The survival horror genre has been slowly changing and becoming more about action horror. But there was a time where designers tried to mix things up with survival horror, such as the Clock Tower series or Haunting Ground that replaced combat with stealth. Today’s game is one that attempted to create a puzzle horror game and at the same time, a story that could have passed for a Scfy channel original movie.
IllBleed’s plot is that you play as Eriko, a girl who is the president of a horror movie fan club. Even though as a child she was emotionally scarred by her father who was a haunted house designer who tested his attractions on her(just go with it.) They all received passes to a new amusement park where if they can survive they’ll win 100 million dollars. Eriko shows up last to find her friends missing and has to of course save them.
The flow of the game is that players have to enter 5 attractions each based on a different B-Movie horror parody. Each level is full of traps and a boss fight with the movie’s main villain. What made IllBleed so different from other horror titles is the puzzle aspect.
Because the game is supposed to take place in a theme park, each level is full of traps meant to shock the player. At the top of the screen is a heart rate readout tuned to four senses. When the player gets near a trap one of the four readings will start to spike which is supposed to be a clue as to where the trap is. Next, players enter first person to view potential trap points and mark the point where they think the trap is set. Marking a trap uses up adrenaline and when it’s out, the player will faint when they are attacked or scared which is an easy way to die.
By guessing correctly, the player will receive the adrenaline back and can also find items to help them. Messing up will cause the player to take damage or raise their blood pressure which can cause death if it goes too high. The other half of the gameplay is the standard awkward combat system seen in horror titles.
Illbleed no matter how interesting it sounds, was not a good game. The whole trap system should be raising a red flag for adventure game fans. Getting stuck at a puzzle due to a esoteric solution is bad enough. Dying because of an esoteric solution is worse.
The cumbersome control system would get in the way on multiple occasions. The first stage’s boss fight requires the player to make precise jumps onto logs while the boss is attacking from the background. If the player misses they land in the water which slows their movement down and makes them an easy target for the boss. Making things worse is that the boss’s attack can make the player start bleeding, which without any spare healing items will kill the player even if they manage to beat the boss.
Still the game had a quirky charm to it with how the game managed to combine horror with amusement parks. One level involved the player dealing with a malfunctioning level and having to explore the workings of the park. While another level has the player beating the boss by grabbing the controller an employee was using to control the monster and causing it to kill itself.
Perhaps the ultimate bit of cheese and why this game made it on to the list comes from the final challenge. At the end of the game, the player has to decide what boss to fight from a selection of fake movie posters. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the greatest boss name in the history of games: OhNoMan.I was surprised that Capcom didn’t try to buy the rights to it and use that in a new Mega Man game.
Josh Bycer
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