Illbleed

Gameplay

The gameplay of Illbleed differs from other survival horror games. The player is encouraged to not rush through the level, but to slowly walk from place to place, looking around and at the environment. Using a tool named the Horror Monitor that consumes the player's adrenaline, the player can mark various places suspected of being a trap. These traps burn, slice, scare, and hit the player in various different ways, resulting in blood loss, rise of pulse, and lowered stamina so that means that even the environment itself is a threat to the player, in addition to the enemies. The player is given tools and items to prevent the character from bleeding to death, running out of strength or adrenaline, or being scared to death. If the player fails to keep the character alive through the course of the level, they must be revived outside of the level and has to continue the level with another character. If the player runs out of characters, then the game ends.

When engaging enemies, the player is not allowed to exit the battlefield until the enemies are cleared out. If the player tries to go beyond the battlefield, it will flash blue. In some cases, the battlefield has a smaller green square with a letter "H" on it; a helicopter hovers over the area (even indoors and when a concrete roof is above you in 'the homerun of death'). The player may attempt an escape by standing on the green square and pushing the B button repeatedly to call for help. Successful escape clears out the enemies.

A character has four senses: Sight, hearing, smell and sixth sense. Each time the player gets near items or traps, one or multiple senses will register on the meter located on the top of the screen these senses are indicated like a heart monitor. The player may utilize the horror monitor, which consumes adrenaline, to mark the spots suspected of hoarding items, traps or lurking enemies. Any spot marked will display a glowing blue orb, which the player can survey. Some traps will be successfully defused this way and the spent adrenaline will be returned to the character.

Items may be purchased at Bloody Mary Drugstores located in the amusement park, found throughout levels, or obtained as the plot unfolded. Some items restore, reduce or raise the upper limit of certain character stats; items unused will be carried to the next level. There are also upgrade items that can be used at emergency rooms in the game.

Characters

Initially, the player may only choose Eriko. As the player rescues each of Eriko's friends, the player has more choices of characters to play with. After beating the game for the first time, Eriko will wear less clothing for each character she fails to rescue in future playthroughs.

Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, with two all-around average characteristics (Jorg and Kevin Kertsman). Eriko Christy, the main character, can recover more quickly after being scared by a trap or enemy. Randy Fairbanks, the dim-witted slasher movie fan, has the highest strength and health, but lowest adrenaline. Would-be psychic Michel Waters has the lowest health, but the highest adrenaline (as Jorg).

If the player does not pick up Randy's brain in the Woodpuppet stage and rescues him, the player gets Brainless Randy. He has all the same stats as regular Randy but has no adrenaline (as the adrenaline is shown by a brain icon in normal gameplay). Brainless Randy's dialogue is changed to groaning in stages and gibberish, although the other character's dialogue is not changed to reflect this.

Plot

As the games begins, the players are introduced to horror-aficionado Eriko Christy, whom is delivering a speech detailing the struggles she faced as a child, being the daughter of a horror theme park designer. In this speech, she reveals that her father would delight in "testing" out all of his new horror props and gimmicks on her; Eriko's mother filed for divorce, and took the then six year old Eriko with her, estranging the relationship between Eriko and her father.

After Eriko's speech, she gathers with her three friends Kevin, Randy, and Michelle. They praise Eriko on her speech and reassure her that she will most certainly win the high school speech contest. During this encounter, Michelle reveals she received four tickets to a recently opened horror theme park - "Illbleed". Interestingly enough, an absurd reward of $100,000,000 is offered to anyone who can successfully reach the end of the park. Eriko declines the invitation, assuming it's a cheap stunt for publicity and decides to stay behind, as her three friends excitedly set out for the park, leaving Eriko with her ticket/.

After a few days without hearing from her friends, Eriko decides to investigate the park herself to determine if her friends are indeed still trapped within it. This is where the game begins.

After the levels are all completed, Eriko is forced to venture into the "Michael Reynolds' Horror Museum." She fights one of three bosses that Michael Reynolds, the creator of Illbleed and the main antagonist, has set up for them in order to complete the game. The number of friends saved will determine the ending of the game.

If all three friends and Jorg are saved, the best ending consists of Eriko and friends (except Jorg) at a beach enjoying themselves and trying to decide what to do with their prize money. Eriko suddenly states that she is going back to Illbleed and tells them not to follow, despite their enthusiasm to return with her.

If Eriko fails to rescue a friend, the bad ending comes with the camera scrolling through the park, an older Eriko speaking in the background saying she got the prize money, but lost her friend(s) in the process, saying she would give up the money to bring back her friends. The screen ends with the camera closing up on a grave of her dead friend.

If the player finishes the game a second time, and does not save anyone, (including Jorg which means the player won't get the bonus cash in the killerman stage) the true ending is shown. Eriko finds out that the mastermind behind Illbleed, Michael Reynolds, is actually her father. Reynolds reveals that his true intention is solely to scare Eriko after being unable to do so when she turned six. A fight ensues with Eriko emerging as the victor and commenting on how Reynolds "destroyed himself" and "scared the living hell out of her".

After the credits roll, a picture shows Kevin and Eriko embracing with Kevin announcing that he is taking over as club president as Eriko has become a very timid person after her second visit to Illbleed and refuses to visit another horror house. He further explains that she needs protection now and that he would be the one to provide it. The game ends with a close-up of an invitation ticket to "The Arcade" which has a similar layout and appearance to the Illbleed invitations as seen in the opening scene.

Levels

Each level is unlocked one by one in the order as Theaters Section indicated. The player approaches a theater and is asked if they would like to begin the level or not. If they select "Yes", the level begins with an intro. After completion, the player cannot replay the level and the level theaters only have 2 signs that show the correct prize cash you get at the end of the level.

Theaters

Stats

Illbleed can be won or lost based on the characters stats at the end of the game (or the middle if one dies). At the end of each level, the remaining stamina, adrenaline, pulse, etc., is tallied, and the player loses some prize money if the values are either exceeding or below the values specified at the beginning of each level. These extra ranks get harder to reach with each and every stage.

1. Stamina: The character's overall health. When depleted, the character dies.
2. Adrenaline: The character's ability to mark traps with the horror monitor. (and special horror monitor received when the player gets the true ending)
3. Pulse: The character's heart rate. When it reaches either 255 or 0, the player dies. When the player is scared or wounded by traps, the player's pulse will go up. Pulse is raised by two units each time the player uses dodging technique.The characters pulse slowly decreases by 1 over time.
4. Bleeding: The character's wound level. Bleeding increases as the character runs. Wounds slowly heal as the character stands still or walks. The higher the player's bleeding level is, the slower the character will move. Higher levels of bleeding will also affect the character's stamina. If the character is bleeding too much he/she will die from blood loss. If the character is bleeding a lot the heart rate drops below 50 until it reaches 0 or the bleeding heals. The Erole magazine is made for this purpose to stop the heart rate reaching 0 but only for this reason should you use it.

Reception

The game received "mixed" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.