illWill Reviews

Classic Boomshoot with a modern coat of paint. It plays well and doesn't take itself too seriously with its creepy yet whimsical artstyle. It's short but I bought it half off and it felt entirely worth it. Your playtime will be longer if you are a secret hunter. I just don't care as much about that stuff. All in all its a fun one if maybe a tad easy, but I did play on normal. What you see in the trailers is what you get. There are a couple of cool modifiers unlocked at the end to give you replayability. My only gripe would be that I think the bosses should be given more attacks or speed or something to buff them once you take out all the mobs. They become way too easy after you've cleared the rest of the enemies out. Or maybe just keep spawning some enemies until the boss goes down. Anyway theres my feedback! Really cool game devs.

An artistically interesting & fun boomer shooter, using the simple DNA of the genre to have some cool locations/settings not usually seen.

Art style immediately caught my eye, and with it being Dusk-inspired, I was hyped. Visually, it’s polished, maybe even too polished. It trades away some of that raw, grimy Boomer Shooter charm for a slicker, flashier, almost tech demo-like presentation. That over-polish clashes with the general jank in other areas, making the whole thing feel uneven. Weapon variety is solid and creative, but enemy variety is basically non-existent, you fight the same handful of brain-dead enemies over and over. They just walk straight at you or stand still attacking. Bosses? Pretty much just larger versions of the same enemies, with no unique mechanics. It feels like a pile of interesting ideas loosely strung together without much refinement. The lack of a weapon wheel is baffling, especially with so many guns to juggle. Progression is awkward and minimal, both in weapons and the game overall. The plot is paper-thin, and while some of the level designs look cool and have a mildly psychedelic, dreamlike quality I enjoyed, the actual gameplay loop is basic: run through environments, kill mobs, move on. Movement feels decent, and the visuals do have moments where the trippy vibe carries the experience, but there’s no real atmosphere beyond surface-level aesthetics. The soundtrack is okay but feels mismatched. Performance is rough, constant frame drops make what should be smooth gunplay feel jankier, and I ran into plenty of cheap, frustrating deaths from unpredictable enemy behaviour. The challenge comes mostly from throwing big enemy groups at you rather than clever encounters. It’s not without merit though, the vibe is there in flashes, and the movement is fun enough, but Ill Will ultimately feels hollow. There’s not enough substance to match its potential, and it ends up as a cool concept that just wasn’t given the time it needed.

I had gone into this game expecting something fairly run of the mill but what I found was, for the most part, unique and charming even if it wears it's influences on it's sleeve. illWill borrows from all walks of the 90s FPS initial heroes. Think Doom, Quake, Serious Sam. Sam however is definitely the most overt influence what with enemies spawning in waves for each area before letting you proceed. The game does what it does well and doesn't overstay it's welcome. The campaign never drags it's feet and most levels are quite varied in setting and feel. Enemies are fun to fight, guns do exactly what they need to and the learning curve comes naturally to you as you progress through the campaign. I found any time I was beginning to feel overwhelmed I had just reached the end wave of enemies for that area and happily carried on. The two strongest contenders that carry this thing though are the aesthetics and the soundtrack. Visually this game has a true identity of it's own. Everything has this distinct shine to it that is balanced well with the retro geometrical inspired world-- I want to emphasize this is no small feat to accomplish even if the areas sometimes look basic they often ooze atmosphere due to well accomplished lighting and excellent use of reflective surfaces. The soundtrack is outstanding. It really reminded me personally of the kind of thing you'd hear in FPS games and mods around the early to mid 2000s era (UT2004 specifically comes to mind) which lends itself well to accompany the world somehow, oozing of a familiar but distant nostalgia which reinforces the retro-shooter that was intended. Superb work on this front especially. Definitely well worth the asking price considering a LOT of effort went into this thing and it shows, feeling very much like a true love letter to the classics. It helps that it knows exactly what it's doing!