THE BACKLOGGD BOOGEYMAN
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My first exposure to Illbleed came in the form of GameInformer's Super Replay, which I would say is a must watch were it not for the fact that Illbleed is such a must play. I'm a firm believer in the value of openly discussing old media, but Illbleed is still of such a relatively unknown quantity that you're statistically likely to ask "what the hell are you playing" when I post pictures like this to Twitter dot com. That's not some off-the-cuff claim, I ran the Illbleed numbers with a team of highly trained Monkillers (Appreciations and TransWitchSammy) and we reached the conclusion that Illbleed is best enjoyed blind. That said, I want to provide a bit of a companion piece to Sammy's review, something you can read after beating the game for yourself, which will dive a bit more deeply into specific mechanics, events, and the history behind the game. But before we begin, please report to the nearest Wood Puppet processing facility to have your brain removed. You'll probably get it back when the review is over.

Minnesota Hell Cinema: It's Time 2 Get ILL

A bit of housekeeping before getting into the thick of things: I am logging my completion date concurrent with Sammy. Though I've played and beaten Illbleed in the past, this was pre-Backloggd and I don't remember what date it was that I rolled credits.

Sammy is a very amiable person and jumped into Illbleed sight unseen at the insistence of myself and Appreciations, a fellow veteran of Michael Reynolds' murderous amusement park. However, the game's unique mechanics and - I use this time very lightly - randomized "jump scare" hazards did leave us both struggling to recall exactly what Illbleed expects from the player. Ultimately, we referred to a guide whenever we needed to get our bearings, and if you're looking for a particularly unhinged example of "author's voice" seeping into a walkthrough, you really can't go wrong with GameFAQs user IAmYoFatha's Illbleed guide. Comprehensive when it comes to the meat and potatoes of the game, yet utterly deranged everywhere else, frequently devolving into tirades against users and political actors that have wronged the author, threats against entities named and unseen, generally the sort of stuff that reads like a manifesto all bottled up in a guide for a 2001 Sega Dreamcast horror-comedy game. First guide I've ever seen to have a "Special Spanks" section, one of the all-time greats and bizarrely appropriate for the game it covers.

None of this is terribly relevant to the review at hand, but in the immortal words banned GameFAQs user of IAmYoFatha: "The way I see it, when you log onto the world wide web, your time is public domain. It can't be wasted."

Armed with our guide and three brains addled on edibles and grain alcohol, I, Appreciations, and Sammy were finally able to make sense of Illbleed's most unique mechanic: The Horror Monitor. Although each chapter of Illbleed features its own distinct mechanics, the Horror Monitor serves as a constant, the bedrock that the rest of the game's systems are built off of, except for the second mission where it's suddenly taken away by a gang of horned up monkeys that are using it as X-ray specs to... to look at the ladies... Nowadays these Monkillers would be hold up with a goon box trading pics over a Discord sever, but you had to work for it in 2001.

The Horror Monitor is used in conjunction with your senses, which are laid out in a way that is almost as confounding and superfluous as System Shock's UI. If any of your core senses are triggered, that indicates that a jump scare or trap is nearby, which can be disarmed by tagging it with the Horror Monitor at the expense of adrenaline, a finite resource that must be wagered against your health, pulse, and blood.

It's a novel system which initially seems more complex than it actually is, though hiding the Horror Monitor at the start of each level is a bit much. Definitely a good gag when you're watching someone play for the first time, just getting their shit wrecked by falling signage and gigantic disembodied butts farting on them, but in isolation, I could see this as being pretty discouraging during a first experience. That "what is this, what am I supposed to be doing!?" moment is only really funny when you have friends who can start explaining the game to you after your first failed run, or if you have, like, the instruction booklet. Not a problem, you can just buy a used copy of Illbleed for (LOUD AND FRANKLY UPSETTING VOMITING SOUNDS)

Boogie's Fun Movies: Mandatory Brain Surgery

Illbleed is segmented neatly between a hub area and six levels, which unlock sequentially. Between levels, you can stop by Bloody Mary's shop for some salad, an ice cold Hassy, and adult magazines, or undergo invasive surgery to become more powerful. I went to Illbleed and came out lookin' like one of those body builders that inject themselves with synthol. I'd like to see OH NO MAN go toe-to-toe with me in the square circ-- oh hold on, my pecs are leaking again. God I don't feel good...

Though I think Illbleed is mechanically enjoyable and unique if a bit unrefined, its humor is where the game really shines. It cannot be overstated that there is nothing out there like Illbleed, except perhaps Blue Stinger, Crazy Games' previous title. However, Blue Stinger is a bit more self-serious, skewing a bit closer to the "so bad it's good" moniker that I think is often improperly assigned to Illbleed. I take issue with it because it implies Illbleed's humor is not by design, an unintentional consequence of trying and failing, and I think that's just a fundamental misunderstanding of this game's writing that borders on insulting.

Spoilers ahead, but you can't tell me that a man investing and losing it all in the worm market and ending up with a homegrown giant worm fed on a diet of gasoline is anything other than intentional. Illbleed is a horror-comedy, or maybe more accurately a comedy-horror, and it's a damn good one. This playfulness comes from creator and writer Shinya Nishigaki's appreciation for American B-movies, and it permeates through every part of the game, including the structure of its levels which themselves are presented as being attractions based on such films. I got a bit defensive when speaking with Sammy and Appreciations, adamant that unlike Resident Evil 4 where the comedy elements add levity to tension, Illbleed more often feels like comedy is in service of horror.

You get to the end of the game and you find yourself in the middle of a gallery displaying Michael Reynold's greatest creations, his monsters, his strange horrors... and also a digital eye exam, gigantic ass, and a bag of garbage. That's Illbleed, a game that is keenly aware of what it is and more than capable of making you belly laugh whether alone or losing your mind with a group of friends. If you disagree, well, I've got some bad news. You aren't getting your brain back. I dropped it in some sawdust and it really got in there, it's all stuck between the wrinkles and I couldn't get any of it out so I just had to chuck it in the trash. Sorry!

Hall of Resentment: I'll Bury You With Your Favorite Sexy Doll

To borrow from Sammy's review, you just can't make a game like Illbleed again, and I'd love to say that there's more out there like it, but sadly, Shinya Nishigaki passed away at the age of 42 from a heart attack, and his studio (founded with colleagues from Climax Entertainment) Crazy Games, shut down a couple years prior with only three titles to their name: Blue Stinger,Illbleed, and the co-produced The Maze of Kings.

The dissolution of Crazy Games followed after Sega cut Illbleed from its list of first-party games, passing it over to Jaleco, which itself was in financial trouble. Sega then pulled out of the hardware market and discontinued support for the Dreamcast right after Illbleed's Japanese release. Jaleco chairman Yoshiaki Kanazawa went on to found AIA, which handled the localization and release of Illbleed internationally but only an accumulative 50,000 copies sold - hence its rarity and exorbitant aftermarket price tag. This may be due in part to audiences failing to understand Illbleed's B-movie roots, as Nishigaki puts it "Illbleed requires a high degree of intelligence to play," which is true, I am very smart, I graduated from college with a degree in communications and I fucking love Illbleed.

All of this, of course, severely damaged Crazy Games, and the company eventually shuttered. A port of Illbleed was being worked on by Coolnet for the Xbox and was allegedly 90% complete, but it never materialized. Apparently, this would have required renegotiation with Sega and a release in Japanese markets before it could be sold internationally, and the Xbox's weak sales and low install base simply did not make this palatable to those who held the money. John Andersen, whose amazing write-up on Shinya Nishigaki for GameDeveloper I am mostly paraphrasing did his part to try to convince Coolnet to proceed with the ports of Illbleed and Blue Stinger out of passion for Nishigaki's body of work but was ultimately unsuccessful. Part of me hopes that we may still see these games on modern consoles, but realistically, you're probably better off grabbing Redream and a copy of the ISO.

Well this has been a hell of a downer. Did I mention a big chunk of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2's voice cast is in this game? Lani Minella (Rouge the Bat) plays the lead character, Eriko Christy, and Ryan Drummand voices Kevin Kertsman. Deem Bristow even shows up in Blue Stinger as Dogs Bower, but... I'll get to that game. Soon.

Illbleed may not be perfect, but it's a 5/5 for me. Any mechanical shortcomings are so effectively counterbalanced by its writing and general zaniness that it's easy to wave them away. It is a game that constantly tops itself, with the last level being some of the wildest shit I've seen in video games, and though it's perfectly enjoyable in isolation, being able to so easily play games with friends makes this perfect to experience in company, just like the B-movies that inspired Nishigaki.