Foreword: Skip to Part III below for the juicy info! :)
I started this year off playing Nier: Automata, and working backwards on the series from there, hitting Nier: Replicant and later Drakengard (the latter, a mistake I pride myself in committing). I regret playing them in reverse order, and yet I know I'd never have played Replicant or Drakengard otherwise.
Part I: Quick Thoughts
Today, I finished playing SIGNALIS. What a fucking masterpiece. I don't think I've played a survival horror game I so thoroughly enjoyed since what, Silent Hill 3? That was years ago now. SIGNALIS fucking rocks. Items abound throughout the game, which I stockpiled like a maniac (blame the Silent Hill bad ending). Because of this, I do think it ended up being a little too easy by the end, since I just had way too much damn ammo and health items.
I love the control system in this game. I don't really remember what the other options were, but I ended up playing with "normal" (not tank) controls and twin-stick aiming. This game's static, overhead camera heralds the level design of MSX games (thankfully there IS horizontal scrolling in this game). I was skeptical of such a camera until I realized what an actual godsend it is for the survival horror genre. Sure, you get to miss out on the fucked up hidden enemy placements that early Resident Evil games loved throwing at you; and yeah, getting jumped by enemies like that was actually kinda cool - but once it actually comes time to fight the fuckers, the camera just keeps biting you in the ass. SIGNALIS just says fuck it, and half the time lets you see enemies from half the room away. Combine this with the twin-stick aiming setup, where you can just hold a direction with the right stick, and you've got an old-school survival horror game where you can actually AIM AND SEE SHIT at the same time!
Part II: Loredump
(Spoilers ahead for SIGNALIS, Nier: Replicant, and Silent Hills 1 to 3!)
Throughout my playthrough of SIGNALIS, I picked up on a lot of references to other media. This game absolutely wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Silent Hill, Blade Runner, Alien, and... Nier?
I think just about everyone is aware that "Replikas" and "Gestalts" are clear references to Nier: Replicant, but I think there's more to the connection than just a surface-level reference. The mysterious disease presented in the game is analogues for both Gestalt Relapse and The Black Scrawl. Moving away from Silent Hill 2's archetypes, Alina Seo and Ariane Yeong aren't just akin to Mary Sunderland, but also Yonah; Likewise, Elster isn't just a carbon copy of James Sunderland, she's also based on Yonah's brother, "The World-Ender".
Before I explore these connections further, first I want to give a recap on Project Gestalt, so we can fully understand which elements were borrowed for SIGNALIS. Shit's confusing, so strap in.
In order to gain power, a human may link their soul to another, stronger magical creature, forming a "pact". Pact-bearers have the ability to communicate telepathically with other pact-bearers. Following an interdimensional incident in 2003, the Earth was exposed to a magical disease known as White Chlorination Syndrome, or WCS. Those afflicted with WCS were given a choice by God: "enter a pact with me, or perish". Project Gestalt was humanity's effort to protect itself from WCS by separating the soul from the body. These extracted souls were known as "Gestalts", and for millennia they awaited the end of the disease in order to return to their physical bodies. These bodies had to be genetically engineered from their original DNA, and were known as "Replicants" - originally, they were "mindless", much like primitive robots, but with each generation became more intelligent until eventually reaching sentience. Once a Replicant became sentient, both body and soul (Gestalt) became doomed: the Gestalt would go berserk forever (known as Relapse), and its Replicant clones would forever be subject to clone degeneration (known as the Black Scrawl). Additionally, they could never become whole again. However, there was one special case that involved only a partial relapse: Yonah, sister of the Original Gestalt. Yonah's Gestalt was cryogenically frozen for a millennia awaiting not just a cure for WCS, but also for the Black Scrawl. When her Gestalt and Replicant were reunited, there was a unique interaction between them: they uncomfortably inhabited the same body. This disturbed the Gestalt Yonah greatly, leading her to suicide.
In SIGNALIS, Gestalts are just regular humans - they're only called this because Replikas are based on them. Yet Replikas are not simply biomechanical approximations of humans: their minds are cloned from Gestalts, memories suppressed, but emotions fully intact. Only a few Gestalts had their minds copied for Replikas; the vast majority are completely unrelated to the project. Gestalts and Replikas alike may possess a supernatural power to control bioresonance, a powerful psychic force linking all humans. Replika hierarchy is designed around this power: FKLR and KLBR units use it to keep lower-ranked people in check. KLBR units in particular use it to form a hivemind with each other.
Part III: The Nier Connection
Now that we've gotten the massive loredump that is Project Gestalt out of the way... let's continue with SIGNALIS.
On Sierpinski-23, there is a strange disease afflicting both the Gestalt and Replika workers. The Gestalts are simply dying, like with the Black Scrawl; but the Replikas are instead going berserk, as if undergoing Relapse. This is the inverse of what occurs in Nier, but I believe it's still a clear reference.
It is revealed that the berserk Replikas have become one with each other, akin to a hive mind. Nothing like this happened in Nier - but other instances of mindmelds and hiveminds do parallel events from Nier. Throughout the game, we learn that characters such as Commander Falke and Alina Seo have become infected with the minds of other characters. Seo experiences great confusion over the mind meld, while Falke becomes incredibly anguished. These instances seem to mirror Yonah's experiences of being two people in one body.
Additionally, Ariane Yeong's cryostasis is quite similar to Gestalt Yonah's; a temporary mitigation of death.
One might be quick to compare Elster, our protagonist, to Silent Hill's Harry or James; but I believe those aren't the only inspirations behind her character. She also mirrors the protagonist from Nier ("The World-Ender"). The World-Ender stopped at nothing to reclaim his sister; he killed the Original Gestalt, which rendered all humanity extinct. Like the World-Ender, Elster will stop at nothing to find her partner, causing the exponential corruption of reality itself and ultimately dooming everyone.
Part IV: I'm Sleepy
I'm pretty sleepy, so I think I'm just gonna publish this and turn in for tonight...