The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is my favorite game of all time. But what about the original, programmed in AS2 rather than C++? While I did play Rebirth first, this review series would be a bit incomplete without mentioning the original, no? Flash was made by a much smaller team than Rebirth, composed of solely Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, with music provided by Danny B. Flash was worked on for the course of several months, but it was considerably rushed and generally unpolished, even to this day. Even then, it still attracted a large audience, even to this day, where it still gets about a hundred players daily. Is this for good reason? Perhaps Flash has something that Rebirth (and subsequent versions) don’t? Only one way to find out! So let's hop in this old ass Basement and check out what old Isaac has to offer.
Right off the bat, there's a few noticeable differences between this and Rebirth. First off, the artstyle and music. Compared to Rebirth, the game sports a hand-drawn artstyle, and a different music genre entirely, compared to Rebirth's pixel style graphics and hard Rock. In terms of graphics, Flash is just as strong, arguably stronger than its Rebirth cousin, as grotesque as ever, gore, piss, and shit all left intact. However, when it comes to the music, it's a fair bit debatable. Flash’s soundtrack goes for a more electronic style, with its music focusing more on the beat of the tracks compared to Rebirth. Meanwhile, Rebirth (and subsequent DLCs) have a very heavy focus on leitmotifs and melodies. It’s a bit of a tossup as to which one I prefer, but even though I find myself leaning towards Rebirth’s soundtrack more, Flash’s soundtrack is pretty good as well. All of these tunes are all time classics, with Repentant being my personal favorite track in the game. The boss tracks aren’t as great as Rebirth’s, but they’re still pretty banging here. The songs do feel a little short, but granted Flash’s limitations, it’s understandable. But what about the gameplay itself?
Rebirth is about the same as Flash, control-wise. You still move and shoot in four directions the same way you do as Rebirth, place bombs and use cards like you do in Rebirth. But, there's a bit of an issue… Where the fuck is the controller support? This is one of the unfortunate downsides of the game being programmed in Flash. Because Flash lacks any support of native gamepad support, you have to use a program called Joy2Key to even try to use a controller. And even then, the controls don't translate the best, because the movement isn't analog. And on that note, I found, even on a keyboard, the controls were pretty damn sensitive. Isaac instantly darts with a tap of WASD, and it feels mediocre, especially compared to Rebirth. Shooting feels just as good as possible, which is nice, but I can't help but feel the controls are just too janky for my tastes.
On the topic of gameplay and story itself, Flash still holds up pretty well, as much as Rebirth did. For a more complete gameplay overview, I highly suggest reading my Rebirth review, but the gist of the game is that “Mom tries to kill Isaac but that's not really what happens”, the player goes through randomly generated dungeons, collects items upon the way, and defeats supernatural creatures at the end of each floor before moving on. Avoiding damage is key to success, as you can achieve Devil deals which significantly power up your character. It's just as fun here as it was in Rebirth. Obviously, there's a lot less content here as there is in Rebirth, it being an older version of the beloved classic, but I really appreciated the balancing here. The game is a fair bit more difficult than Rebirth, but a lot less focus is placed on the items and more so the challenge, and it does that very well. Flash provides a consistent challenge from beginning to end, and I am all here for it. But said challenge comes at a bit of a cost, and one of the main reasons why I spring towards Rebirth rather than Flash. I love Flash, I think it's great, but where the hell is the content? Flash is a really fun game hampered by a lack of run variety, making the game become way more stale than Rebirth and future iterations. In Flash, there are a little over a hundred items, and before a Halloween Update, there were about 80, a disappointing amount compared to Rebirth's 300. And the items present at best aren't as innovative as even Rebirth’s worst. Each run is pretty similar for the most part. Find stat ups, maybe flight or one or two tear modifiers, a few useless passives, a half-decent activated item, and bam. Run’s over before you know it. Flash also suffers from a lack of synergies, another unfortunate consequence of Flash as a programming language, adding to the issues of a lack of run variety. And those issues of content don't just apply to items as well.
Flash also suffers from a lack of final bosses and floors. It's almost customary for any roguelike to have a super secret ending that's really difficult to achieve (Hell from Spelunky, Throne II in Nuclear Throne, and so on), but Flash really only has Satan to its fairly small name. And that was added in a patch, as base release simply… ended. Without any major conclusion. But Satan himself isn't really that difficult, either. A step up from previous floors, but far from difficult to get. And having him be a random spawn pre-It Lives kind of takes the oomph out of him being the “true ending”. He isn't labeled as such, but I feel that's what they were going for.
Now, with all that being said, you might be wondering why I rated Flash a 8/10. Well, that's because Flash is still a REALLY good game, just as not as good as Rebirth. Like I said at the beginning, it's still as fundamentally great as what comes after it, but I hold a heavy preference towards Rebirth. It’s a very small, yet focused game, and while I appreciate that, it really needed more content to warrant spending more than a few wins on it (in my opinion). However, almost all of my problems with it would be fixed WITH…
“Within the past grasps / All familiar faces surround / My life is rebound” - “Flash” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
Right off the bat, there's a few noticeable differences between this and Rebirth. First off, the artstyle and music. Compared to Rebirth, the game sports a hand-drawn artstyle, and a different music genre entirely, compared to Rebirth's pixel style graphics and hard Rock. In terms of graphics, Flash is just as strong, arguably stronger than its Rebirth cousin, as grotesque as ever, gore, piss, and shit all left intact. However, when it comes to the music, it's a fair bit debatable. Flash’s soundtrack goes for a more electronic style, with its music focusing more on the beat of the tracks compared to Rebirth. Meanwhile, Rebirth (and subsequent DLCs) have a very heavy focus on leitmotifs and melodies. It’s a bit of a tossup as to which one I prefer, but even though I find myself leaning towards Rebirth’s soundtrack more, Flash’s soundtrack is pretty good as well. All of these tunes are all time classics, with Repentant being my personal favorite track in the game. The boss tracks aren’t as great as Rebirth’s, but they’re still pretty banging here. The songs do feel a little short, but granted Flash’s limitations, it’s understandable. But what about the gameplay itself?
Rebirth is about the same as Flash, control-wise. You still move and shoot in four directions the same way you do as Rebirth, place bombs and use cards like you do in Rebirth. But, there's a bit of an issue… Where the fuck is the controller support? This is one of the unfortunate downsides of the game being programmed in Flash. Because Flash lacks any support of native gamepad support, you have to use a program called Joy2Key to even try to use a controller. And even then, the controls don't translate the best, because the movement isn't analog. And on that note, I found, even on a keyboard, the controls were pretty damn sensitive. Isaac instantly darts with a tap of WASD, and it feels mediocre, especially compared to Rebirth. Shooting feels just as good as possible, which is nice, but I can't help but feel the controls are just too janky for my tastes.
On the topic of gameplay and story itself, Flash still holds up pretty well, as much as Rebirth did. For a more complete gameplay overview, I highly suggest reading my Rebirth review, but the gist of the game is that “Mom tries to kill Isaac but that's not really what happens”, the player goes through randomly generated dungeons, collects items upon the way, and defeats supernatural creatures at the end of each floor before moving on. Avoiding damage is key to success, as you can achieve Devil deals which significantly power up your character. It's just as fun here as it was in Rebirth. Obviously, there's a lot less content here as there is in Rebirth, it being an older version of the beloved classic, but I really appreciated the balancing here. The game is a fair bit more difficult than Rebirth, but a lot less focus is placed on the items and more so the challenge, and it does that very well. Flash provides a consistent challenge from beginning to end, and I am all here for it. But said challenge comes at a bit of a cost, and one of the main reasons why I spring towards Rebirth rather than Flash. I love Flash, I think it's great, but where the hell is the content? Flash is a really fun game hampered by a lack of run variety, making the game become way more stale than Rebirth and future iterations. In Flash, there are a little over a hundred items, and before a Halloween Update, there were about 80, a disappointing amount compared to Rebirth's 300. And the items present at best aren't as innovative as even Rebirth’s worst. Each run is pretty similar for the most part. Find stat ups, maybe flight or one or two tear modifiers, a few useless passives, a half-decent activated item, and bam. Run’s over before you know it. Flash also suffers from a lack of synergies, another unfortunate consequence of Flash as a programming language, adding to the issues of a lack of run variety. And those issues of content don't just apply to items as well.
Flash also suffers from a lack of final bosses and floors. It's almost customary for any roguelike to have a super secret ending that's really difficult to achieve (Hell from Spelunky, Throne II in Nuclear Throne, and so on), but Flash really only has Satan to its fairly small name. And that was added in a patch, as base release simply… ended. Without any major conclusion. But Satan himself isn't really that difficult, either. A step up from previous floors, but far from difficult to get. And having him be a random spawn pre-It Lives kind of takes the oomph out of him being the “true ending”. He isn't labeled as such, but I feel that's what they were going for.
Now, with all that being said, you might be wondering why I rated Flash a 8/10. Well, that's because Flash is still a REALLY good game, just as not as good as Rebirth. Like I said at the beginning, it's still as fundamentally great as what comes after it, but I hold a heavy preference towards Rebirth. It’s a very small, yet focused game, and while I appreciate that, it really needed more content to warrant spending more than a few wins on it (in my opinion). However, almost all of my problems with it would be fixed WITH…
“Within the past grasps / All familiar faces surround / My life is rebound” - “Flash” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
As fond as the memories I have for this game are, there's really no reason to play this over Rebirth. I heard it did get updates after Rebirth came out, but while I admire the effort, I can't go back.
Can't rank it higher than this due to fps issues. Tried to 100% the game, realized that the framerate cap and dps based luck only gets you so far. Gave up with 50% achievements :(
Vanilla Isaac ist einfach eine geniales Spiel, nicht so erschlagend wie das Remake und der Soundtrack ist wundervoll.