elstr for newer Elstrs when it was so far away? One solution is that they somehow got a return signal from one of the ships for that data. Which means that its possible for the data for an Elstr unit to be sent back to the Empire. Which means that it would be feasible that someone could purposefully send that kind of data back to the Empire if they knew how. Perhaps someone with knowledge about how long distance communication works could do that . . . Edit: fixed a typo
Oh thats sick! Ariane you little radio operator rascal! Yeah this piece of lore has always bothered me logistically and i cant wrap my head around what its saying is the timeline. Kinda like most things in this game but this especially seems like if you crack it, youd figure out quite a lot as a result
I think the simplest explanation is that when the 'original' Elster's neural pattern was lost, they just copied the pattern from one of the replika Elsters. Now _every_ LSTR unit (because they get cycled out!) is a copy of a copy, with possible ramifications regarding bioresonance etc. This ties into the fractal imagery (Sierpinski, Mandelbrot, etc.) and the recursive nature of the 'dream about dreaming'. Moreover, I think this ties into how Elster 512 (have there only been 512 iterations?) is the endpoint of a cycle/spiral (something something Alan Wake); the one copy to survive the fall down the elevator shaft, the one to finally end the cycle or fully destabilize the world itself. A copy of a copy of a copy, each more degraded/deviated than the last, much like the cycle the Sierpinski Facility is trapped in. Maybe part of why she matters is that she's one cycle ahead of the rest?
@@MidnightMedium I've played it! While it is far more straightforward about its themes of self and copying that self, it's also not really concerned with the gradual degradation you'd expect from copying successive copies. The 'copy of a copy' parts are more concerned with the fact that multiple copies of a single 'self' now exist at the same time (see also: Continuity, or 'terminally misunderstanding how copy-and-pasting works in spite of being a scientist and/or engineer'. I get it on a thematic level, but those characters are textually idiots.). I do think it bears mention that persona degradation in Signalis is more about programming (i.e. brainwashing) failure than actual information degradation between copies ('generation loss' is the proper term). The copy of a copy stuff there is mostly confined to the cycle on Sierpinski, with all replika units being copies of an _original_ - with the exception of Elster. All that to say, it's difficult to compare the two games on this basis since they're doing wildly different things with the idea. However, the Nine Inch Nails song 'Copy of A' has strong thematic links to both, if you want another reference point.
Right, I was just pointing that out because its a cool little game with some thematic congruity and gives a bit more direct experience of the dissonance that dividing the self can have
It’s nice seeing a nuanced take, I’m guilty of bias for this one- so having the light of day shined on a few flaws is actually just as satisfying. The rule of 6, despite all narrative portent still irritates the heck out of me as a mechanic, and the story being both surface level accessible - girl robot find girl person to fix an “issue” and actually monstrously deep on the thematics of dreams, art, writing and a great canvas of media I find mind blowing for an indie development by 2/4 people. Legitimately the best Silent Hill we’ve had in decades 😂 I say with my tongue only partially puncturing my cheek.
Yeah, I try to kinda rip the band aid off and say everything about a game, not just the side that is most dominant. I don't find it healthy or fair to something to pretend you didn't have any misgivings. Our current climate encourages all or nothing speak though :/
@@MidnightMediumso I've just finished watching the whole video. Damn, the amount of research you've done for it. And to make all of that into one coherent video. Amazing job! Happy holidays dude
Is it just me or does the artifact ending coffin start beating when it zooms on the crystal; seemingly beating faster in the short time we look upon it?
@HighFunctioningMedium I just saw a post that introduced the idea that maybe the tesseract isn't just for Ariane; it's also for the original Elster. During the final scene in Artifact when they're dancing, where did the original Elster go? It's a warm theory that the Elster dancing IS the original Elster who was revived along with Ariane. With the key descriptions about why push forward, there is only heartbreak in the end? FOR the Elsters who gave up their lives they will never dance with Ariane again. It's also been suggested the top middle LSTR is actually Falke, and it would make sense since all the lined up LSTRs also included Falke at the end of the line up. I forgot the reddit post that indicated this
512 is 2^9 or 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2. 512 is also the arkane studios phone number area code in austin texas- arkane, the makers of Prey 2017, another game which heavily References Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff's orch OR theory of consciousness.
Ooh, explain that first part mathematically if you could. No kidding about Prey 2017. Love that game immensely so thatd be really cool if it were an influence on it. Certainly the same type of horrorcentric sci fi, huh?
@@MidnightMedium Powers of two arise a lot in programming, as in a binary number system they (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 etc..) hold similar significance to 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000 etc in decimal. The decimal number 512 in binary would be represented by the digits "1000000000"
512 is also a perfect cube: 8^3=512. There are 3 keys required for the artifact ending. The Key of Eternity has its teeth(?) in the form of 512. The symbol for eternity, or more precisely infinity, is 8 rotated 90°. Maybe it's just Pareidolia, maybe it's somewhat significant. I don't know. Later edit after thinking a bit. Maybe it's a stretch, but the Key of Eternity could be also called the Key of 512. It's description says "Are you still looking for answers where there are only questions?” and its inspection says “There's nothing but heartbreak at the end”. Considering that the Key of Eternity is not something you randomly find, but when you really look for answers, maybe its description and inspection texts are telling us about the significance of 512. Are the devs telling us that there is no "key" to 512? Maybe they just needed a number to repeat throughout Signalis and chose at random just like Douglas Adams selected 42 at random for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" because he needed some number as the answer to the ultimate question of the universe, life and everything?
It's a shame I can't watch this video right now, because I want to avoid all possible spoilers in story, gameplay, visuals, sounds. I need to get back to playing the game, probably restart it.
Totally fair. I'd hate for you to have something special taken from you experientially. Yeah, just keep trucking, don't be afraid to walkthrough here and there if needed, game can be a little obtuse or hard to remember what you did last. But it's a worthwhile for most, and especially for anyone who's been yearning for some actual factual survival horror in their diet
Replikas become rather fleshless after they die of the infection. Shit even LSTR goes through that Terminator-with-rotting-flesh phase right in the begining...
I'm looking forward to the portion of the video where you extrapolate the meaning of the game, but damn dude, respectfully...I'm 23:17 in and nearly every critique feels like a skill issue complaint. I've torn through an untold number of videos like this, and they all have their own criticisms, many i can agree with, but this just feels like you were struggling where many others weren't. Hell, this was like my first survivial horror game and i happened upon it through game pass...i didn't run into single issue of what you mentioned and when i did screw up a puzzle i more often than not saw it as my own fault (and i never had to reload a save to solve that vending machine one, i failed many times on it. No clue why you experienced that, respectfully). As for the difficulty and annoyance of the inventory and menu...this is probably because I'm inexperienced and haven't been spoiled by better mechanics yet, but i just assumed it was a deliberate feature...it really was that much more immersive imo. I really feel as though that's a matter of preference, or as you said, gritting your teeth through the pet peeve. Anyway, not to dog on ya in your own comments, but this first section is making it hard to get through, but I'll soldier on 🫡
thanks for keeping on. Well, not experiencing what I have isn't the same as it not being possible. That's kind of my issue with most people who can't account for why this happened so they assumed it's a lie, when that was kind of the point of my complaint. Other people may avoid the pitfall but that doesnt mean its not there to stumble into.
@@MidnightMedium not saying it's a lie, but I mean you gotta understand where I'm coming from. If every criticism *seems* like a skill issue (not to invalidate your experience), and you're the only instance where I've heard of this being a problem...the logical part of my brain is gonna assume it's probably some mistake you couldn't figure out. But if you're deadset that you *had* to reload every time, I will take your word for it. No reason for me to call you a liar my man.
23:42 Yeah man, gameplay in this was a chore. I played through it the first time blind on hard; no guides and no looking anything up if I got stuck. I heard it was a really good game so I wanted to give it a good swing. I got the Uberleben achievement on Steam back in May of 2023 and according to Steam only 3.8% of players beat hard mode and it was just a total slog so I can see why. It wasn't hard in terms of technical skill of course, you're just battling with the inventory the whole time. You almost have to go through every area around three times if not more. Once for scouting, once to kill enemies who are blocking you in the most in your high traffic areas, and once to actually pick up all the items you need (and if you're playing blind on hard you're not going to know you don't need something). The game might as well have just had five inventory slots since it uses the "it's too dark" interaction system in more than a few areas so the flashlight is basically a requirement to bring along unless you wanted to walk back to your item box again- if you are playing blind. I think that gets lost on a lot of people when you criticize the gameplay for this game- if you are playing blind this game is absolutely tedious. It's easy to say after the fact "oh you don't need the flashlight there" or "oh you don't need x or y ammo or item pick up" but finding all of that out organically is such a chore because finding out I need the flashlight somewhere or whether or not I need an item generally involves a trip back to the item box. Leaving one item slot open the whole game just isn't enough. I enjoyed the puzzles - they feel organic for most of the game and not arbitrary (I really liked the little x-ray one) but solving a puzzle means getting yet another greeble to carry around usually. Most of the stuff outside of gameplay is pretty good. I liked the few cutscenes that happened in-engine and the times when the game zoomed in to show you a puzzle or elevator panel were cool, I liked the detail and style of the 3D stuff. I got sick of the flashing and fast scrolling text effect though, in cutscene and out. Like great, I get to go look that up later I guess. I went through big stretches of the game where I was thinking they should have just made a VN. Every review you see dwells heavily on story because there's just not much to the gameplay, it's either meh and inoffensive at best or tedious at worst. Hell, according to Steam only 28.8% of players have even beaten the basic Promise ending (which I would assume to be the most basic one since it's what I got) as of right now and this is NOT a long game (to its benefit). It's fine that few players even finished it- most games funnel down in stats like that and people drop off for any number of reasons. For a game like Signalis though I think it's more that people like the story over actually having to play the game. It makes a better RU-vid video than a video game. Anyway the awful gameplay is totally redeemed by the game having a CZ-75 in it. Good review and story breakdown, well explained. You built the story analysis from the ground up. Edit: RU-vid is absolutely fighting me on posting this long ass comment.
Im thankful they let you upload it. I had someone try to post 4 comments in a row this long and it kept deleting them. Yes, thanks for understanding my plight. It was hard to remember what i needed to do next based on what major item id last seen or puzzle id journeyed away from to find the thing it needed. Tedium in exploration is soooo dense here. Ive noticed that survival horror fans are a masochistic, self aggrandizing bunch: they love clunk, they love tedium, and they love telling you its both not that bad but also its so bad to simulate the main character's suffering. Its head canon at best and at worst its just outrageous justifying weak design and arrogant 20/20 hindsight wisdom now that theyre on the other side of it. Im open about my struggles because i have a hard time believing that no one ever had a problem navigating any game ever. People just arent willing to be vulnerable about that somehow
@@MidnightMedium I think there's an arrogance problem these days combined with a respondent bias when it comes to getting rude comments, like arrogant people are more likely to talk smack about you not having perfect knowledge about the game on your first run instead of polite people who simply disagree that the game is tedious. That being said I've been in the same boat as you for a while where I just couldn't believe such an acclaimed game (and I think the acclaim is justified storywise, to a degree) had these consistent gameplay issues and major videos reviewing the game just totally ignored it. I don't think people are necessarily marketing the game in bad faith but yeah I would call big reviewers avoidance of obvious gameplay issues (or if not "issues" at the very least questionable genre-based design choices) "sycophantic" as well. For instance, I am a HUGE Dragon's Dogma fan but I'm not gonna pretend like there isn't a ridiculous amount of walking in that game. Does the walking serve a purpose in the gameplay loop? Yes, the day night cycle means different monsters are out at different times so you need to plan your trips. Can you get around it with portcrystals? Yes, but you'd need to have a guide open or have already played the game to know how that all works and where they are which makes it kind of a bad system to a new player- and every player HAS to be new at some point. I think people have a strong emotional investment in Signalis thanks to its narrative and that's fine but it clouds a lot of discussion on the game the second you step outside of story elements. I think this might be another MyHouse scenario where people like something narratively but aren't really playing it that much- which is fine that's a sign of a strong story, it's just that for a game with issues like Signalis has it's dishonest to review the game and not at least put a big buyer beware on your review pointing out certain issues that come with playing the game blind - which is presumably how it was intended to be played. All that being said I appreciated your review and story analysis and subbed.
Dragons Dogma! Im so glad you enjoy that game, its an absolute pet experience of mine. Was considering reviewing it in anticipation of the 2nd one coming out soon but we will see :) Yeah sins of omission is my big peeve with reviewers right now. Signalis's emotionality has attracted a rather strange demographic of empassioned fans who cant argue their way out of a paper bag when debating design, and I see so many irrational takes trying to inject positive emotional feelings in as evidence that the gameplay isnt ever bad. Its like gatekeeping by missing the point. Dont hate thing i like because i feel good playing it, even if i cant tell you why. And then it becomes this subjectivist thing where its all about interpretation, bro, so don't tell me how to like it, but also you cant dislike it for almost any reason. Its tiresome to argue against such bias. Thanks for subbing. I sure appreciate you
@@MidnightMedium your welcome it’s a pretty cool idea but it makes sense since you can already do that to the other enemies didn’t find that out until I was didn’t have any ammo left
I didnt solve the butterfly puzzle at first because i didnt clue in that the butterflies are indeed a clue for the safe. I didnt expect the solution to be so closely to the safe. But when i did everything else i reminded myself of the butterflies and that the first one looked like it had letters A on its wings... and ofcourse that made it instantly obvious.
Yeah I had an instance of this same "wait, what am I looking for?" in the Hollowbody demo (which coincidentally enough to Signalis discussion has a ton of Silent Hill in it too and seems to feature one woman searching for her female lover in a monster land...!), where I was distracted by certain details of the puzzle and not clear on what the developer thought they were pointing me towards. It happens. When it hits you, its like ahhh but it easy to miss the point a lot of the time
Everyone moans about the inventory system, if you need to pick more stuff up then you have enough.... it's a good thing of learning what you'll need and trying to plan ahead, only thing I had a slight problem with was the flashlight being a slot take up.....and if you don't have the foresight to leave slots for quest items then maybe put the game away and go play paw patrol or Peppa pig....mate moans about the boss fights but shows evidence of being utterly garbage at them, there are 3 boss fights, one is obvious that you're about to have it, one is right next to a save room so that's just your stupidity if you don't explore before jumping down a pit, and the final fight gives you ammo and she clearly telegraphs her moves, so get good and learn them, play it on easy if you're so fed up of it, you're moaning about things that really are just your problem, not the games....
@Lubble- Tell you what: I'll do you the decency of taking what you say seriously despite your snark. Let's go line by line: "if you need more to pick more stuff then you have enough" makes no sense. If you have enough, you wouldn't need anything else by definition. Back to reality, there's rarely one quest item that you're going to responsible for retrieving and most floors have several directions to go in, each with their own quest items and more importantly, loads of disparate, mismatching random stuff for guns you often don't have but aren't sure if you're soon to run out your favorite weapon or not and might need this after all, things like that. You also sometimes run into a glut of quest items in a row like that one stretch with a bunch of tarot cards that fill you up really quickly. I didn't complain about the Mynah fight, so no reason to include any mention of it. The Chimera fight is in the mines and you have to travel down the elevator and go across the whole mines area then wait through the beach scene which is another couple minutes. Per my footage, it took me 10 minutes both times I fought it going on a straight shot from the save room up top down to the boss fight; the fastest I've seen anyone else do it on RU-vid walkthroughs is 8 minutes. That's 8-10 minutes with anywhere to save my progress or prep beforehand. It didn't help either that my Chimera boss fight also apparently bugged out the firs time and Isa just wouldn't fire the killing shot, kept doing the fumbling reload, so that meant me without any ammo in the arena was actually a doomed to fail situation. Last boss: we can debate skill all day but who knows what your criteria even is. I have tested nearly every loadout and each one is ill fitted to what ammo drops are down there, only a couple shells for a shotgun that doesn't carry enough to be worth it in the first place, a decent amount of flares that only seem to work on trash mobs which you're better off ignoring anyway, a decent injection of several pistol magazines, pretty sure like only a couple revolver bullets, and not more than maybe two magazines of machine gun ammo at most. Because I've tried so many unsuccessful loadouts, I know the strains on each that the game doesn't account for. I can also guarantee by your cursory criticism you've no idea what I'm talking about nor have you tested these things out to know one way or the other or you'd simply know better than just wave it all off.
@@MidnightMedium You can come up with reasons and excuses all you like but the fact you had issues with it is due to your gameplay, and no there's a save room right by the chimera fight, from the save room you go out, up through the door then down the pit so that's just you not paying attention, Isa firing her gun is due to an in game timer, shooting shortens that timer, and seeing as you didn't shoot properly to have max damage then that's again your problem, and my point of If you can't grab an item you don't need it does make sense, if you can't pick up ammo then you already have plenty of ammo, if you can't pick up more health then you have lots to spare, if you're grabbing everything immediately and then complaining about it then you're just as bad as the beta testers...only time I had an issue with the inventory was when I needed the tape for the cassette, all I did was run back and drop off an item and dodge enemies on the way there and back again.....so yeah I'll say it again but don't judge the game due to the way you play, that's like judging Dishonored for being a boring and slow game because you always play it stealthily
@Lubble- thanks for clarifying but one note: are you saying the save room next to Chimera as in the one Isa lies down in after the Chimera fight? Cuz that ones not accessible until after the fight
So much effort put into this analysis, and so few people watched it. What a shame. Everyone can see whatever they want in this, and discuss it, and that's what makes Signalis a piece of art. Even if I wasn't a big fan of the gameplay itself ( it's still a game after all ), and it takes way too much inspiration from other stuff without even trying to hide it. I like hearing other people's opninions about the story and themes. My biggest problem is that I'm getting sick of our current culture of memes and references. It seems like since millenials ( which I am ) are old enough to be in control of projects, all they can do is mimic the past and surf on nostalgia, and that's why there are so many reboots, remakes and remasters and crossovers and everything needs to be a reference to something else to ridiculous degrees. It's gotten so bad that it affects my enjoyment of a game like this, where references are constantly in my face. I even wonder if that was the goal ? Maybe the devs are aware of this and it's part of their message.
Thank you very much. Yeah i spent 3 months straight reading and watching every single thing I could find to inform what I thought the most defensible interpretation would be. Hell, Ill take 8k views over the less than 2k my Alan Wake love letter got somehow :/ But to your point, I think the referentiality is the point here. It intentionally uses it as shorthand to imply what type of metphysical rule or emotional state we are to be in the mind of. And thats really what the whole indie scene is doing right now: intentionally copying Doom, Quake, Thief, etc. I will say that while this can be fun for awhile and essentially lets us play a kind of fan fiction version of our favorite games, its def starting to wear thin for me and starting to feel kitschy. Im so over most boomer shooters recently for instance. Im more excited to play the survival horror games like Alisa and Tormented Souls and the like though, they seem much more original while still having homage within their construction
I don't think the chimera boss fight is completely unfair cause while it does come out of nowhere, there is also a save room directly before it so you don't lose 10 minutes worth of progress like you said you did
Im wondering if the mines are so big i just happened to go the opposite direction of the save room cuz another much less polite commenter said the same thing in effect. Certainly possible.
Certainly. It seems obvious to say, but the game is a good illustration of why caring for another in this way elevates the lover and loved above even the worst societal strain.
@@MidnightMedium That occultist friend also said, "Two things are eternal. Death and Love. The rest is emphereal. Signalis deals with both. Compare it to Innana'a descent into the Underworld to recover her lover, or Orpheus own journey. The same legend seeds getting retold in new form.
@@MidnightMedium The Innana myth might be more relevant. It is a much older Babylonian myth that despite having several incomplete different copies and thus no canon ending, has an interesting implications. Essentially in one ending rather than trying to return to the living worlds with her now dead husband, Innana chooses to remain at least part of the time with him. This likely infulenced the later Persephone myth. Thus I think the Artifact ending is a similar conclusion. Elster will remain in the hellish environs of the Red Place with Ariana forever. For how can it be Hell, if Love dwells there?
Yeah its a really interesting thought. Is self imposed ignorance actually bliss or is the ignorance of evil true happiness anyway or something like that
@@MidnightMedium Hehe. Very interesting vid man. I'm a big eva fan but missed some of the references. That movie bit is crazy that you stumbled on that. Also Im happy - from what you mention - I can tell you understand the bad pun of my name
@@MidnightMedium Just seeing that film with the weird stabbing in the eye parallel. Like you said, no way of telling if it was related but the coincidences are nuts haha
17:00 the map doesnt have a key on console?? I played on pc with keyboard and mouse and pressing M opens the map. They dont tell you but checking the controls config i saw it 😂
I just want to say regarding the Chimera boss: I don't know if it was done for editing purposes, but the hole you jump in to trigger it is not the mineshaft that you show in the video. It is a massive, pulsating flesh-pit in the ground, lined by tendrils of intestine-like cords. In a game that has up to this point taken place in a very brutalisitic setting, I think its a bit disingenuous to claim that the game gives you no warning that a boss fight is about to commence.
20 min in and i'm gonna put my thoughts down before i forget they updated the game with easier inventory if you don't like tedious backtracking (i enjoyed the tension of going back through rooms repeatedly but to each their own) you can't get softlocked in the vending machine puzzle, in the clip you showed you literally just have to go to the bottom left corner, and wrap around to get back to the entrance of the bottom section that leads to the book
I keep seeing people note this inventory upgrade like i didnt i put the developers note about it on screen and address it directly in the same section XD
@@MidnightMedium like I said I'm 20 minutes in, and had to pause for dinner. If you did either I'm blind and it's my bad, or you put it later after all the complaints.
@@MidnightMedium ok I'm back at my computer and continuing. yeah I have no idea how I just blanked out on that section, it was right before I had to leave so I think I was interrupted by someone and didn't pause the video and then watched 2 more minutes before leaving. Or I could've just forgot in the time it took to quickly sit back down and put down my thoughts before leaving the room for good. I do think putting it at the front of that section would've been better though, as a "hey, I'm gonna complain about something but there's a fix and these complaints only apply to hard mode" or something, so you don't poison the viewer's mind against a problem before telling them it doesn't exist anymore. I doubt I'm the only person who forgets the end of a segment like that and just remembers the emotion of the argument you were making, especially in a long video. Also, the bit I mentioned about the vending machine puzzle is at 20:13 where you say you're stuck. If you go left, up and then right you are back on the path of the solution, so this is NOT a softlock. You could argue the situation is a bit ambiguous with the opening right there obscuring the view of a space in the grid, but the monitor clearly shows no obstacle to your left. Ok I'm continuing.
Ok right away, I know other people have mentioned it on the boss fight, but Isa is literally standing up to take her shot at 20:37 and would've ended the fight if the chimera was in line of sight and you lived for like 2 more seconds. Also there's a save room immediately before this fight, but to be fair its the only boss where the save room before it isn't forced in your face so it can be missed and there's probably other people who got themselves into this situation too. Could've been avoided if they locked the door before the drop with a key that you get in the save room, like they did on the 5th floor to ensure you saved before going down the ladders. In regards to the final boss, if you want long enough she will stagger on her own for you to stab her. Also, I will agree that the aiming controls and picking things up is jank ON CONTROLLER. I played on keyboard and had zero issues with it, but a friend played on controller and has had to fight the jank. I suspect that keyboard+mouse was what the devs played on and that controllers were a secondary implementation that didn't get the testing it needed. Aiming on mouse still has a bit of jank with who it choose to lock on sometimes, but its much less frequent since with mouse you can aim your direction AND your depth and it can figure out who you want to aim at more consistently. I think with a stick it only has direction to go off of so it doesn't guess very well who you want when two enemies are close to the same angle from you even if they are far apart in distance. Maybe it could favor close over far in that case? But then it'd make hitting the right kolibri hard if its towards the back, so perhaps that influenced them choosing how to have it behave in ambiguous targeting cases. I never had issues with picking items up, and my friend didn't voice any complaints with that either so idk about that one I'm looking forward to reaching the analysis part of the video so I can get past nitpicking mechanics lol
i think some of this is just a skill issue, i played the game on the highest difficulty with the inventory patch and at least with the modules taking up no space, i liked the inventory system. i also liked the final boss. for the inventory, half the fun of the game is being forced to backtrack, weighing "do i kill the enemies in this room because i think ill have to travel here alot? and if its even worth it cuz they might just get back up anyways. in a sense, the game turns backtracking into a pseudo-resource. this game would be easy if you could just teleport to any room you've been to before. i agree that you should probably be able to drop items, but the trade off of "im just gonna carry one gun with no extra mags and 3 prods" versus "i need to kill the map" is engaging i had """alot""" of ammo left over for the final fight (read: one good fight like in the OBGYN room would have reduced me to like one mag per gun) so i could really just stack my inventory full of stuff. having to walk up the mgs3 ladderhallway was probably bad design but other than that, the static and the enemy spam was all tolerable and i beat her after a few tries. nowhere was also fun, its intentionally suffering hell, like when you get to a room half the time it inverts your entry point. i do admit i looked up a map to find the final plate
nice vidye, though I don't agree with most things in it. Imo, there is too much relaying on other references and what insparied the game rather than what is in it. Signalis got me into survival horror phase and now i am playing Darkwood, and its feels far more like it is it own thing and I would love to hear your opinion about the game, because its just as crypitc and bizzare as Signalis! Also about the bullies at the Rotfront, there was mention (Lstr say that or it was in some note + that would explain why so many gestalts in medibank have asthma related problems) about shitty air condition at that planet and thus its needed to wear gasmask.
The other references are directly called out though so you really can't ignore them except to your own detriment of understanding, which was kind of the point of going into them. Darkwood! I've been meaning to get into that one. I reviewed its soundtrack a little while back and it absolutely MESSED me up it was so scary so I cannot wait to get in there! Dang, now that you mention it, I do think there was something about the air being awful out there. Weird though that neither Isa when she wakes up nor Ariane were wearing theirs though in that flashback
i disagree with your critique of the game in the begging, so i perceived it is as subjective so it was really weird, when you say nobody honest about it and "psyhofans" like, i liked game from the first walkthrough and story - or to be more precise - narrative and feelings it envokes - i see it as a queer, autistic and trans so, seeing someone to position their critique and experience as objective and me as dishonest is... actually pretty typical experience in my life from normies :/
The word is sycophants, not psycho fans, meaning kind of a suck up, a flatterer. And while it certainly applies to people gatekeeping how others talk about the story, that comment was about its gameplay at that point in the video more than anything and its clear that youre not talking about the rest of the videos story critique since you said "beginning." Well, unfortunately you telling me your interpretation as being three very specific things that sound personal to you and that Im aggressing upon your personal experience because I had a different take (one which had nothing to say about trans, gay, or autistic anyway) is extremely self centered and hypocritical. Its also proves again the point of my critique: too many Signalis fans are eager to self insert into its vibes and be protective of their feelings experience, but when someone tries to theorycraft outside that experience, they get "oh its all up to interpretation so nothing has true value except da luvv" or they get told theyre in wrongthink. If someone has something negative to say about Signalis, the diehards circle the wagon and tell you its all subjective but the subjectively negative response is the wrong one. So again,, too many sycophantic Signalis fans are unable to reconcile their personal connection and preference to the experience with any critique thats not flattering. You can like it wholeheartedly and not like others downplaying it, but you cant in good conscience say someones self report is wrong on principle without a counter argument thats actually something other than your positive feelings
So one time I went too far under a book in the bottom left area, and it wouldn't let me back out in any direction. Its something many may not notice because its up to how you chose to experiment, but I just got too crazy and wasn't allowed to move backwards in the direction I needed to in order to leave the dead end. I think it had something to do with the only restriction to movement being that you can't repeat the same movement twice in a row but backwards was the only way out but the way i'd just come in, hence the hard lock
despite seemingly being good analysis, it is not the one (just 2 hours wasted on nothing). only if at the basic surface level. if u want a good one, go for "Codex Entry" analysis its WAY better ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lkkB3G9aIKU.html not to mention the gameplay critique is just meh, arent u a gamer? u wanted a visual novel o smth? to whine that the level is made one way and not u wanted is just bruh. dont u remember how clunky sh or re combat was back in the days? signalis being one of the smoothest controls with some right portion of struggle it needed to be survival game and not a shooter. it seems that you are just bad at gaming and resourse managment. as for the story - yet another dream of a sleeping dog theory. never saw that coming. half of explanation wasted on that. the other one wasted on obvious thnigs already chewed up ten times in other rewievs. only one or two actually new good references on tens of already known and some obvious mistakes i dont care to point at
You're like a greatest hits of Signalis fanboy fallacies. Incredible grammar too. Codex's video is fine, but its observational, hardly analytical, which is unfortunately most Signalis content. Almost all the good theory work has been done on Reddit, not RU-vid where hardly anybody's doing anything other than reporting on the emotionality of the game. You didn't dislike Codex's it because it didn't challenge any perception you had, merely reported all the thing most could tell you the game was already doing. Not to pick on Codex, but next to nothing on this site makes any attempt to make an argument and then try to see how all the other pieces fit in Signalis, to argue for anything beyond the mise en scene. Gameplay critique: my oh so favorite part of survival horror discourse is that any design quibble can be handwaved away with "well it also sucked in these games that are classics so it must be okay here." We both know that's not a good argument, argue specifics, don't what aboutism other games that had often had controls pushed past their limits. Nobody likes a gitgud bro. Well, it is a dream about dreaming, so that's fairly unavoidable. And then I attempted to go about how the game makes the details of numerology and repetition line up with the qualities of a dream, not merely use it as a tool to avoid having to figure out tough, seeming contradictions with "it's all a dream." So that's a weirdly snide critique when it's in the spirit of the game's words about itself. I don't claim to have come up with much of it but I did make a much better attempt than the average video to make all the things work together. Most simply go "dang, I dunno" when something doesn't line up and leave it at that or report factoids in a row. There's certainly some of that listicle feeling here, no doubt, but no list is given simply for trivia's sake, it always try to come back to "how does this contribute to the theme?" The value here is comprehensiveness and cohesion, not necessarily innovation. But even pretending there's litlte new here is a goofy critique as next to nobody discounts the King in Yellow's existence, or wants to talk Evangelion other than noting stylistic similarities, I know for a fact you've not had anyone have fun with Julius Caesar, very few want to play with Solaris or its poem, etc. Come on now, you just come off as a disingenuous hater who can't hack it with anything that's not almost suspiciously complimentary of the thing you like.
