No one talks about Death Jr. You know, Death Jr., the PSP launch window action platformer? The one with the Tim Burton-esque art style and Invader Zim-esque sense of humor? The one who’s sequel had a trailer that was set to the instrumental for Eminem’s Bitch Please II? Well, if you’ve read my writing or heard me talk about games before, it might not surprise you that Death Jr. is one of the first games I ever beat. It’s a bizarre one, but I always loved how strange it was while still having solid melee combat and gunplay. It was almost endearing, with these horrific monsters still being young enough to maintain their childhood innocence. Sure, I was literally gibbing enemies into bloody chunks, but the voice acting and character design was to cute to ignore.

Serious Sam is…well the opposite of that vibe. As a shooter fan, I’ve tried the series multiple times, but, with exception of Serious Sam 2, it just lacks sauce to me. The environments all aim for photo-realism, and while the enemies are fantastical, they are both designed in ways that I’ve seen often before and are being shot at from so far away that I rarely get intimate with their looks. And to be honest, even the shooting itself lacks substantial feedback, and the arsenal is classic to a fault. Every few months, I try booting up The First Encounter again and I drop it again soon after.

Well, illWill is a perfect blend of both of those games, but evolves the unique quirks of both to make something that stands out from either game. It’s a boomer shooter, but before you even fire a bullet you’ll notice just how beautiful the game is. Well, actually, it’s ugly, but in an intentional way. There are a half dozen or so different monsters to gib, and all of them are varied not only in visuals, but in how they deal damage and, sometimes, even move or die. There’s a satisfying gore system that lets you split some enemies in half, decapitate, or even explode them with enough damage. The gore, paired with a cast of enemies that pull from science fiction and classic fantasy, recreates the vibe from Death Jr. I’ve so rarely seen before now, along with its whimsically strange score.

Some enemies are incredibly fragile, but explode when they die. Some enemies leap at you when close enough, perfectly exposing their heads for a double barrel blast. Some enemies pick you off from a distance, but the very weapon they use is the one most suited for you to use on them, so they are a great source of ammo for that specific long range weapon. Some are more basic looking, like ogres and werewolves, but so many more are mechanical or based on regular ol’ animals like frogs. And better yet, the game is designed to make you more intimately familiar with these enemies than Serious Sam, despite the fact that you interact with them in the same exact way.

Serious Sam bounces back and forth from wide open fields to large enclosed arenas to fight in. You dodge and weave through these masses, but they all go down exactly the same. illWill also has a similar mix of environments, but they are way more detailed and varied in my opinion. Each level in illWill has its own distinct vibe, art design, color pallet, and even its own collection of gameplay gimmicks and secrets. For the bulk of each level, you fight enemies in dark halls, gilded corridors, or other tight arenas. This makes the pressure of combat high by forcing you to either master quick aim or strafe and dodge to survive. At the end of every level, you get a wider arena to fight in, often alongside a massive boss, and these levels always manage to test skill the most, despite all of the extra wide open space, due to the even more massive hoards that pour in during these moments.

Great enemy design and nice levels to shoot them in makes for a good shooter, but a great arsenal to go with it makes a great one. The staples are here: two different shotguns, an LMG, a rocket launcher, and a grenade launcher. But on top of that, there’s a laser that can explode enemies, damaging their nearby allies. There’s a leach launcher, and the leach can be picked up after they damage the enemy for a while to gain back health, or armor if used on mechanical foes. There’s a…dark energy rifle that works exactly like the LMG, but negates all death effects of enemies. This sounds like a downgrade, but it actually adds a bit more complexity in the negative space. If you remember, some enemies explode on death, but those explosions can chain together when they die next to the same enemy type, and the damage from all of those explosions damages everyone around. This means every enemy can get a bit of splash damage if you just fire into the horde, but what if all you have is one massive enemy? The dark energy rifle comes in hand here, especially when you’ve used all of the rest of your ammo on other enemies. I could go on about how the single shot shotgun uses slugs, and popping heads at range with it feels incredible. I could go on about the intricate firing animations that weapons like the rocket launcher have that make them more fun to use. But I think it’s clear that the weapons here are top tier, even if it is a bit annoying that, instead of a weapon wheel, each weapon is mapped to a different button on the controller.

What really makes this game shine is how dynamic the combat is. All of these different weapon quirks blend with all of these different enemy reactions and the best rag-doll effects that Unreal Engine 4 can cook up to make incredibly memorable combat encounters. It’s modest, but it smartly uses it’s more narrow scope and smaller scale to make a game that doesn’t feel lacking in anything at all. The lighting, art, gunplay, and everything else is that of a hidden classic. Despite this game only being about 3 years old, I think this game is destined to be, like Death Jr., one of those hidden gems that weirdos like me cant stop gushing about. Well, I hope to make it a little less hidden with this review. If you love shooters, this is one of my favorites, and I think if could be one of yours too.