THE BINDING OF ISAAC WARP ZONE: S H A R D S O F I S A A C

Fuck, 100 followers already? AND A 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY? How the time flies, huh? Well, I can’t have my review of some gooner game be my top review. Let’s go all out, WITH...

Genesis 22:10. In the beginning, on April 27th, 2023, zeusdeegoose had just joined Backloggd. He loved to play games, and he loved writing really long reviews. Over 150 reviews of his have been published, from the delightfully enjoyable Blaster Master Zero 3, to the tough as nails Spelunky. He’d never thought he’d get this far. All of these 150 reviews have been leading up to something greater than himself. One review series to triumph them all. And now, the pinnacle of said series is now; reaching its final form, the pinnacle of geesekind. A review so great, a review so grand. And that review IS...

The Binding of Isaac Repentance is the best video game ever made. Honestly, looking at my top 5, NOTHING comes close to it. The Blaster Master Zero Trilogy is a perfect 10/10 in my eyes, almost every single one. Super Meat Boy is also a 10/10 for how simple yet fun it is. Cave Story is a 10/10, for being an incredibly impactful game in the industry, and one of the most concentrated gaming experiences that you can find today. Mega Man Zero is a 10/10, with its near endless replayability and relentless difficulty. Celeste? What’s that??? But in my opinion, The Binding of Isaac Repentance is the only 11/10 game, that one game that I never get tired of; the one game that I’ve 100%ed TWICE at this point, the one game that is inherently PERFECT in my eyes. I love it, go play it right now. Review’s over! Just go play it for yourself.

Well, I say “game”, but Repentance is actually a DLC. A DLC so large, so expansive, triumphing all that has come before it, essentially becoming a game of its own. When a game that is three years old (at this point in time) makes me feel nostalgic, you’ve KNOW you’ve made a good ass game. I guess it’s three years old on a technicality. Isaac Repentance has “existed” since the late Afterbirth+ era, almost 7 years of full-time development, but also The Binding of Isaac Antibirth (a fan-made mod which Repentance near-fully integrates), has existed for about 8 years, and has been in development since about Rebirth’s release. Yeah, 2014 is 10 years old now. Do you feel old, or what? Antibirth was one of the best mods in the Rebirth era, and even beat out Afterbirth+ (deservedly so) in popularity. Also, in the Afterbirth+ era, the developers of Antibirth helped work on the final 2 Booster Packs, so yeah. It was a pretty safe bet to hire them. Just to note; even though Repentance adapts lots of content from Antibirth, the two are still entirely separate entities. If you played Antibirth, you did NOT play Repentance, not by a long shot. There’s so much new shit on top of the already amazing pre-existing content. So, what is Repentance all about? Well, it’s the final expansion to Rebirth (for real this time), and provides a fulfilling conclusion to any Isaac fan out there, both in gameplay AND story. So, for the final time, let’s hop into The Basement, and see what makes Repentance the PERFECT GAME! ZeusDeeGoose proudly presents... THE REPENTANCE REVIEW!!!

But first, I need to talk about the gameplay changes first and foremost. Now, I’ve been bitching and moaning about how Rebirth was a little too easy, and how each subsequent DLC made that only more apparent. But, in Repentance, Oh my god. THEY ACTUALLY MADE THE BINDING OF ISAAC DIFFICULT AGAIN! THANK YOU SO MUCH! 10/10 DLC automatically for that, but how did they make the game harder? First off, they nerfed lots of the items in the game. This has been a pretty controversial change for most people, but I believe the nerfed items argument is so overblown. In fact, I’d say that the general item quality has gone UP compared to previous DLCs. Afterbirth+ thought that adding a bunch of shitty items made the game harder, but surprise surprise, it didn’t, and made the runs overall more frustrating and lame for casual players. Right off the bat, Repentance fixes this by making the quality margin smaller between items. Almost every item has been touched up in some way, and I absolutely LOVE what they did here. Some of the worse Afterbirth+ items are now really, really good! I would’ve never thought that the D Infinity would be a cool item, but now it is! Repentance made it so that you can manually cycle through each dice, rather than throwing it away the second you get the D7, making it actually fucking good! They also reduced charge times for lots of items. Items like Krampus’ Head were borderline useless in Afterbirth+, because they took so long to charge. 6 rooms for a 3 second attack? Get the fuck outta here, how about 3? Or, the Rosary, which just gave you 3 soul hearts and made the Bible occasionally spawn? Now it’s a tears up! Or Isaac’s Heart, infamously one of the worst items in Rebirth, is now REALLY good because you can push away enemies and bullets away from the heart! It’s actually one of my favorite items in the game now, Quality be damned. Shit, they even removed the “special items'' system in Rebirth, making runs far more potent in Repentance than ever! So with all that being said, what about the nerfs of Repentance? Yeah, I’mma say it. Who the fuck cares about the nerfs when half of the items are so much better now? Oh, no... Brimstone does slightly less damage? Tech X isn’t a free win anymore?? Tarot Cloth isn’t a one item break anymore??? TECH ZERO DOES 33% OF THE PLAYER’S DAMAGE NOW?!? These were needed nerfs, as half of the items in Afterbirth+ were simply too powerful for their own good. Even with the nerfs, these items are still incredible pickups for your run. They’re not nerfed to an unreasonable degree... but fuck whoever nerfed The Lost. Oh yeah, speaking of characters, they buffed them too! Keeper no longer sucks ass, Blue Baby... is really good now??? And now Cain retains his positive pills from the Flash version! Oh, and did I mention KEEPER? He’s actually fun now! There are probably over a thousand changes and reworks to this DLC alone, but I really don’t have time to cover all of them, but I genuinely believe each one was for the better, and made the game so much more fun to replay. Speaking of older items, what about these cool new ones? At about 150 of them, there's a lot more variety, but more importantly, practicality. Almost every Repentance item is amazing in it's own right, but it succeeds that something Plus severely failed at; synergies and niches. In addition to Repentance improving tons and tons of synergies from Plus and beyond, almost all new items synergize with something. But ALSO, all of the new items cover a practical niche, altering your runs in various ways, unlike Afterbirth Plus, which had some of the more lame item pickups. Like, hooray. I can shoot my tears in 360 degrees (the game was designed with perpendicular shooting in mind). Or, yay, I can place bombs down faster (???). Now, with Repentance, almost every new item feels like it has some value. Take for example, R Key. This is an extremely rare item, but it resets your run to the first floor while retaining all of your items. Or, what about Glitched Crown? It makes every item cycle through 4 others in the current pool really quickly. Or TMTRAINER, making every item randomized, and so on. Almost no Repentance item feels like filler, and that’s what I really like about it. Every item strikes a fair balance between great and overpowered, and even the weaker items are still so much stronger in Repentance. It has some of the best items in roguelike history, and Repentance really goes back to the roots of Flash, where you had to work with what you were given, whilst also not being so sloppy on your own part. Sure, good items help, but to compensate for the hundreds of improved items, characters, and also new items, what would they do to make the game more challenging? That’s a perfect segway into the new pathways implemented in the story mode.

Once the player kills Hush at least thrice (probably something you did in Afterbirth), you unlock the Strange Door, which is guaranteed to appear after completing one floor. This requires a Key to unlock; but if you don’t feel like going in for whatever reason (or you don’t have a key; it happens), you can always wait until Basement 2. But once you’re in, you’re transported into a new floor entirely. And no, it’s not some dumbass rehashed floor. Afterbirth+ would be like... uhhhh... Here! Introducing the Burning Cellar! No; this is Downpour; a wholly original floor with a sick-ass beat and a cool blue, thundering aesthetic, containing deviously difficult bullet hell-esque enemies and bosses, with benefits given to the player. Each treasure room has a visible and invisible item, so if you’re feeling lucky and the left item isn’t something you desire, you can always take a gamble for the left item. RISK VS REWARD. It’s a pretty cool area on it’s own, but can I talk about that FUCKING MUSIC??? I will gas up Repentance’s soundtrack even when I’m 6 feet under. It’s THAT good. Every track is in your face, non-stop, relentlessly beating you over the head until you see pretty stars, with only the greatest tunes in gaming. Every track, every musical note, is played to perfection by a passionate crew of 2 people. And every boss track is simply magnificent. The Alt path music makes you feel like you’re taking on gods, something of far greater strength than Isaac, and the final bosses are all the more intense. It’s one incredible soundtrack to send off The Binding of Isaac, and it’s one of the best in gaming history.

Anyways, while making your way through Downpour, you may come across a white fire and a mirror. It doesn’t shoot at you, nor does it go out by shooting at it. So curiously, you walk into it. Aaaand, you’re The Lost now. Great. But now, you can walk into the mirror, and enter the Mirror realm. This is a mirrored version of Downpour 2, and you have to go into the treasure room to find the first of 2 Knife Pieces. But, if you wish, you can also refight the boss to gain an additional Boss Item, but with the stipulation of being The Lost. Risk Vs Reward, anyone? But once you’re done, you can leave the Mirror realm and proceed into the Mines.

Perhaps you’re a little low on keys and can’t enter treasure rooms thanks to entering Downpour, but Repentance has a fix for that. If you skip a Treasure Room (without opening the room), you have a higher chance to get a Planetarium room. These are rooms with a very limited pool; however the item quality is even more balanced compared to Treasure Rooms. A lot of these items are pretty solid, but not as great as the Treasure Room’s best. And once you get at least one Planetarium, your chance drops down to 1% per floor. I think it’s a solid trade-off for consistency, but I never find myself going for them very often. The potential benefits aren’t as great as Treasure rooms, but if I have a Dream Catcher and see a bad item, chances are I’m skipping the Treasure Room. But, back to the alt path, next up is the Mines.

This is a difficulty bump compared to Downpour, containing several more projectiles, but with the same benefits and drawbacks of Downpour. It’s more difficult, but you still get the Treasure Room benefits. And, just like Downpour, it’s completely original! No reused enemies to kingdom come; everything feels completely distinct from the Caves. And, of course, the second Knife Piece has you do a quick puzzle. There are 3 switches around the second Mines map, and you have to click all of them to enter the minecart section. Once you do that, you’re transported into an area without any of your items. It’s... eerie. The music is very quiet, the room is dark, and there’s seemingly no place to go, but forward. Once you eventually pick up the second Knife Piece, everything seems to stop. And then... a twisted version of Mother shows up! This is Mother’s Shadow, an unkillable demon that chases you until your demise or escape, whichever comes first. The room layouts change to be more puzzle-like; blowing up rocks to progress, or using the new throwable bombs to create paths, all while the screen is highlighted in blood red. It’s a thrilling moment when it happens for the first time, but one that loses its effect over time. It’s like fully completing FNAF; at one point you simply get tired of the jumpscares, and they turn from scary to fucking annoying. The gameplay of the chase sequence gets pretty repetitive after a while. It’s a good set piece, but it needs that variety to be truly great. Or, you could potentially avoid this issue by placing the Knife Piece in the Minecart Room once you’ve obtained it once, and then having an item in the Chase. Just a thought. But, after obtaining the second knife piece, the knife is completed, and you can enter the Mausoleum in order to get a new ending... once you pay with your own BLOOD! 2 hearts, to be exact. No red heart preference kind of sucks, but whatever.

Perhaps you’re running low on HP, with the increased difficulty of the Alternative paths. But... perhaps you can’t really afford to lose your deals. So, look towards the rebalanced and restructured Angel rooms! First off, Angel deals have seen a few major improvements since Rebirth. For one, if you ignore the first Devil Deal, you’re guaranteed to see an Angel room on your next deal, compared to Afterbirth+ where it’s a 50/50. But if you walk into a Devil deal in Repentance, but walk out without taking anything, you get the 50/50. A much needed improvement, but ALSO, since Afterbirth, Angel items have only been getting better and better. First off, the pool itself is much stronger than before, but also you can typically pick from 2-3 items. In Afterbirth, this was only limited to one. And yeah, Afterbirth+ technically introduced this improvement, but shut up. Now that Angel deals are actually viable now, I’d say the 2 are somewhat on par with one another. Devils give you practicality, while Angels are more defensive now. But, that’s not to say that Angel deals are great now; in fact, I still prefer Devils in general, due to higher deal chances, but Angels are actually a decent option now. The 5 people who used them in Afterbirth Plus are cheering now. But now, back to the Alt path. Speaking of older content, they also went back and retouched some of the older content up. Lots of sprites have been remade to be less fugly (pre-Repentance Big Horn scares me), older areas have gotten new music like Utero and the Boss Rush (best track in the entire game), and did I mention the numerous reworks and re balances in Repentance??? I just really love how the team fixed almost every major issue in The Binding of Isaac. It showed that unlike Afterbirth+, they gave a shit about the quality of their own game!

The Mausoleum not only has the best song for the floor themes, but it’s also my favorite aesthetically. I am a sucker for purple. It’s one of my favorite colors, being slightly beat out by blue. And everything here... IS PURPLE! It’s still an awesome floor, being the most difficult (and also best floor) of the Alt Path in my opinion. The enemies here are really fast, and require some pretty fast reflexes in order to survive. They really change up the floor. One protects other enemies from damage until you kill it, while some will lock in on you, suddenly firing Brimstone. If you die, I can’t blame you, but you may notice on your way back, something called “Dross”, “Ashpit”, and “Gehenna” are unlocked.

Well, guess what? They gave the alternative path AN ALTERNATE PATH! Like the main floors, if you kill every boss on that floor, you get a new floor entirely. And just like the main floors, this applies to the Alt Path as well! And there’s even more obstacles and changes compared to the regular alt paths, keeping the game even more fresh on repeat playthroughs! This DLC is so good. But, at the end of Mausoleum, you fig- goddamn it, it’s Mom. Alt Path was SO close to perfection... Okay, jokes aside, Mom actually got her attacks buffed! Her feet have a chance to explode now, her eyes can shoot Brimstone lazers now, the works! And, just like the regular Mom fight, you can descend down into the Womb, go into Boss Rush (which is now triggered after 25 minutes in Alt Path; god tier design), or... the locked door. You can’t open it with a key, can’t bomb it either, so what’s up? Well, stab those knife pieces through the door, and... Mom’s Hear- GODDAMN IT NICALIS! Okay, like Mom, Heart gets buffed too. More bullets, more brimstone, the works, really. And after you kill her, the screen goes... dark. And now, the boss room changes color palettes to gray with a loud noise, and flies buzzing... Did we... Kill Mom? Only one way to find out.

Welcome to The Corpse. The least lively of the four Alt Path stages; both in a gameplay and narrative stance. All of the enemies here are deceased; being all creepy and crawly. It’s a beautifully animated floor, with the blood flowing on the floor of various rooms. And the beat of the music is incredibly slow, yet tense. It feels as if it’s building up... to one of the best bosses in the game. Once you get to the boss room, there’s just a massive hole. You hop in and...

“ISAAAAAAAAAAAC!” the monster pronounces. Mother is one of the coolest fucking bosses in the entire game, and you’re lying if you say otherwise. Good god, this fight just doesn’t stop for one second. It’s one of the fastest foes in the game, shooting tears at mach 10, while the most hardcore music plays. The stabbing of her knife spews hundreds of enemies, summoning 34 dead Isaacs (remember that now), she throws fucking Fistula at you, it’s truly incredible. And that was just the first phase! Once you do enough damage, she retreats before blasting out an incredibly large Brimstone lazer, and then BOOM! She pops out, her fat, dump truck ass on the same battlefield as you, the arena expands to 1x2, and now it’s time for phase 2. This is even cooler! Now that she’s the centerpiece of the arena rather than the very top, she throws out all kinds of new shit that tests your dodging skills, as well as reaction times. I’d say that Mother is the BEST boss in Isaac history, bar absolutely none, and the Alt Path was phenomenal as well. The Alt Path is something I almost always go to, and Mother is a boss I always look forward to whenever I fight her. I’m always at the edge of my seat, dodging her near endless attacks, while I feel like a badass to the awesome music. One of the best bosses in Gaming for the record books. Well, except for one final boss. But first, upon Mother’s defeat, you unlock one (or two) character, so how are the new characters of Repentance?

Repentance introduces a few new characters, the Isaac standard of 2 new characters per DLC. We have none other than Bethany, and Jacob And Esau, earned by killing Mom’s Heart as Lazarus without dying, and defeating Mother, respectively.
Bethany is the more interesting of the two. She has the Book of Virtues, an item which changes depending on what active item she currently holds. But without any active items, Book of Virtues spawns a singular wisp, which shoots with Bethany. Sounds interesting, but there’s a bit of an issue with her. Where the fuck are her soul hearts? Well, she has this “Soul Charge” mechanic, where the amount of Soul Hearts you have can be burned to use your active item. That sounds fine, until you realize Bethany has practically no protection against Deal Loss. Oh, and Angel Deals take precedence with her. Aaaaand that’s why I never play as her. Skill Issue me all you want, but Soul Hearts are too crucial to the game’s design to warrant taking them away for an... okay at best mechanic? I know that there are a lot of Bethany fans out there. Book of Virtues is an incredible item to have, but I don’t think it’s worth the tradeoff of actual defense.
Next up is Jacob and Esau, and some of you are probably ready for me to have a Lost-esque breakdown from these 2, but simply put, I don’t find them to be that deplorable. They’re probably cooler than you, at the very least. Essentially, you’re controlling 2 characters at once, and while that sounds annoying, it’s actually pretty fun (to me at least). If you really take the time to learn how to hold Control/R2, you’ll actually be pretty good at them. Hold R2, and only Jacob will move, both of them place bombs at the same time, and can use their cards and pills individually. It’s not the most complicated character to wield. And thus closes out the Repentance character cast! Well, for now. In order to talk about the other characters, we need to finish the campaign. And it’s the best part of the entire game. The one boss that still gives me goosebumps to my core. The music, the graphics, everything. It’s time to talk about THE ASCENT.

The Ascent doesn’t require any major items, but requires you to solve a simple puzzle. Upon killing Mother for the first time, a weird door will spawn at the beginning of Depths 2. It’s unopenable by any discernible method, but once you kill Mom, you need to grab The Polaroid (or Negative) and teleport out of the room, whether that be via Forget Me Now, or the actual item dubbed “Teleport!”. To help, on Depths 2, a cracked skull will always spawn, containing 0 - The Fool, sending you to the beginning of the floor. In fact, if you kill Mom in under 20 minutes, you can grab an item and teleport out of Boss Rush! But, once you return, you walk into that door, and the door opens (at the cost of the Polaroid). This transports you to the Mausoleum, which remains largely unchanged from before, with the same great music and bosses intact. However, the Boss room is notably empty, only containing a note. There’s no exit, so there’s only one thing left to do. Taking the note starts the final floors of the game; The Ascent. As the name implies, rather than descending each floor, you make your way back up, with the remnants of previous Boss rooms and Treasure rooms left intact, including items. Ever had an item you accidentally skipped? Well, now it's all here, free for the taking. The most striking set piece of The Ascent… is the argument between Mom and Dad!

As you climb and climb floors, you hear the arguments between the two, caused by the Father gambling away the Family's savings. And as you climb, the argument between the two only intensifies, BOOMING, as the music only gains more layers, starting out confusing, but as you ascend, the music layers come together to create a cohesive, incredible tune, as the enemies become more and more challenging, reaching its ultimate climax, as the Dad says foggily, “I'm sorry, Isaac.”, and LEAVES THE FAMILY BEHIND. I was on the edge of my fucking seat the entire time during the Ascent. I knew how it ended, with Isaac’s father leaving, but hearing the confirmation in-game hit like no other. The Binding of Isaac is a game with little voice acting (discounting Isaac’s grunts and whatnot), and to be fair, it's not really needed. But to see them really invest into the production values, having some pretty solid voice acting when it's not even needed, is really special to me. It makes it stand out as an emotional set piece, marking one of the only times the game uses vocals, aside from the “DEO”s of Ascension. And also, the fucking music dude. Tying in perfectly to the story, as we hear more about what broke this family apart, the music grows with each reveal, and hell, if you go on the Alt path, the game has music for that, too! It’s a celebration of what the entire story has led up to, and I’m all here for it. But I'm not gassing up The Ascent just because it has a phenomenal narrative. The Ascent itself is really fun. To compare it to something, how about The Void in Afterbirth Plus? Both are narratively similar, being a final culmination of the game’s themes and content. The problem with The Void is that it had no identity of its own, and the floor itself wasn't exciting to traverse, nor did it really have any narrative relevance. “Isaac dies!” We’ve known that since about 2012. “Oh, but his final delusions!” Okay, so what about the parent’s arguments in the ending? Were those a part of his delusions? Wouldn't his delusions be slightly off? The game never cares to reveal that, nor do I believe it cares. How about The Ascent? ”Isaac’s parents are arguing”? Okay, how do you show that off? “It's in the background.” See? Simple as that. Plus never really cares to ask itself those questions, and it suffers because of it. Meanwhile, Repentance does, and makes itself stand out in gameplay by remixing all of the enemies to be more difficult, and also making the floors super small so that the act of “ascending” isn’t painful, which stands out as this is the only time you go can go back to prior floors. This represents Isaac’s attempt to finish the story he wrote, but going past the points of his own limits. He’s practically dead at this point, no doubt about it. But he really tries to salvage what is left of his own world, and destroys it alongside himself in the process. And once The Ascent is all said and done, you get another cool-ass moment! Once you get to Basement 1 again, the final beam of light appears, alongside the in-game tutorial. Seeing that kind of hit me different. It reminds the player that they've come such a long way since they started the game, or, even Flash starting with the same tutorial! It reminds us that all good games must come to an end… and Repentance does indeed have a good ending indeed. Once you enter the final beam of light, for the final time, a nightmare plays, and you arrive AT…

Home. The very home that Isaac and his family once lived in. The Chest and Bed are the only thing that remains in Isaac's room. There are no enemies. There are no trapdoors if you bomb the carpet. Only you, and the eerie furniture that remains. The living room holds only a TV and a couch. Everything else is empty, and the music is incredibly calm, yet unsettling. You'll come across Mom’s bedroom, and it has a chest, which unlocks The Red Key, a solid item. But, if you go back and use it on the red outline on the wall, your character will appear… slightly changed but not a completely different character. Touching them will unlock a secret. You unlocked… Isaac? Bitch, I've been playing as him this entire time! What does this mean? The game doesn't make this readily apparent, but either way, you truck on. Once you sleep in Mom’s bed, you get another nightmare, with Isaac and his Mom watching TV, and on the TV is… ISAA- The game cuts the cutscene short with a static. Everything goes dark, with only one thing illuminating the floor. Go back into the Living Room… and… I can't even describe it. Just watch it for yourself.

Dogma (noun); principle or set of principles laid down by authority as incontrovertibly true.

IN OTHER WORDS, DOGMA PERSONIFIES WHAT THE MOM WATCHED ON THE TV! I don't think I've ever had as a visceral reaction to any boss since Sans back in fucking 2019! Yeah, a record unbroken for 4 years! A nearly flawless reveal AND FINAL BOSS! God, if Mother was my second favorite boss in gaming, Dogma AND the following each take spot 1. Make everything that made Mother such a fun and dynamic fight, and then make that shit overdose on CRACK. Everything about it is just so GOOD. Dogma starts out completely invulnerable, with you having to attack the TV it's attached to to damage it. But, while you're attacking, Dogma will only keep shooting at you. Once again, the tightest bullet patterns are at display here. I think the team was a big fan of Touhou during this. Dogma also shoots a glitched Brimstone homing shot, which is among the hardest attacks to dodge in the entire game. And that's just the beginning! Once the TV is damaged, Dogma only grows stronger. He jumps up and grows GODDAMN WINGS, and this is easily my favorite phase in the entire fight. He really throws EVERYTHING that you can think of at you; himself, these weird, glitched ass feather bullet thingies, and BEAMS OF LIGHT. And the bullets only get harder and harder to dodge. But, after a phenomenal fight, Dogma goes down. With Isaac conquering the false beliefs inside of him, he's taken aback, and stares as Dogma shapeshifts into a cross, before slamming down on Isaac, and fully consuming him. Suddenly, Home peels back its layers, revealing Hell itself, with the Four Horsemen and The Beast herself (yes, The Beast is a girl) staring directly at Isaac in the ocean filled with lava. The Beast goes full on shmup with this fight. No longer is gravity a factor for the player, as they're granted an item called Dogma which allows them to fly, and also heals them under 6 HP. Hell, on Normal Mode, you're given The Wafer, significantly improving your own survivability. And the Horsemen? Jesus, THIS IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE. Repentance has consistently blown my balls off with its story and gameplay. Or maybe I'm just a big fan of bullet hells. I don't know, BUT REGARDLESS, each Horseman is a test of your reactions; each is all faster and more challenging than the last; a test of reflexes and skill. Boy, you best be moving that Analog Stick with all the precision you can, because these patterns are no slouch. Famine darts around the room, shooting bullets at you, Sloth blows up the ground beneath you, spawning toxic clouds in the process, War fucking DARTS straight at you, and Death tries to quickly finish the job. When you get to Death, the music is just immaculate. Revelations 13-1 is a fantastic track all around. Each boss gets its own tune; Famine is so intimidating, Sloth is tense, and also has that part that goes wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh! Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh! You know the part. War got some BASS to him, to match his bombastic personality. And Death? It's beautiful, yet catchy, played with an incredible solo from the violin and xylophone; with the vocals only highlighting how enlightened the track feels. Oh, and The BEAST?

It's a finale for the ages. The music is at its LOUDEST point. When you know you’re fighting the final boss through your music alone, that’s when you know you got good music. The Beast can only do one thing. Chase you until your eventual demise! And, she also inhales fire and blasts it back at you, in a Brimstone laser of course. As you shoot her, she only deteriorates, soon one of her eyes disappears, and then the next, and, when she’s finally had enough, a giant beam of light strikes down on The Beast, SMITING the Mother of Harlots asunder and setting the blood lake a- Oh shit, didn't mean to plagiarize there! But, good god. This ending is just perfect. I get goosebumps every time I listen to the narrator's confident voice. “AS HE FLEW, HE COULD SEE ECHOES OF HIS PAST.” It must be listened to to be believed. The final ending recaps and clarifies almost everything that's happened within the realm of The Binding of Isaac's universe. Isaac’s own death, Isaac’s father leaving forever, His cat Guppy, his Mom kissing him on the head every night, it's just so… bittersweet to see. And then, as Isaac gets happier, his ascent becomes even greater, even seeing his own birth, before seeing absolutely nothing, indicating that he has passed. But, the final note the game leaves us on is something truly special to me. You know in Bumbo where I talked about the Dad teaching Isaac about the power of his imaginations? Well, it's revealed that “he” has been leading the story of the game the entire time. Isaac's Dad lives within Isaac’s imagination now. “Dad” asks if Isaac is getting sleepy yet, and as Isaac concurs, the Father starts the intro to The Binding of Isaac again, except with the stipulation that Isaac lives with both of his parents now, as compared to just his Mom. As he retells the story, the screen fades to black, meaning that Isaac has truly passed, and for real this time, ending the storyline of The Binding of Isaac.

Folks, I know that I bitched about how Afterbirth Plus’s story sucked, or how many people misinterpret the meaning of Isaac’s story, but I believe that The Binding of Isaac essentially told a perfect story throughout. And The Beast’s ending solidified that love for the story. It's such a powerful way to end the 10 year saga. I can't really recall any gripes on a fundamental level that I have with it. Yeah, Afterbirth+’s endings were pretty stagnant, but at the end of the day, who the hell cares? I’m not one to hold grudges. and after playing Repentance, I could really see the passion that Edmund and the team had for The Binding of Isaac as a whole. Almost every major plot thread comes out and makes an emotional climax of an ending that shall be remembered in the community for ages to come. Hell, when I actually beat Repentance, I got all misty-eyed. I had only experienced Rebirth and Repentance prior, so to get that impact out of me when I hadn’t even been in the community for that long is a testament to the quality of the story. The Binding of Isaac shocked me at how fast it really made me care about the characters, the worlds, the environments. It's really when I accepted that Repentance is simply my favorite game of all time.

But. We're not done just yet.

Do you recall what I unlocked before the Dogma battle? “Isaac”? What’s that all about? Well, hop into the main menu once more, and go to the New Run button. There’s a new UI element. Pressing E will revea- No. No, nonononooonnonooonono. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

EVERY SINGLE FUCKING CHARACTER GOT A B SIDE. EVERY SINGLE ONE! AND YOU HAVE TO DO ALL OF THEIR MARKS, ONE BY ONE TO 100% THE GAME. My heart SANK when I saw this, because I was genuinely not expecting for them to pull something like this. These are the “Tainted” characters; characters, remixed versions of each base character, and yes, before you ask, ALL OF THE CHARACTERS HAVE DIFFERENT ABILITES AND GIMM- FUCK DUDE! Talk about overachieving, shit, you just cemented yourself as the biggest roguelike of all time! And, did I eventually, 100% them all with every mark in Hard Mode? Yes! I did, it took over 400 hours of gameplay, but you know what? I still had lots of fun with it. Each character feels like its own game entirely. These aren’t simple clones of Isaac, like the base game characters. They all have their own individual mechanics, unlocks, gameplay, and more! So you know what? Fuck it, let’s cover every single character! And lord, HELP ME!
Tainted Isaac is among the easiest Tainted characters to unlock and play as. He has an 8 item limit, but each item cycles between two item choices. Simple to learn, and not hard to master. Also, his unlocks are fucking BROKEN by the way.
Magdalene is among my least favorite characters to play as, but Tainted Magdalene is pretty fun. She constantly bleeds out her HP, but she can heal herself in a pinch with her intrinsic Yum Heart, which heals her for 2 hearts. In other words, she represents my lower anatomy. If she walks towards an enemy, she can hug the shit out of it, doing damage to herself, but dropping health in the process. This presents an issue when you get to The Womb, as you take 1 heart of damage, but the enemies only drop 1/2 hearts. And shooting tears does less damage than normal, compared to other contemporary characters. I think this provides a necessary balance between being good, or being broken. She’s a pretty braindead character, but she’s simple dumb fun to me.
Oh, boy. Tainted Cain. I at least liked regular Cain, Tainted Cain kills my soul. He has to craft each of his items, not being able to pick up any regular items. He requires high quality pickups in order to succeed, and that, in my opinion, makes him not only the most difficult, but worst character in the game. The pickups he needs are far too random, and even with high quality pickups, he can often get screwed over by boss pool items, which is so perplexing to me, because the game has a method to do so in the files (and other items do this, so it’s not unused). He’s also fucking SLOW, and because of his randomness, attempting to maximize your run’s potential is often a crapshoot. Tainted Cain is one of my least favorites in the entire cast, TBH. He’s just too slow for his own good, and crafting items isn’t really all that fun nor rewarding. Tainted Bethany, another character which I’ll get to later addressed this issue by making it so that taking items is devalued, but still recommended, in conjunction to your regular items. And because of that, she’s ultimately one of the best characters in the game. If Tainted Cain could find that balance, I’m sure he’d be one of the best in the game, because Bag of Crafting is still a good item at the end of the day. It’s just attached to a piss poor character.
Tainted Judas is Judas but objectively cooler. He starts with Dark Arts, an item that lets him slice and dice his way through any enemy imaginable. He can also slice at bullets, making bullet hell bosses a breeze with him. For every enemy he slices, he gains a temporary damage buff. Aaaand that’s it! Just another fun and solid character.
Tainted Blue Baby is shit, both figuratively and literally.
I jest, of course. Tainted Blue Baby has his bombs replaced with literal spirals of shit, all of which do different things. From creating a butt blast bomb, to making shit creep on the ground, which powers him up ever so slightly. The poops are mostly used in combat, but spamming them to kill enemies as fast as possible is an actually valid strategy. You get so much poop that running out is of no concern. So... uh... yeah. Not much else to say here.
Tainted Eve. Blood clots. Broken. That’s all.
Rounding out the Flash cast, Tainted Samson is essentially Samson if he were a good and fun character. By taking or dealing damage, it fills up a meter which makes him FUCKING PISSED. This is the berserk mode, leaving Tainted Samson unkillable during it, and turning him into a melee focused character with beefy stats. When you just don’t give a fuck, Berzerk mode will smite almost anything in it’s path. He’s kind of like Tainted Maggy in a sense. The only thing I don’t like about him is that Berzerk is automatically triggered, which can get occasionally annoying during certain fights. Other Tainted characters manually trigger their gimmicks, so I don’t know why Samson couldn’t be the same. Fun character, like I said.
The door into Rebirth opens, starting with Tainted Azazel, and he is certainly a character that exists. He does shite damage normally, with a weak ass Brimstone laser, but if you sneeze on an enemy you can actually kill them in a reasonable amount of time. Oh, you know, like Azazel always does. Oh, and no flight, because fuck you. Yeah, not a fan. I don’t really see much love for this character, unlike Azazel, who’s been popular since Rebirth released. Just kinda eh, moving on.
TAINTED LAZARUS. Is actually pretty cool! He alternates between dead and alive Lazarus for each room clear, but the player can manually switch between the two, each having separate items and HP. Now, you might think that Tainted Lazarus is one of the worst characters in the game, based on what everyone and their Mother has said, but I'll be damned if I'm not that one Tainted Lazarus defender. First off, each item is doubled for each character (so long as you Flip before leaving the room), so the two will roughly be of the same strength. Second, you can always Flip manually if you find yourself in a pinch as one character. So… they're actually not too hard to play as. I really don't know why these two are so hated within the community, as they're not really all that hard to play as.
Back to back on the controversial characters, Tainted Eden! Tainted Eden rerolls all of his items each time you get hit. Moving o- Hold up a sec, I actually like this lil guy! I know, “He’s such a bad character Zeus, why do you like ultimately one of the worst characters in Isaa”- Bitch, I second Little Mac and Gannondorf in Smash Ultimate, don’t even fuck around… Okay, so yeah. He’s not the greatest character, but a part of me also finds him really fun and dynamic. One second, you have Brimstone, Mutant Spider, and Sacred Heart, but oopsies I made a bad dodge and now I have Bob’s Brain and Breakfast; it’s amazing. Honestly, if I’m not liking the run I’m getting, sometimes I take damage on purpose just to reroll my entire run. Really, the only issue I have with Tainted Eden is the universal change with run rerolls in Repentance. If you gain or lose any HP up items, you also lose a corresponding heart container, and this presents problems with Soul heart builds. Say you have lots of boss items. If you reroll, your soul hearts have a chance to be forced out, as the game has a limit of 12 HP. This is an easy fix; just don’t have this apply to Tainted Eden. But other than that, Tainted Eden is fun. I think Edmund really fucking despised the Rebirth cast, don’t you think? All 3 so far have had middling to poor reception, but hopefully it gets better…

TAINTED LOST. Tainted Lost is among the most hated characters in the entire game. I love him. A lot of people are probably banging their head against their desk right now, but hear me out. Tainted Lost’s only means of protection is his Holy Cards, which have a higher chance of spawning for Tainted Lost; by far more forgiving than whatever Rebirth Lost was, and it’s not like Tainted Lost doesn’t have his upsides. And really, when playing as The Lost (or most characters for that matter), how many times are you really getting hit per floor? Now, I know, nerves and the like. But if you're good enough to go through 6 of the most difficult bosses back to back while only getting hit a grand total of 2 times, then you should be good enough to do the entire game like that. And plus, even if you struggle with Tainted Lost, his intrinsic item rerolls give him so much more to work with than most characters, alongside his higher damage multiplier. So… yeah. He good. Put my head on a wall, why don't you.
Finally moving on from the controversial characters of Rebirth, Afterbirth got some real bangers, here. Tainted Lilith has a fetus whip and it does 3 times the normal damage of your regular tears. "Fetal Fury"? I see your clever references, Edmund! She has among the highest DPS in the game, pretty fun and cool like almost all Tainteds, moving on.
The Afterbirth cast ends with Tainted Keeper. and he’s objectively cooler than you, sorry for being the bearer of bad news. Each enemy Tainted Keeper kills, he drops a quickly despawning coin. He has coin hearts. See the benefits? Tainted Keeper is fucking BROKEN, no doubt about it, unambiguously better than vanilla Keeper anyways. His only downside is that he pays for all of his items, but that’s irrelevant as he can get over 99 coins by Basement 2. So yeah. A pretty mediocre character, clearly.
The penultimate cast, the Afterbirth+ characters are upon us, starting with Tainted Apollyon, and this is what Apollyon should’ve been from the beginning. By using Abyss with any items in the room, they get absorbed and turned into attack flies, which deal as much damage as Tainted Apollyon does. Abyss also gives item specific synergies, and is actually way more fun and interesting, so yeah. Eat shit, Apollyon.
Tainted Forgotten is yet another character that exists!!! Okay, but first, I skimmed over regular Forgotten in my Afterbirth+ review, so let’s talk about him first. He’s a melee based character, who wields a bone (can also be revved up and tossed), who can switch to a tear based character (The Soul) at the click of a button. They both have about 6 heart containers each. A pretty solid character overall, which actually has SYNERGIES! Thanks, guys. That was one of my main problems with Afterbirth+, nothing fucking synergized and it sucked. So now… it's time for Taint Forgor. You don't play as Forgotten himself, but rather The Soul, and you toss The Forgotten around like a baseball. Aaaand, that's it! He's not bad but he's just kinda there. Tainted Forgotten is simple, and that's okay. Just not my cup of tea.
Now… y'all know how much I fucking hate Bethany. Because Tainted Bethany… is fucking BROKEN. I think she's one of, if not THE strongest character in the entire game, and should've been what Bethany was all along. First off, soul hearts only, SO much better than all red hearts, and 2, red hearts actually serve a similar purpose to Bethany's soul charge. Tainted Bethany gets SO many more charges than Bethany, it's insane. And you want to know why??? Because red hearts FUCKING SUCK, BUT THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!! This alone makes Tainted Bethany infinitely more viable than regular Bethany, and no deal loss is just an improvement over Bethany's dumb, Wisp ass. But Tainted Bethany only gets COOLER! Her wisps? Yeah, now they're your ITEMS, and you can still pick up new items regularly. Infinitely better than some fucking jack-off wisps. Obviously, they still have their limits, but talk about one-upping the competition. EAT SHIT, BETHANY! Okay, Tainted Bethany is awesome. Don't let ANYONE tell you otherwise. You know what isn't so awesome?
TAINTED JACOB. Okay, I have officially HAD it. I don't think he's a bad character, but holy FUCK can he get under my skin at times. First off, you start as just Jacob, but Esau spawns in, and chases your ass down. Imagine being chased by Mom's Shadow for the entire game, only that getting hit ONCE by her almost ALWAYS ends your run. Get hit by Tainted Jacob? Bam, you're The Lost for the rest of the floor. And there AIN'T NO FUCKING MANTLE TO SAVE YOU! I don’t detest Tainted Jacob, but good lord the game was clearly not designed for him. Any room with a linear path (you know the ones) will almost always result in Tainted Jacob ramming his big, fat, flaming ass into yours. You can chain him up for a little while, but even then, it’s such a fucking tight window. But hey, at least Tainted Jacob can one shot some earlier bosses...! Too bad it doesn’t scale with your damage at all, making him essentially worthless at a certain point. Yeah, not a fan. He’s just not well designed, and while his concept is really interesting, it’s just far too punishing to be enjoyable.
Aaaand, we’re done with all of the characters. So, lets recap, with a tier list. We got the S Tiers, the masterpieces, the ones that I main, the A tiers, my secondaries, the B tiers, the simply good characters, the C tiers, the respectables, the D tiers, the bad ones, and the F tiers, the pieces of SHIT that they are. Let’s go, boys!
S: Tainted Bethany, Tainted Eve, Tainted Keeper, ???
A: Isaac, Cain, Judas, The Forgotten, The Lost, Tainted Lost, Tainted Isaac,
B: Eden, Tainted Apollyon, Tainted Eden, Eve, Azazel, Lilith, Keeper, Tainted Magdalene, Tainted Judas, Tainted Samson, Tainted Lilith, Tainted Forgotten
C: Apollyon, Lazarus, Jacob and Esau, Tainted ???, Tainted Lazarus
D: Magdalene, Bethany, Samson, Tainted Azazel, Tainted Jacob
kys (F): Tainted Cain


Really, there’s not a whole lot else to do after getting every single mark with every character. The only main thing you have to do is the challenges. Yeah, before you say it, Repentance challenges, like every challenge prior, is going to suck. There, I said it. Now lets talk about why Repentance challenges are actually GOATed. They're actually fun and dynamic, offering a different experience compared to Rebirth’s mediocre challenges. Afterbirth+ tried to do this, but fucked it up to the point where the game is unfun. Repentance, on the other hand, actually uses the game mechanics against you, whilst also providing a good challenge. Bethany with Blood Oath? Why not? Or make every item be glitched and do all sorts of crazy shit, like crashing the game! It actually innovates upon the gameplay of Isaac, and I'm all here for it.


Oh yeah, and let’s not neglect to forget Repentance’s greatest unlockable, after completing all marks as all characters, including Tainted characters. Being a Secret Room only item, it’s one of the rarest, but also best in the entire game. That item is none other than “DEATH CERTIFICATE - Where am I?” .

Upon its usage, you’re transported to an empty version of Home, grayed out and muted, with the music being a quiet, yet eerie rendition of Home. And every single room in this area holds every item in the game, the end all, be all of the items within The Binding of Isaac. It's the ultimate mark of mastery for a save file, and with that, Death Certificate perfectly concludes The Binding of Isaac’s DEAD GOD ACHIEVEMENT. Good lord, that was an incredible ride. I absolutely ADORE doing Dead God runs, Sure, is it draining? Yeah. But damn, is it satisfying each and every time. I'm on my third save file as we speak, and I've heard people even go for 4 save files. As much as I'd like to do that, all good things must come to an end, eventually. No matter how good they are.


So... Repentance is basically perfect (in my eyes), but that doesn’t mean that there still aren’t issues. Here’s just a quick nitpick section because I don’t know what else to talk about anymore.
- Rework The Void: The most obvious thing to change, just make the Void actually fun to play. As it stands, I think The Void isn’t inherently frustrating to play, moreso just boring. Give us some decently challenging enemies, make it so Curse of the Lost can’t appear (FUCK that shit oml), shrink the map, tell Delirium to pump the brakes a little, add a little more story, and it would be a lot more fun (in my opinion).
- Greedier Mode: Wow, this fucking sucks. I really don’t have any ideas, but if I feel that the removal of an entire game mode is a net positive, chances are that said game mode is pretty bad. At the very least, unlock it from the start and make Mantle for The Lost (and Tainted Lost) regenerate every wave. If that’s too broken, make it every 2, 3, 4, whatever waves. One hit per Greed floor is far too punishing. For Tainted Lost, you could also give a 10-20% chance that a Holy Card spawns each wave.
- Cutscene Quality: Rebirth was originally a 3DS game and while I can understand that, please make the cutscenes actually watchable on a modern display. They’re so blurry, even the DLC cutscenes are pretty blurry, even though those were only released on HD consoles. This is hopefully a simple fix, a mod does this by using some computer upscaling, and it gets the job done (although the source animation would be much preferable).
- Tainted Cain: I’m pretty happy with most of the Tainted Characters, but Tainted Cain is really the only low hanging fruit. I’ve already explained why he sucks, so I won’t restate it here.
- Curses: Pretty mixed on Curses as a whole, but once again, I explained this in the Rebirth review, go read that.
- Challenges: The challenges are fantastic in Repentance, but they should really go back and rebalance some of the older ones. ESPECIALLY any Afterbirth+ challenge, good lord.
- Save-file images: This is a bit of a joke rework, but damn it would it be funny to see. At least give Hush a Save file kill image, maybe with the 3 Alt path doors (considering that’s what he unlocks). Leaving Greed Mode and Void out is fine as they’re not tied to progression, but a Greed or Void stamp to show that you did it would be pretty cool.
- Pity system(s): Self admittedly I stole this idea from another review on Backloggd (you can read it here), but a pity system would be pretty nice for newer players. For example, if you go a few floors without any damage changes (positive or negative to account for Soy Milk and the like), maybe you get a bit of damage (0.50 is fine), and maybe for Treasure Rooms, if you’re on a streak of mediocre items (3 or more Quality >2s), you’re guaranteed a Quality 3 or better on the next. But that may meddle with game balance, so maybe make it only accessible on Normal Mode. Since you need to do Hard Mode for 100%, I feel like having assistance for newer players probably would maintain 100%’s difficulty. Even then, I never find even my worst runs to be unwinnable, so that’s really a nitpick, just to make it easier for newer guys.
- Make Ipecac tear height not scale with range: Whoever did this is an absolute madman. These are where my complaints get into nitpick territory, so be forewarned.
- Void doesn’t give Tear speed or Range: Doing this would make the item much more viable, for obvious reasons. Luck can stay; it’s a decently useful stat, but it can be situational at times.
- Secret adjustments: Why in the HELL do you have to play Shell Game over 100 times to 100% the game? Shell Game isn’t even that good; the achievement is just tedious. Also fix Five Nights At Moms, please. Oh yeah, and also, Bethany’s requirement never made sense to me. What about her original unlock method (have 12 Soul hearts at once)?
- Antibirth music: I absolutely LOVE the Repentance soundtrack, but adding the Antibirth soundtrack would be a neat bonus. Wait, isn’t this the company who added 4 additional soundtracks to Cave Story, a 13-year old (at the time) game???
- Price: Listen, I love Repentance (I really do, look at how long the review is), but I think that $60 for all of the content to one of the biggest roguelikes of all time SEEMS like a good deal, but it doesn’t FEEL like one. I bought Repentance and the subsequent DLCs at full price, and while I don’t feel ripped off at all, a part of me feels like the perfect price point for all of this would be around $30-40 bucks. Very few Indie games reach $40, let alone $50, so I think $30 would be the best price for the amount of content. That way, people who only do a few runs don't feel so ripped off, making it a more comfortable buy for most. I’ve had friends be a bit turned off of Isaac from the price point alone, so I think reducing it by a bit is pretty reasonable, especially since Rebirth itself is a decade old (I'm not old, you are), so it's probably already made most of its bank (although we don't have live sales, I guess). My ideal prices would be as follows: Rebirth $10, Afterbirth and Plus $5 each, and Repentance is $10. Hell, I might even suggest making the original and the DLC that comes with it free or very cheap now, as it's also eclipsed most of its sales.
But uhhhhh. That’s really it. Mostly minor issues, I know, but I really needed an excuse to write these down, because they’ve been in my head for so long. The Repentance team is constantly ironing out issues in some very well needed patches, which are always a treat whenever they happen, so I hope a lot of these issues are soon addressed. But now... it’s finally time to conclude the “Septology of Isaac Reviews”.






The Binding of Isaac Repentance is a game that should not exist. It’s a beautifully crafted game, enhancing and mastering the formula of what makes Isaac that game that you can always come back to. Even without Repentance, I still find myself playing for hours on end, and yes, even with Afterbirth+, which really displays how eternal The Binding of Isaac is and will always be to me. But Repentance solidifies that perfect 10/10 game for me that I’ll replay until the end of time. It's THE defining roguelike, the one that first comes to mind when the genre is even brought up, and for good reason. There's a reason why The Binding of Isaac has been so fondly remembered for over 10 years and counting, and almost rakes in 10 thousand players daily on Steam ALONE. Imagine PS4, Switch, and more… The Binding of Isaac is like Super Meat Boy, in a way. It's gone far beyond than a game, now. Not only does it celebrate gaming history, it twists it and creates something so unique and unreplicable, making it a one and done, personalized experience. If you've never played a single roguelike; hell, if you've never played dThe Binding of Isaac in general, literally what are you waiting for? I've ranted on and on about how Isaac is the perfect game, so if you haven't played it, go. Buy it, Rebirth is 15 dollars on Steam, Xbox, and PS4 (sorry Switch players, you have to buy Afterbirth Plus first…)! Or, if you don’t mind the occasional jank and general lack of content, Flash is 5 dollars! It's a purchase that will change your life, just like it did mine. Hell, don't have 15 bucks? I'll gift it to you on Steam NOW! (joke, or maybe not?) But, that's enough typing for now. I love The Binding of Isaac, and I hope you will too. PLAY IT. or i will be very sad :(

I also want to thank the overall Backloggd community for once again supporting me. I achieved over 50 followers in February, and it only took 2 fucking MONTHS to reach 100. It's pretty stereotypical of me to say, but if nobody could tolerate these long-ass reviews, I truly wouldn't be here. And yeah, I guess my Super Meat Boy Forever review was my 50 Follower Celebration, but this is my 100 Follower Special. Truly, I love you all. Thanks <333 And also, thanks for the 1k likes! That's… a number I probably wouldn't count to.


I'm probably going to take a short break from Backloggd as this project has left me pretty creatively bankrupt, but I should be back… sometime soon. I don't know what or when I'll review once again, but it's going to be good. I promise. zeusdeegoose isn't ending anytime soon! Not when there's much more game to be played. I already have Spelunky 2, Shantae and the Seven Sirens, and even more going on behind the scenes. So, keep your eyes glued! But, for now, thank you for reading this long ass review series, and I hope you have a good day. Or goodnight.






Oh, I'm forgetting something, aren't I?


“The true form transcends / His story stretched to the end / The truth is buried*” “Conclusion” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24

CREDITS FOR ISAAC REVIEWS:
Proofreading: @Yuzrnaime, @NOWITSREYNTIME17, @whu (Repentance)