Furin wrote: ↑
May 11th, 2024, 22:58
I will look into Signalis further. I was of the impression the lesbian romance was a major part of the story but perhaps I was mistaken.
I'll be spoiling the explanation in case people want to play the game, since explaining it and my reasoning behind it give away way too much of the plot.
► Show Spoiler
In a way, yes, the romance plays a big part in the story, in the sense that it severs as the protagonist's reason for setting onto her journey, but since she' suffering from a major case of amnesia for 3/4 of the game, you don't really get anything more than hints and her asking various uncorrupted NPCs about Ariane (the girl she's looking for).
There's one very brief (30 seconds or less) scene showing them being intimate (dancing and sharing a kiss). The other couple I mentioned is only seen in an optional part in the mines, and they have a grand total of 5 lines shared between them (since one of them is dying, and the other is near comatose with grief).
Ultimately, Signalis is not a romance story, since the "good" ending is Elster choking Ariane to death to put her out of her misery.
I have nothing against how the game is described, just with the "Not recommended" label - Signalis is an excellent survival horror title, the lesbian stuff doesn't get in the way, and I'd argue the narrative works because it's universal, the choice the protagonist is confronted with is one not exclusive to dykes, unlike nearly all other stories involving LGBT weirdos.
I'm open to anyone else that has played the game to give an opposing view. I'll also say this, for a game that is ostensibly woke, Signalis spends a great deal (in fact, way more) shitting on the space socialist regime than it lambasting the audience with dykes.
Analogue: A Hate Story should be classified as "Not recommended" - there is no gameplay to speak of, the whole game is reading about how evil the space Korean patriarchy is and how bad the poor girl has it, and the game goes to great lengths to justify her genocide of the whole space ship.