Our protagonist’s name is Elster, and the German developers also like to give the replicants bird names in their anime horror. Because there is a pecking order among themselves in this future scenario, and each of these human androids has different traits and capabilities. Magpie is not, as one might think, a thief. She is a technician and wakes up from hibernation at the beginning of the game because her spaceship crashed on a mining planet. Her human mate is gone, and the dark hallways are teeming with zombified replicants.
Retro-Horror
signaled draws heavily on the raw aesthetic of the first PlayStation and celebrates style with great attention to detail. In an isometric view, you walk carefully through the metal corridors and rummage through lovingly furnished rooms. There you can expect story snippets, locked doors and all kinds of puzzles that finally have it all. As once in Silent Hill you often have to think outside the box. Stupidly, mutated replicants keep lurking there, accompanied by scratchy industrial rumble. Then it’s best to run away, ammunition is scarce. The inventory is also meager with six slots, which requires frequent reorganization in one of the storage rooms. If you found a disposable stun gun along the way, use it to defend yourself. In principle, Elster moves with pistols and rifles like in a twin-stick shooter: you move them slowly with the left stick, and quickly adjust the laser pointer with the right stick, which automatically captures the target in the vicinity of enemies. This works well for the most part and doesn’t make the fights too difficult, but due to the usually very dark environment and the large range of the creatures, they always remain a danger. To make matters worse, they’re never really dead and will eventually rise again – burn their remains with a flare and it’ll be quiet!
Magpie is constantly looking for puzzle clues and story snippets. Practically, documents and notes can be read at any time in the archive if you find them. The navigation and orientation in the menus is complicated, because not only the archive is hidden in the subpages, but also a status screen, Elster’s radio, the inventory including the crafting function for objects. At the same time, however, there are no options such as “save object” if space runs out, or a practical note function. As a makeshift, you take screenshots of things relevant to the puzzle and then look them up if necessary!
