it skipped the first movie scene from what I've experienced. But maybe my habits betrayed me lol

Oh well can't get it right all the time.

I think I assumed that because I just did it out of habit. My b.

I didn't mean any harm by adding that bit in but I'll fix that.

I recently got my hands on a digital copy of Illbleed final made by RGR, which is a Russian game company that is known for making illegal Russian translations of games from the Dreamcast and the Playstaiton.

Cases and discs look like this

Case/Cover

Disc

The game plays exactly like the USA copy, but the only major difference is that there's some Russian text that RGR ended up putting in for the translation. However, the translation isn't exactly well done. So a lot of the game is still in English as well.

So passcodes with Woodpuppets is still 9663, the cashman vault one is still 1863, etc.

Trap patterns are still the same, and tricks all work the same with it.

Illbleed Final is best defined as a Bootleg Dreamcast release, and I would say would be just as viable as a regular USA copy.

Also thought I should add a note of mine from a long while ago when it comes to jump distance that I wrote in the Illbleed discord:

Okay so, I used the posters in Toy Hunter as a gauge for forward distance with jumps. Used the NTC-J release (which means basically nothing but whatever)

Eriko - 3 to 3.2 Posters Kevin - 3.5 to 3.8 Posters Randy - 3.5 to 3.8 Posters Michel - 2.8 to 3 Posters Jorg - 3.5 to 3.8 Posters Cork/Inda - 3.5 to 3.8 posters

And remember, the spaces between posters is about half a poster.

So realistically these are the better measurements Eriko - 3.5 to 3.7 posters Kevin - 4 to 4.3 posters Randy - 4 to 4.3 posters Michel - 3.5 to 3.7 posters Jorg - 4 to 4.3 posters Cork/Inda - 4 to 4.3 posters

Eriko may be the best overall when it comes to general play as it allows more room for error.

Kevin's jumps and dodges make up for his lack of getting up for getting spooked.

Vanilla stats do look like this [source: Survival Guide]

But generally speaking if you know the game well enough and can play the game good enough the adrenaline pool without worry. But Michelle is just worse overall of the two heroines. As her jumps also are not as good as Eriko's. Ranging a smaller distance too.

If anyone would be reccomended for runs ignoring stats I would say:

Male - Randy Female- Eriko

But it should be noted that Kevin is the easiest character to save on a run so likely chances are unless you want to spend $375k on rescuing Randy to a small time save to have a low adrenaline character with a short disarm trap animation go with him. But overall, Kevin would be the ideal choice as you're not taking detours to get him along the way.

Michelle's hit box may be smaller but I'm not 100% on that so don't quote me on it. But I'm pretty confident to assume it would be.

The real down side to her though would be her disarm trap animation as it is the longest of the 7 characters you can play as with disarm trap animations that would matter. Including Cork and Brainless Randy.

when it comes to recording times, we do not use the in game timer. Its inconsistent regardless of platform or disc authenticity.

No regional differences matter to the time of the game.

Emulators and backup copies are allowed.

Also there are 3 trap patterns per level with the exception of level 2 (revenge of the queen worm)

Male characters have better dodges and jumps than female characters. Female characters have better melee attacks than males.

A character rescued is different from a character dying.

Hitboxes are spheres

And melee weapons are generally stronger than ranged.

Eriko when failing to disarm an encounter or being hit by an unexpected one will immediately get back up when a battle is triggered. Every other character will not.

Pretty sure that is allowed but it would just count as an emulated run. Just make sure that you label the platform accordingly. I know that most of the runners including myself aren't super acutely aware of all the different emulation options.

As doubtful as I am of it happening I'm sure that a moderator can correct me if I'm wrong on that being allowed. But I'm pretty sure it is.

further explanation for how this works (potentially)

According to my friend and discord admin Souzooka. Apparently there is only one monster piece that chases you throughout levels that have a chase command sequence and there are small triggers that just simply moves the piece to a specific area to chase you. Hence why when you're running through a level you never see more than one monster chase you at a time, and if you have an enemy chasing you nearby and you hit another load trigger, another enemy doesn't pop up going after you. Likely for balance purposes too.

Enemies that chase have a small command checkbox that is usually on obviously to chase the player piece. But when you open the map or the pause menu, the guess is, yes I said guess. Is that enemies have that box unchecked for a second or so allowing the player some breathing room before the monster starts to chase again.

My guess is that for a trigger to be viable and active you need to hit the trigger zone and have the chase box checked out for an enemy to spawn in the regular location. But seeing as the pause stuns the enemy turning off the box for a brief moment, a spawn just doesn't happen. Though that's just a theory based on the limited understanding that we have on the game thus far.

I should note that I'm not a moderator or a run authenticator. But maybe with enough time I could become one. If anyone would be qualified to answer it would be: Punchy, oniryu123, or crisdoile2.

Very fair question

We're allowed to use EMU for runs however they're considered separate from official console runs. We do allow authentic copies and backup copies along with emus as Illbleed is at minimum $100 to get a copy of and considering the price of your average dreamcast, you're at least spending $150 if you're lucky and not considering the use of a capturecard that works well with a PC and a stable internet connection along with a PC viable enough for hosting streams. Which would or could easily build up to an extra $600 to $1.4k.

Just note that depending on your emulator (which I reccomend the dev version of Redream) you could or should expect some smaller issues. Personally in my experience using a .CHD rom with Redream has done me the best and has gotten me the current WR for EMU.

Personally I have not used GDEMU, but as long as it doesn't give an unfair advantage within your run and as long as you personally feel comfortable with it I do not see any reason at least in my experience for why a run would be denied.

Hope this answered your question!

Though I should also mention as a person who ran via emu on my HP Laptop, it had a time issue of about a minute where I would lose a minute of time every run I would do. So if you're using an emulator you better be damn sure that your PC can run it well. Sure I may of gotten a 1:19, I just simply forgot to cut out some extra footage and so the current time is a tad off and I'm just too lazy to resubmit the run again. It's not impossible to use an emu for a good run.

Thought that this would help some people so here are some of my personal notes for reference:

Banballow will die from 7 complete 3 hit combos plus one extra strike.

Rachel will die from 60 full damage frames.

Killerman will die from 10 complete 3 hit combos exact. Or alternatively 48 shots from the Shotgun.

Zodick's rings will be destroyed from 4 shots from Cork's Pistol.

Reccomended way to fight Bullstinger:

When finished a jump get behind them and land a 3 hit combo. When preparing to jump or at a distance use the machine gun. After a stab attack from the Stinger, attack 3 times. Claw attack, attack 2 times. When regenerating it is prone to an easy 3 hit combo.

In conclusion,

Melee weapons are stronger than ranged weapons generally. And though they may not be as quick in succession, damage frames aren't stacked on top of eachother and damage doesn't register each frame after a bit of damage is done. Melee attacks with their timing between eachother makes their attacks a little more consistent in effectiveness and high damage output. However, very risky.

Use weapons you're comfortable with and defeat enemies with what you have as effectively as you can.

[BANBALLOW FIGHT STRAT]

Or as I like to call it shoulder checking, stand to the diagonal side of Banballow and aim towards his head with your bat. When he uses his Flamethrower, if done correctly, you will be pushed by Banballow's flame attack animation over receiving damage instead, note that the hit box of the flame isn't directly on the head of the Flamethrower so there is some small room for error but I wouldn't reccomend relying on that.

[RACHEL NOTE]

Try to kill her as she is coming up through the ground. If done correctly a counter attack/stagger animation will play versus the going under the ground and coming up from it death animation normally programmed.

[JOHN STRAT]

When entering the battle get as close as you can to John and hug a wall. When he spits, dodge letting all the frames play out and attack. When the branch attack is used, dodge, letting all the frames play out (or expect damage) and attack 3 times. Should be a quick fight.

[KILLERMAN SHOTGUN STRAT]

Using a male character, get close to Killerman and dodge when he uses Star attack or Aura. After the full dodge is completed, shoot and immediate dodge after unless you see a counter attack/stagger animation. But note that you will likely get hit immediately after.

You can easily keep them in a battle loop for the majority of the battle leaving it a one sided match where he is taking a majority of the damage.

Here is a comparison of an authentic versus a backup disc in case you're buying online and need to know the difference.

Authentic discs have a certain glint and shine to them that is not apparent on a reproduction/backup disc. As printing isn't as good.

Repro/backups will also normally have white for where transparency is from the paper it is printed on as well.

Shiny parts don't shine either. They just have a strange printing effect to somewhat emulate the look in a certain kind of lighting.

Illbleed being a game that has only sold roughly 50k copies internationally, it will be a hard game to come by for cheap.

And though with minimal regional differences that will matter to your runs, burned copies have been used for runs of this game since the early days of speedrunning and will have minor differences that will matter long term for your speedrun.

But first to know if your USA dreamcast can run a burned copy, you should identify the model it is as only versions 0 and 1 can play burned copies without modifications. You can identify this by flipping your dreamcast over and checking the sticker. However you need a strong lazer to read the game, otherwise it will not run or read the CD rom you have the reproduction on, and will be much harsher to your Dreamcast as well. Causing it to heat more and make its lazer's life die faster unless you modify it to read specifically CD Roms.

However, with that said:

It is always reccomended to run this game on official hardware as burned copy load times are not as consistent as authentic copy load times. With the in game timer Illbleed provides, authentic copies have only a 1 to 2 second inaccuracy whereas burned/backup/reproduction copies can have a 3 to 5 second inaccuracy. And though better than running on an emulator eith a bad pc which can have issues of a minutr kong inaccuracy, it has and will always be reccomended to run this game with an authentic copy on official hardware.

Home Run of Death Encounter Kitchen Fight Skip (Pattern 2/B)

You can jump over the fight trigger by tagging the blood trap and then jumping past the corner and beyond the area where you'd normally bump into the fight.

Killer Department Store Early Trap Skip (Orange goo pile)

You can jump and avoid the last goo pile hugging the right wall and jumping past it

Woodpuppets trap skip (Pattern 2/B)

After the two window traps, hug the left wall and you will trigger the ceiling trap but not the trap on the right wall.

Tag the other traps as normal

Recently in October of 2022 my friend Souzooka has been abls toput together a cheat board for ReDream where we are now currently able to adjust our position in the map to put outselves out of bounds. Something that wasnt thought possible before but we have discovered that even if we do accomplish such a feat, there is nothing you can do when out of bounds.

Video by Souzooka

Illbleed Discord: https://discord.gg/y9qde24fjv

Found by: "Retro" The Binary Stork

This strat has been worked on for a majority of this year as I was wanting to find the best spots to use an already commonly known strat known as pause stunning where you open your map and when you close it as an enemy is chasing you, enemies will freeze in place for a moment and then resume their chase command.

However, in doing this I had unintentionally discovered a full fledged strat that I have put together with maps and will eventually be making a stream displaying this strat in action on a model 1 unmodified USA Dreamcast with my USA copy of Illbleed.

Please note that this strat will only work on the following: Enemies that chase you triggering an encounter.

This applies to:

Banballow Worms Woodcutters and Mary

So in other words this strat can be used in the following levels:

Home Run of Death Revenge of The Queen Worm Woodpuppets Killer Department Store

Here are the maps. Pause areas are marked in yellow and were made August 25th 2022 so please note these are out of date with addendum notes that I will be adding.

Home Run of Death

Additional despawn found unintentionally by streamer if you want to see this in action:

Revenge of the Queen Worm

Addendum: Got a consistent place to do it. The hassy girl sign. Open the map on the first quarter lined up with the first white pole it stands with

November 17th 2022 updates: There are 4 new despawn areas I've found.

Location one: past the open area where you can find the escape ladder. On the sidewalk, pause on the right hand side past the lights beside the tree almost immediately after (note this is inconsistent) it should deapawn the worm coming up on the dirt coming up if done correctly.

Area 2: past that worm and the car, turning right, pausing at the first tree to the right will despawn the worm that normally spawns to the left hand side when you run into the zone/area.

Area 3: taking the left that normally has the worm, avoiding the worm that comes around past it, when going up, pause in the middle of the space between the two sets of lampposts, specifically at the bushes as a visual guide. The worm that spawns fo the left of the sign should not spawn if done correctly

Woodpuppets

NOTE: THESE ARE MORE DIFFICULT TO PULL OFF. THEY REQUIRE SPECIFIC MOVEMENTS SOMETIMES TO GET RIGHT. FIND WHAT WORKS FOR YOU

Killer Department Store

Note: The area that I circled will at the very least keep Marie in a small more manageable area, but not despawn her. It will just make it easier to get around her and to manage the section of the maze

To conclude, please note there are definitely more despawn areas for this game. And these are just the ones I have been able to find in my practice runs, and this will certainly become a larger list of points to find in the future.

However, it is within my professional opinion as a top runner that we should not ban this strat but perhaps make a different category for this strat being used. As this removes a large portion of difficulty removing an enemy spawning around you outright, saving not just seconds but minutes of time if executed correctly. This has allowed me to accomplish the Home Run of Death without Banballow appearing on my screen with many despawns and precise movements to ensure that no issue happens with a bad encounter.

This removes woodcutters chasing you outright if done correctly in all of the map aside from the small corridor near the goal and makes the Mary Maze less a pain to handle.

THIS. STRAT. IS. BROKEN.

Discord: https://discord.gg/y9qde24fjv

Put Together By: Binary Stork (Retro) and Souzooka

These numbers and values have been taken directly from the Illbleed survival guide, which has been carefully looked over and mostly translated by my friend Souzooka. I just put the numbers together. So thank him for most of this work.

Full Weapon Damage Outputs

translation by Souzooka

MELEE WEAPONS

Legend

Weapon

Damage outputs: attack #1 - attack #2 - attack #3 Total damage: All 3 attacks put together into a combo

Home Run Bat

Damage: 3 - 5 - 8 Total: 16

Iron Bat

Damage: 6 - 7 - 11 Total: 24

Woodcutter Axe

Damage: 5 - 9 - 14 Total: 24

Hatchet

Damage: 14 - 16 - 20 Total: 50

RANGED WEAPONS

Flame Thrower

Damage: 10pf (per frame)

Machine Gun

Damage: 4

Shotgun

Damage: 5

Pistol

Damage: 6

Therefore: Strongest weapons in the game are, the flame thrower and the hatchet.

REGULAR MONSTERS HEALTH + DAMAGE

(WORK IN PROGRESS)

Translated by Souzooka, and put together by Souzooka and Retro

IMPORTANT NOTE: Monsters have an additional 0 - 10% of extra HP

Therefore: What this would mean is that not all values will follow a set value 100% of the time unless it is a boss monster or a spawn in via the final boss like Cashman for the Museum.

(Wip lol)

Dummyman (Normal) [HP/40 - 44]

Punch - 3 Kick - 7 Body - 12

Dummyman (Elite) [HP/65 - 71]

Attack 1 - 15 Attack 2 - 7

Dummyman (Hero) [HP/90 - 99]

Vertical Swing: 8 Horizontal Swing: 12

Bloodman [HP/40 - 44]

Claw Strike - 8 Lunge Attack - 14

Employee [HP/12]

ATTACK: N/A

Worm [HP/36 - 39]

Collision Hit: 10

Monkiller [HP/42 - 46]

Sickle: 8

Woodcutter [HP/80 - 88]

Axe Swing: 10

Woodpuppet [HP/50 - 55]

Attack 1 - 6 Attack 2 - 7 Attack 3 - 8

Beef/Chicken/Pork [HP/15]

Meat Slap - 12

Pretty Marie [HP/180 - 198]

Stab: 30

Marie (Demon Form) [HP/60 - 66]

Stab: 15

Cashman Spawn (Killer Department Store) [HP/3 - 9]

Jump: 10

Cashman Spawn (Museum Boss Fight) [HP/26 - 28]

Jump: 10

Egg Man [HP/50 - 55]

Lunge: 8

Blood Woman [HP/80 - 88]

Gun Fire: 40 Pistol Slap: 3

BOSS HEALTH + DAMAGE

Put together by Souzooka and Retro, numbers directly from the survival guide

Banballow (Flamethrower) [HP/120]

Flame - 11 Spit - 7

Banballow (Giant) [HP/NA]

Attack - 35

Cashman [HP/350]

Jump - 30 Thread attack - 18

Rachel [HP/600]

Attack - 12

John Mcocland [HP/220]

Branches - 14 Spit - 6

Killerman [HP/240]

Beam - 65 Aura - 16 Hand Attack - 12 Star Attack - 12

Zodick The HellHog (Ring: [HP/22])

Spin dash Attack - 16 Hand Attack - 12 Kick - 9

Oh No Man [HP/500]

Hand scythe attack - 35 Kick - 12

Bullstinger [HP/350]

Right hand (Stinger) - 35 Left hand (Claw) - 25 Jump - 40

Michael Renoylds (1st form) [HP/150]

Eye attack - 20 Rainbow Beam - 50

Michael Renoylds (2nd form) [HP/450]

Shield - 50 Insects - 5 Headbutt - 35 Ghosts - 12

If you want to learn more Illbleed feel free to join the speedruns discord: https://discord.gg/y9qde24fjv

Anyways, special thanks to my friend Toast for helping me figuring out all the details of how this works. And a bigger thanks to my Illbleed Discord that you can join here if you want to learn more.

https://discord.gg/y9qde24fjv

So recently I was playing Illbleed with a friend, teaching them the basics, and we had found out how clipping works, but before I explain the details. I should first share the potential for this knowledge.

Dummyman/Bedroom Skip Found by Joshua Kane

How this works:

Okay so, these kinds of skips are easier to do when you're fully healed, and or a male character (except Randy). And hardest to do with Michel. But, with that said this doesn't mean that there couldn't be possible skips found in the future that are only specific to certain characters. Though, if you want to know the characters with the best clipping potential from worst to best

1 - Michel and Randy 2 - Eriko 3 - Kevin and Jorg

But how this works is that all objects and walls have their own set wall values or invisible wall values that push you away from them a slight bit, but a clip will work only if you've got an object behind you pushing you forward and against either an object or a thinner wall with some floor right behind it and no invisible wall or void being in there. But that's not the same for objects. As long as you're able to walk on them, or if there's some kind of floor past it, you can clip right through them, and it can go as far as a table. But if there's a means to get between an object and a wall and there's no invisible wall and there's a bit of floor past it, you can basically clip right through it.

Update

Since then, I've found out that there's also a Russian Release called Illbleed Final. And I have gotten to play the Taiwanese release on some free time I had recently. Turns out that the Taiwan release uses all the same passcodes as the Japanese release of Illbleed.

I have no idea about anything with Illbleed Final as I've not found a copy to play personally. But, I hope that this helps any future runners!

Other notes though, burned copies of Illbleed are easier to come by, and are allowed for runs of this game to my knowledge. Though I would recommend a physical as it's more accurate and has less load time issues and is generally more friendly to your Dreamcast.

Here's some i know of,

Pass codes

USA Release

Woodpuppets stage code: 9663 Killer department store codes Vault 1: 1863 Vault 2: 2161

Japan Release

Woodpuppets stage: 1564 Killer department store codes Vault 1: 5271 Vault 2: ????

No idea for anything on the Taiwanese version. Haven't played it a lot in all honesty. I'll be playing through it eventually with a friend of mine who knows Chinese. Maybe there will be differences.

These are important for 100% runs

But for emulation if you want to know at least my experiences, USA release and Tawain release versions of the games if you're wanting to use ReDream, don't have wide-screen support. The Japanese version does. It's not much of a difference aside from visual. But Taiwan's version appears to have a much more consistent load buffer than the other two versions.

Plus, some books/dairies/newspaper clippings/notes take longer to go through depending on the version as in the Japanese release some entries are shorter. Same goes for other versions. Idk which one would be fastest to go through.

Toy Hunter: USA release has the main character known as Cork, Japanese release has him known as Inda.

As far as I know, these are the only differences I have been able to find.