I never grew up with Psychological Survival Horror, but eventually my life became a horrorshow of psychological survival. I mostly grew up with stuff like call of cthulhu dark corners of the earth and resident evil 4, etc. The game that really introduced me to the concept of survival horror was Cry of Fear though, RE3 was a bit too arcadey for me still. Cry of Fearis one of my alltime favorite games. Wearing the merch, etc. I had a phase lets say it like that. CoF was heavily inspired by classics such as Silent Hill 2/3 and Resident Evil. So I eventually went back and played the OG´s, their remakes, the reboots, and loved it all, keeping silent hill for last, knowing it is the true OG of psycho horror. October 2024, after an operation, leg all fcked, i started playing SH2 right then, going down to toluca prison irl , down the hole. A period in my miserable life when i gave up on life for good. I always enjoyed Resident Evil but something about the cosmic horror, madness, psychological aspect, trauma, pain, love and hate from the silent hill series made it so much more attractive. Which speaks to me greatly as a manic depressive ex-alcoholic romantic loner, this entire combo of depression, loss, abuse and hopelessness. So i gave Signalis a go instantly after SH2 and as a evangelion, GitS type of anime guy who watched serial experiments lain one too many times +the philosophical references from nietzsche to the king in yellow to the deeper meaning of this game which is the right kind of cryptic + silent hill + space atmosphere, I fell in love with it in the first second. Best anime pixelart, most mature anime pixelart ever crafted. The artstyle is so full of aesthetics, the amazing soundtrack and the modernized silent hillesque gameplay... it all formed an absolute masterpiece. And polished and smooth to boot. Alltime cult classic like the games it was inspired by.
TL;DR perfect game for socially anxious people with depression to man the fck up.