Perhaps one of the most underrated games of all time,
Illbleed for Dreamcast made an attempt at completely reinventing the survival horror genre. Unfortunately, everyone who expected something along the lines of another installment in the
Resident Evil series was sorely disappointed. The game's flaws were severely exaggerated, whereas its strengths were written off as insignificant.
You need only do one of two things in order to get the most out of
Illbleed. First, if you happen to have a friend who happens to be a huge fan of
Illbleed (Good luck with that!), you could ask for that particular friend to give you a demonstration on how the game is played. Secondly, in the event that you don't happen to have such a friend (This is the more likely scenario, sadly.), swallow your pride and search for a well-written walkthrough for the game.
If you've played the game without resorting to either of the options above and ended up being terribly disappointed, I'm honestly not at all surprised. Why? Because the game's mechanics aren't explained all that well, thus causing a game that is really only mildly difficult to become ridiculously challenging to the inexperienced player.
No, reading the instruction manual won't help. Furthermore, you'll probably never find the in-game tutorial area on your own, and you probably wouldn't get much from it in the way of useful information, anyway. Now, with that out of the way, let me explain to you why
Illbleed is such a great game.
Illbleed's greatest strength lies in its simplicity...or lack thereof. Seriously, this game is pretty complicated, due in no small part to the fact that you have numerous life bars of sorts to keep track of, as well as a ridiculously steep learning curve. You can't possibly progress in this game without patience. Running down a hallway, for instance, will likely do nothing more than get you killed very quickly.
You see,
Illbleed's gameplay revolves around Shock Events. Shock Events can lurk in practically any on-screen element, whether it be a chair, a picture...even a toilet. Shock Events are traps that cause some sort of damage to your character, although it isn't necessarily damage in the sense that you know it. Here's where those numerous life bars come in...
First off, you've got your standard life bar. Nothing special there. Secondly, you've got your adrenaline level. I'll talk about this more in a moment, but its primary importance is that it's what keeps you conscious. If your adrenaline level falls too low, your character will probably faint. Then you've got your bleeding level and, lastly, your pulse rate. I mention those last two together because they're very closely linked to one another, just as they are with your standard life bar. It's kinda complicated, though, so just allow me to explain.
If you get hit, you bleed. As your bleeding level increases, your life bar will begin to deplete. If you get scared by something, your pulse rate increases, thus increasing the blood flow in your body, causing your bleeding level to increase and your life bar to deplete more quickly. Intimidated yet? You should be.
This is what makes
Illbleed more than your typical survival horror game, in my opinion. You need to make choices. What's that? You just beat the level's end boss and still have to reach the goal, which lies several hundred yards away? Well, that shouldn't be a problem, unless you're severely injured, with your health chipping away slowly as a result of your bleeding level. Oh, and your pulse rate is racing. It's possible that you might have some healing items (which range from bandages to nitroglycerine), but not guaranteed. No healing items? Well, you'd better think quickly. Should you walk to the goal, in hopes that you won't bleed to death on the way, or should you run, getting you there faster at the risk of your pulse rate increasing (Yes, running does that in-game.) and causing you to bleed even faster? Who knows? It really depends on the situation. It's very intense, though.
It's actually made even more intense by the fact that your character behaves according to your health level. If you're bleeding badly and low on health, you can bet that your character will be incapable of any sudden movement, instead dragging himself or herself (Yes, you get other playable characters as you rescue your friends.) along with a slow, staggering walk of sorts.
Let me get back to adrenaline for a moment, though. You have one weapon against Shock Events, and that weapon is a little something called a Horror Monitor. The Horror Monitor allows you to mark anything that you suspect holds a Shock Event, but at the cost of some adrenaline. As such, you can't just mark everything. You need to conserve your adrenaline in order to avoid the aforementioned fainting, and you do this by paying close attention to your senses. You really only need to worry about four of them, since tasting your surroundings just wouldn't be right, and touching them isn't possible without triggering them. Thus, you're left with three regular senses (hearing, sight and smell) and one extra sense (sixth sense).
A possible scenario would involve you walking into a bathroom, only to have your sense of smell spike in the on-screen display. Well, darn...what should you do? I'd recommend activating your Horror Monitor and marking the toilet as a threat, personally. See how it works? Easy, huh?
Well, that's where one of the game's flaws comes in. It's pretty difficult to find the Horror Monitor in each level, as your only real hint as to its location is that it's located in a square at the beginning of each level. This "square" could be anything in the environment at the beginning of each stage, so long as it has the basic shape of a square in some form. Yeah, not exactly intuitive.
Let's just assume that you've located the Horror Monitor, though. Everything is just fine and dandy. You progress through the level, marking items by expending adrenaline, then gaining some of it back by correctly marking and disarming Shock Events. Again, Shock Events can involve many different threats, some of which simply scare you (raising your pulse). Others will physically attack you (lowering your life bar and increasing your bleeding). Some even involve real-time battles with enemies, anything from a crash test dummy with a gigantic wrench to an inside-out monstrosity.
Yes, there are
some battles, albeit not many of them, depending on the level and your knack for avoiding them (which you'll definitely want to do much of the time). There are boss battles, too. Some of the monstrosities that you'll face require precise timing and daring attacks in order to defeat them. You even have a nifty, albeit unrealistic in that you'll avoid
anything attacking you, dodge move at your disposal. Using it will increase your pulse rate, however, so you'd better use it wisely and sparingly. Yes, everything has a consequence in
Illbleed.
Anyway, the presentation during these boss battles is quite interesting, as it makes you feel as though you're in a horror movie (thanks to the shaky camera and tense music). And that's really the point, since this movie has your character, a girl named Eriko Christy, going through numerous theaters based on movies from legendary horror writer Michael Reynolds (fictional, of couse).
Illbleed is Michael Reynolds' multi-billion-dollar creation, built to attract challengers who willingly risk their lives at a chance to win millions of dollars. Nobody has ever made it out alive, including Eriko's friends, who have been gone missing after having gone into
Illbleed.
This game isn't all about terror, though. Actually, it's quite the opposite. You see,
Illbleed was marketed as being the scariest game ever created, so everyone was quite surprised when it turned out to be based more on b-movie horror than anything truly frightening. And if you believe that you have any idea as to what you should expect from this game, let me tell you that you're dead wrong. You'll witness a host of bizarre characters, and you'll play through some of the craziest scenarios available in the gaming world. And the level endings...seriously, just play through level two to see what I'm talking about.
Anyway, aside from the aforementioned unnecessarily steep learning curve, there are some minor issues with
Illbleed that seem to be contribute far too much to the game's low scores in online reviews. First off, the default camera view is pretty much useless. In fact, only one of the four available camera views can be considered to be fully functional, in my opinion. That particular view, however, is actually perfect for the type of gameplay that you'll be experiencing in
Illbleed. Secondly, the jumping is kinda clunky. You really only need to do precision jumping during a single segment of the game, however, so this isn't a serious issue. Lastly, using the analog stick takes some getting used to.
I suppose that it's enough of an issue to warrant its own paragraph, so here it goes. The analog stick doesn't change your walk/run speed dynamically based on how far you're pushing it in a particular direction. Instead, moving the analog stick in a particular direction slowly will always result in a walk, and moving the analog stick in a particular direction quickly will always (err...usually - it's kinda spotty) result in a run. This makes perfect sense within the context of the game, however. Running long distances in this game will only get you killed. As such, you'll be walking a lot, and this particular set-up allows you to have the full circumference of the analog stick to adjust the subtle directional changes that you'll have to make on a regular basis.
Graphically, the game has a lot to offer. The level of texture detail is very impressive, although the character models (and their animations) are a bit lacking. The important part is that the graphics get the job done, and every single significant item looks like what it's supposed to be. Oh, and the blood spray that accompanies each hit (whether it's you or an enemy that's being hit) is just awesome. Exaggerated, but awesome. Very impressive-looking, in my opinion.
Some people tend to complain that some of the areas throughout the game look too similar to one another, but I feel that this is done deliberately in order to confuse the player. If you take a look at the amazing texture detail throughout each level, I'm sure that you'll agree that the re-use of textures in some spots didn't come as a result of resource limitations.
I suppose that the only other thing left to comment on is the audio, and I must say that it's amazing. Everything sounds as it should, from blood sprays to footsteps to screams. A sharp shrieking noise will accompany each Shock Event, and I'll fully agree that it's probably one of the few things that'll actually make you jump during the course of your playthrough. The game also features voice acting for each character, and I ask that you please understand that it's intentionally b-movie in nature. It just adds to the charm that
Illbleed has to offer.
The music deserves some attention, as well, primarily because I've never heard MIDI's that sounded so incredible. Hearing the music on the Woodpuppets stage, then learning that it's actually in MIDI format just floored me. Seriously, it's incredible.
To make a ridiculously long review of sorts just a bit longer, I feel that
Illbleed deserves a real chance to impress gamers. If you take the game for what it is and learn to appreciate its charm and odd sense of humor, you'll grow to love it. It's easily my favorite Dreamcast game, and that's really saying something, since I own well over 100 legitimately purchased Dreamcast games.
EDIT: Corrected an apostrophe's position within the review.
edit by racketboy: Approved! Worth 3 entries because it's so stinkin' long
