Illusion - 4/10

Typically, a complete game review should be based on a full playthrough. But Illusion presents me with a dilemma: should I endure hours of torture just to write a “complete” review, or should I honestly tell readers that this game has already shown enough problems in Chapter 1 alone to make me unable to continue?

I’ve chosen the latter.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1875610/Illusion/

Price: Free

When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse

Neglected had many problems: endless box-pushing, unforgiving chase sequences, a 20-minute story stretched into 4 hours, and punitive ending design. Logically, the sequel Illusion should have learned from these mistakes—improved pacing, streamlined mechanics, or at least added more story and artwork.

Instead, it chose the opposite direction: doubling down on every weakness.

From the very start, the game throws the three protagonists into test chambers with virtually no cutscenes, no explanation—just the familiar taste: box-pushing, chase sequences, more box-pushing.

If the predecessor was “a 20-minute story stretched to 4 hours,” then Illusion’s opening story consists of about 5 minutes of content stretched across two full hours:

Got recaptured.

Continue testing.

Then it’s endless mechanical labor. No motivation, no goals.

“Who am I, where am I?” “Why am I doing this?” “When will this all end?"—these questions will start surfacing ten minutes into gameplay and repeat throughout the next two hours.

Early plot hints promise more characters, more story, perhaps even emotional peaks. But honestly, I have no mood left to witness any of that. When a game completely drains player patience in its opening hours, even brilliant later content becomes an apology that comes too late.

(“You don’t need to know these things; you just need to follow our instructions for the activity.”)

Good Ideas Meet the Worst Execution

Illusion attempts innovation by introducing a new mechanic: simultaneous multi-character control. This could have been a promising game design—imagine three protagonists cooperating to solve puzzles, with players switching between them and utilizing different characters’ abilities and positions to progress, like some kind of tactical puzzle RPG.

However, Illusion turns this good idea into operational hell.

To switch characters or request help from other characters, you need to use the “walkie-talkie” in your inventory. This process requires up to 7-8 button presses:

1. Press X to open the pause menu
2. Press Z to select “Items”
3. Press Z to confirm entering inventory
4. Press directional keys to find “walkie-talkie” in the item list
5. Press Z to select the walkie-talkie
6. Press directional keys to choose your action (switch character/request help, etc.)
7. Press Z to confirm the action

Seven button presses, just to switch characters.

In normal box-pushing puzzles, this already makes the puzzle-solving experience extremely tedious. Every time you need to switch characters to push another box, or need to ask a teammate to disable a trap for you, you must go through this lengthy process. The game has numerous scenarios requiring frequent switching or support requests—sometimes a single level requires a dozen phone calls—and each time it’s this seven or eight-step operation. The game’s pacing becomes completely fragmented.

But that’s not even the worst part.

The worst part is: the game requires you to use the walkie-talkie during chase sequences.

Let me describe in detail how absurd this design is: during the first half of walkie-talkie operations (opening the menu, selecting items, etc.), the game is paused; but during the second half (selecting actions, confirming), the game resumes and the tracking orbs continue chasing you. Even more outrageous, you can still complete all operations in the menu, but you’re only judged as killed after closing the menu—meaning you think you’ve successfully called for support, only to exit the menu and watch yourself respawn at the starting point.

This isn’t testing player skill. It’s making players pay for the engine’s deficiencies.

Chapter 1 Final Battle: After Hundreds of Attempts, I Surrendered

What would it be like if every level in the sequel had the difficulty of the predecessor’s final battle? Illusion is the answer.

The Chapter 1 final battle took me several hours and hundreds of attempts to clear. This isn’t hyperbole—I recorded it and actually counted: at least over two hundred retries. Why is it so hard? Let me list all the elements this battle combines:

Objectives:

• Step on four buttons separately to obtain four boxes
• Push each of the four boxes across the entire arena to designated positions

Your Enemies:

• Tracking orbs: rush toward you and multiply over time
• Timed lasers: trigger at fixed intervals, covering large central areas
• Moving obstacles: move irregularly, blocking both player and boxes

Engine Issues:

• Character movement delay: After you press a direction key, the character doesn’t respond immediately but has noticeable delay due to movement animation. In a boss fight requiring precise positioning, you can barely control your character’s position accurately
• Attack detection too wide: The damage detection window of orbs and lasers far exceeds their visual representation—attacks you thought you safely dodged actually hit you
• One-hit kill: Any damage is fatal
• Zero reaction time: Many attacks give you strictly zero reaction window, especially when timed lasers suddenly appear
• Input overshoot: During fast movement, it’s easy to release controls too slowly, causing your character to overshoot and collide with hazards

Bugs:

• Boxes move on their own: When boxes get near orbs or moving obstacles, they automatically move in unpredictable directions. This means even if you cleverly avoid all threats and perfectly push the box, the box itself may still move to a stuck position on its own, forcing you to restart

Each of these elements alone would constitute a challenge, but Illusion stacks them all together, creating a nearly impossible level—this isn’t “high difficulty” at all, this is systemic failure.

Every attempt is prolonged torture: carefully waiting for laser gaps, dodging orbs, pushing the first box—then moving one extra step because you released the button 0.01 seconds too late, hitting the laser. Return to start, retry.

Try again: successfully push two boxes, running toward the third box when your character still has half a pixel within the laser range, and that’s when the laser activates, registering a hit. Return to start, retry.

Try again: perfectly execute 90% of the process, the last box almost in position—the box moves on its own and gets stuck in a corner. Return to start, retry.

After hundreds of attempts, I cleared it. I felt no sense of accomplishment, no joy, only relief that “it’s finally over.”

Then I realized: this is only Chapter 1.

Why I Stopped

After clearing the Chapter 1 final battle, I glanced at the subsequent chapters. More test rooms, more box-pushing, more chase sequences. I realized that to fully complete this game, I might need to invest another dozen hours, experience thousands more retries, and endure countless failures caused by engine issues, design flaws, or pure bad luck.

I asked myself: why?

Not “why is this so hard,” but “why should I keep playing”?

If this were a game with a compelling story, perhaps terrible gameplay could be tolerated—but so far, Illusion’s story consists only of 5 minutes of opening content. If this were a game with fun gameplay, perhaps weak narrative could be forgiven—but Illusion’s gameplay is pure torture.

Neglected at least gave me motivation to finish, mostly thinking “after the next puzzle I can see the two furries” (and obviously I was deceived). But Illusion can’t even spark the curiosity of “sticking around until all the furries appear.” It only makes me feel exhausted, weary, and deeply puzzled by the developer’s design philosophy.

So I gave up.

Audiovisual Presentation: The Only Continuing Strength

Despite all these flaws, Illusion at least maintains the predecessor’s standards in art and music.

The scenes are still hand-drawn, preserving that nostalgic aesthetic of early Flash games. Character portraits and illustrations have even improved in quality, and the soundtrack remains pleasant. If you enjoyed Neglected’s visual style, then Illusion won’t disappoint you—at least in this regard.

But just like its predecessor, excellent audiovisual presentation cannot mask the collapse of core gameplay. Beautiful character art paired with harmful chase sequences and walkie-talkies, lovely music accompanying hundreds of Game Overs—this contrast only makes one more regretful: this excellent art and music could have served a better game.

A Game That Could Have Been Better

This is the most regrettable aspect of Illusion—its core ideas aren’t bad.

If the walkie-talkie system could be simplified to one or two hotkeys, the multi-character switching mechanic could become a smooth and interesting puzzle element. Players could focus on coordinating three characters rather than navigating menus.

If chase sequence map design and difficulty curves were more reasonable, giving players appropriate learning space and margin for error, tense escape scenarios could easily become game highlights.

If box-pushing sequences could be streamlined, paired with tighter narrative pacing, the game’s story and gameplay could achieve better balance.

These improvements aren’t technically difficult to implement, yet could fundamentally transform the game experience. If developers had involved more first-time players in testing feedback, perhaps these issues would have been exposed earlier.

Unfortunately, there are no ifs.

Verdict

I cannot give Illusion a final score based on a complete experience because I didn’t finish it. I will attempt to continue playing and eventually complete it, at which point I’ll update this review with thoughts on later chapters and a final score. But based on Chapter 1’s experience, I must honestly say: I don’t know if I have enough patience and motivation to complete that task.

Illusion demonstrates some interesting design ideas, but they’re all dragged down by problematic execution. When a game makes players spend most of their time battling controls and engine issues rather than enjoying core gameplay, it’s already doomed to failure.

Score (Chapter 1): 4/10 - Bad

A good sequel improves upon its predecessor’s shortcomings. Illusion chose to make every problem worse.