Hello, and welcome to the review of Ill Will, a game by LouisCyphre.
I've already revuewed another game of this developer last year, Speak no Evil (see HERE my opinion about it), a game that is both similar and different from this Ill Will, even if Ill Will is a game started in 2009 and completed in 2012 and shows a lot of improvements over the 2009 version of Speak No Evil.

Ok but what are the similitudes between these two titles? Well the plot is similar: the protagonists are normal people living their normal lives in a modern setting, that suddenly find themselves in a dangerous, mysterious world full of horrible creatures.
In this game the protagonist is unsurprisingly named Will (but you can change the name) and suffers a car crash, then he wakes up together with his friends in a world named Purgatory (this is a bit different from Speak no Evil since in that case it was the world that became a real hell on earth, anyway there's still the mystery of this sudden change). The situation will soon make the group of friends feel uneasy with the risk of turning one against the other during a desperate fight for survival.


A very good question, dear Aaron, it's pity I've no good answer for you. At least for now!

Anyway when I say "fight for survival" it's not a case, because the game consists in a lot of combat encounters against horrible creatures. This is a dungeon deliving, or better a dungeon escape adventure. Anyway here's another similitude with Speak no Evil: the absolutely normal characters in this dire situation discover to possess some special powers and elemental attacks, that will be necessary to survive the hordes of evil monsters. Aaron and Ethan seems to be good defensive character, while the girls Josephine and Francesca are apparently stronger attackers. And Will, our alter ego? Well he's surely the most versatile character since he can use any elemental magic, and you can choose how to develop his stats (unlike the other party members that have an already planned growth). So you can customize him as you want, to make him an efficient healer or support character, for example (that's what I did since the two girls were my main damage dealers).

Experience comes at a good pace but each level up grants a single points, anyway every point of advancement counts, of course! Also each victory gives a healing charge that can be used at the save points, because yes, this is a game with save points like Speak no Evil. And you will need those, even if it how much depends on the difficulty you chose, a difficulty that in my opinion seems rather balanced to me.

The game has a lot of different opponents, that often have a good variety of different skills and abilities that requires to use various strategies, not everyone aims to kill you, some even just spam shield to annoy you! Unsurprisingly the game also includes boss battles, but trust me, these aren't as hard as those in Speak no Evil, anyway do not expect an easy time, otherwise it would not be that rewarding!


Help! That thing is horrible! It may have no eyes but it attacks us anyway!

Graphically this is a very stylish game: while I did not mind the gritty, stylized look of the Speak no Evil charsets, here all is very professionally made. From the excellent characters' artworks made by Nessiah to the well designed maps, the atmospheric environments and the good looking (or monstruous looking) portraits, the horrible monsters and the stylish menus... everything looks great. I can say that the aestetics is what attracted me at first. Besides the good design of the various areas, the music is also good and contributes to the sense of dread.

Concerning the story the game is not bad even if the dialogues are unfortunately marred by many typos. For the rest I liked the atmosphere of mystery that adds new details and also new questions to the player. Pacing is ok even if the game starts a bit slow in the beginning, since there will be a lot of cutscenes. To be honest the game is just a series of cutscenes alternated to a series of combat encounters, so do not expect a lot of variety, just grind, fight, defeat bosses and watch cutscenes. The biggest problem of this game is that it's just a dungeon crawler with pretty graphics, and some bugs and typos, not that Speak no Evil had a better gameplay but maybe the setting and events made it look like the characters were undergoing more varied situations, visiting different places and locations. But if you like dungeon delving adventure and combat, this is the game for you of course!
It's a pity that we've a team of three since it will probably end with the player favouring three characters, neglecting the other two. Also there are some odd situations in which you will level up several times at once. Weird.


Uhm ok. FRIENDLY you said ok? Remember this dear Loki (the god of mischief and trickery cannot be trusted!)

Final Verdict
At the time I game 3/5 to Speak no Evil, and I believe thaw was an ok rating. In my opinion Ill Will, while not an exceptional game is still better, a superior product. Despite the flaws it's an interesting adventure, it's a pity that the combat is pretty much tedious after a while, well maybe it's me but I got the same experience with Speak no Evil, despite here the difficulty balance is mich better... but still not really good, anyway I am aware of the lengthy and difficult development of this game, so I can partially excuse some of the flaws.
On the other hand if you have the WILL to progress and play to see what happens next, I am pretty sure you won't be disappointed. My advice is to try this game, while not perfect and not for everyone, it possess some interesting parts and ideas. For me it's a 3.5/5!