zeusdeegoose
2010
I’ve always liked Super Meat Boy, but never loved it until recently. Being one of the first of the many “masocore” platformers, it’s always maintained relevance since the 2008 prototype. It doesn’t have any major gimmicks, and instead focuses on the games of old. You have a simple goal.
Dr Fetus has kidnapped Bandage Girl. Save Bandage Girl! It’s as simple as it gets. Well, what about the controls? You run, jump, and that’s it. So, where’s the fun? The controls. I firmly believe that Super Meat Boy has the best controls of any platformer released to date. Meat Boy is incredibly fast, while also having a floaty jump. Normally I’d say that this is bad for most games, but Super Meat Boy makes it work. All of the levels are designed with this high speed and floatiness in mind, stretching the controls to the furthest possibility. It’s most noticeable in the much later levels, but even then, this attention to detail is present in earlier levels. It makes the game feel truly limitless, by allowing you to speed through the levels, having an extremely high skill ceiling down to the very frame. It’s a bit unwieldy, but once you master it, it feels like you can do anything. And do everything you shall, because there's a catch. It’s called SUPER for a reason. Super Meat Boy is considered among the hardest platformers, and for good reason. It’s a relentlessly difficult game, doubly so for 100%, but that’s where the beauty of the game lies within. Sure, you may retry a dozen times just to unlock the Dark World level, but by all accounts, the game pushes you to that mastery by rewarding you for overcoming challenges. It wants you to succeed. It’s difficult, but fair, and one of the most rewarding to conquer. The levels all feel distinctive from one another, and each individual one teaches the player a different lesson throughout their short runtimes. The level progression of Super Meat Boy is nothing but incredible. It introduces a gimmick in one level, and each level builds upon it. And then suddenly, another gimmick pops up. And then another, and another, and another, until you’re working with all of the mechanics before you even know it. And then the Dark World version of the level shows how much better you can get with said mechanics. No gimmick feels underutilized, nor unfun and cheap, and no level feels forgettable at all. It emphasizes how strong the whole game’s design is. And if you really want a challenge, you can always go for the Bandages! The bandages of Super Meat Boy force you to master the level to even get a shot at them. Getting them is the easier part. Surviving is harder. If you so much as graze a saw with these babies, you lose the bandage, but succeed and the game proudly announces that you got the bandage. It's a feeling like no other. I had my shit absolutely rocked throughout the entirety of Super Meat Boy 100%. Getting the bandages really made me feel like I accomplished something, both in a metaphorical and literal sense, as unlocking bandages allows you to play as brand new characters.
Akin to The Binding of Isaac, all characters cover a specific niche. Meat Boy is your main man, with all of the levels designed for him first and foremost. The others give you entirely new platforming abilities, but typically have a stipulation, like for example, Commander Video. He gets a short float, but is pretty slow compared to Meat Boy. There's about 10 characters overall, a few of which require a secret code to be inputed. The cool thing about it is that most characters come from other indie games, making Super Meat Boy feel more like a video game which proves how far indie games have come. Even more interestingly, the console and PC versions of the game has different characters within them, each accommodating the difference in the Indie scene on PC and Consoles. The Warp Zones themselves have the same characters, so Commander Video from Bit.Trip, Jill from… Mighty Jill Off, Ogmo from Jumper, the titular character, Flywrench, and The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy are all here and accounted for. Meanwhile, Gish, Tim, Guy Spelunky, Pink Knight, and The Ninja are console exclusive, while Headcrab, Alien Hominid, Josef, Naija, RunMan, Captain Viridian, and MR. MINECRAFT, are all exclusive to PC. In the end, it doesn't really matter which version you play, but it kind of sucks that we never got some Super Meat Boy Definitive Edition with all of the characters from both versions, but in general, the balance of characters is very solid. While The Kid is among the best characters in the game for the best double jump in the game, he is a lot slower and jumps lower than Meat Boy. And also, in order to even get him, you need to complete the 3 hardest levels in the game, back to back.
This is a perfect transition into talking about the bane of my existence. GOLDEN GOD. Is actually really fun! Super Meat Boy will take you about a weekend to complete, but GOLDEN GOD could take upwards of a month to achieve. I played on-and-off ad nauseam over the course of a year, amd Golden God completely transforms Super Meat Boy as a game. In order to achieve Golden God, you need to
- Clear all 7 Light Worlds, with an A+ Rank
- Clear all 7 Dark Worlds (aka X worlds), harder versions of the Light World, but no A+ ranks are needed
- Obtain all 100 Bandages
- Unlock every Character
- Clear all Warp Zones, sets of 3 bite sized levels with 3 lives per level
- Clear all Glitch levels (technically optional but adds to 100%)
So... yeah, any completionist certainly has their work cut out for them. The Dark Worlds alone nearly broke me, but damn did I pop off when I cleared every one of them. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 6 are pretty manageable when it comes to their challenge, but I genuinely contemplated quitting the entire operation at World 4X. I was 100%ing each World at about 1 or 2 per day, but 4X threw off my flow by a lot. It took me about 3 days to fully beat it alone, and 5X only got more and more challenging. 5X is among the most challenging worlds in the entire game. Each level was a challenging contraption made with only the most difficult platforming setpieces in the entire game. But each time I died, the music always brought me coming back for more!
Super Meat Boy’s soundtrack is legendary, no doubt about it. Some of the most Newgrounds esque shit that you can imagine, but it’s some of that good shit nonetheless. Forest Funk was stuck in my head for months once I first conquered Super Meat Boy, Beatus Blues is an incredibly catchy tune. Can O’ Salt is a Minecraft song (described by one of my IRLs), Hell feels grand and imposing, and The Rapture feels like a goddamn military tune. The End is weirdly cinematic but also really good, and CHAPTER MOTHERFUCKING 7!
Chapter 7 is where my 100% streak really died off. I completed 5 levels a DAY at this point. There are no bandages, no warp zones, nothing. Just you, your controller, and Bandage Girl. Yeah, for Chapter 7 alone, you get to play as Bandage Girl. And these levels aren’t among the most difficult in the game, they ARE the most difficult in the game. Don’t let the happy music and overabundance of pink fool you. The Cotton Alley has some of the most pseudo-pixel perfect shit that you can imagine, but once again, it’s HARD but FAIR. I never wanted to ragequit because the game wasn’t unfair. It’s one of the hardest 2D platforming levels ever made, but one of the best. Every single piece of tech that the game taught you comes back for a spectacular finale, and a spectacular finale that is. This all culminates in the HARDEST level I’ve ever beaten. “The Four Letter Word” is IMPOSSIBLE. It’s 1 minute of straight pixel perfect platforming, easily the hardest level in the game, and it was 11 PM. I was in my room alone, with only the bright visuals of the Cotton Alley keeping me awake. But I was determined. And it took over a very long time, but after an hour, I saw Meat Boy. I was at the goal. I made the final jump, and dropped my controller. I was so satisfied, but I knew that was only half the battle. So, I got a good night’s rest, knowing that the following day would be hell.
Or was it? I powered through Cotton Alleys’ Dark World like it was nothing. I was Meat Boy. I felt the heaviness on my heart each time he died, but each victory kept me coming back for more and more. I crushed half of the levels like soda cans. But the remaining few pushed me past my breaking point. And with 4 levels to go, with just me and the game, I received... Golden God??? Welp, that was fun! Yeah, not sure why the achievement unlocked early, but I decided to leave it at that. But as the final completion reward, you unlock the Meat Ninja, who always runs and can teleport through sawblades after pressing X. You can’t use the leaderboards with him, but it’s a solid reward for 100%.
Super Meat Boy is a masterclass of game design, being one of the best platformers ever made. It has over 300 handcrafted levels, all of which test the player’s skills in the best way possible. It’s one of those pick up and play games, where you can play and clear a few levels, or complete the entire game in a sitting. It’s a fun game, to put it simply, and I can’t recommend it enough, now that the XBLA store is shutting down. Rest In Peace, but long live Steam. Welp. What is there to to cover now?
MYSELF. Yeah, I know this is pretty out of scope to cover in a controversial platforming series with a silly cube of meat, but I wanted to talk about another controversial platforming series with a Witch. A dark one, perhaps. Plus, it directly related to me and the near future of zeusdeegoose as a whole, and I’ve done so in the past with my Binding of Isaac reviews. So humor me for a bit, or, if you’ve had your fill, feel free to click off, and I wish you a good day. For many people within my Discord and other related spaces, they knew that I was re-reviewing The Legend of Dark Witch series in it’s entirety; keyword, was, and I have to upsettingly say that said review series is now canceled. Many people don’t know about it, and I think that’s a good thing. It was a series that I used to play in the past, and me and a few friends have heavily criticized over the past few years. We also have a bit of bad blood within said community itself. We were talking about it again and how the developer sucked, practically beating it down as a farce of a franchise, mostly leaving the community stuff out of it as a whole. And while I still agree those remarks about the developer, one discussion got taken pretty far as I took a jab at one of the wiki’s vandals, and that spiraled into one of the members of the server leaving. Initially, I thought it was going to be a lighthearted joke, but it was pretty inappropriate of me and for those involved, I do apologize. I won’t extrapolate anything further at the behest of the people in said chat, as the server that the discussions were held within was a private venue, and I don’t wish to share any links so said server.
Secondly, after said conversation, I realized something huge. I didn’t NEED to re-review the series. I mean, what would I get out of it? Initially, the thought going in was that this would re-introduce people into zeusdeegoose’s past by re-reviewing what got the ball rolling for the long ass review format and to bury the hatchet for the final time, but here’s the thing. I already kind of did that. I had already archived my Wiki reviews on Backloggd, and notwithstanding the occasional bias, my criticisms of each game have still held up. So the newer reviews would just be... lesser. I don’t have the energy nor the time to discuss every stage in Dark Witch 2 again when that would go against the overall message of the review series; that being that The Legend of Dark Witch is a dogshit series, aside from 1 and 2, and I don’t think it’s worth potentially burning some bridges just to prove my point. Me and other friends have already long since moved on, and potentially bringing a lolicon back into the spotlight simply isn’t worth the effort that’d I’d put into it.
Thirdly, I got burnt out. Ladies and Gentlemen, I LOVE tearing apart games I hate, believe me. Super Meat Boy Forever is one of my favorite reviews that I’ve ever made. But I can only say “This game fucking sucks” so many times before getting tired, folks. And that’s just the review side. Imagine playing 8 games back to back, 99% of which are mid, and the 1% are games that I’ve burnt myself out on and already played for hundreds of hours already (not joking, btw). I didn’t hate myself for booting up The Binding of Isaac, because The Binding of Isaac is an actually GOOD video game that I like. Wow! But whenever I boot up any Dark Witch game, I just feel disappointed.
Fourthly, who cares? I could make point after point about why NAN-A and The Legend of Dark Witch suck, but it’s fruitless. The Legend of Dark Witch is far past it’s eShop era where it was actually semi-popular. Hell, I’d bet now that the games don’t even average a sale a day, with the 3DS eShop now gone. Now, only a very small, inactive fanbase remains. Ever since me and others left, it’s a complete GHOST TOWN. Nobody cares about it anymore. I’ve barely heard anyone in my online sphere talk about it, and it remains as a niche franchise, like it should be. People got their balls blown off with 1 and 2, and then almost all of us collectively fucked off afterwards because the games SUCKED and it wasn’t active anymore. Now that the dust has settled, it’d only serve to piss people off who still give a damn about the series anymore. And trust me, they WOULD get pissed. I’ve seen it firsthand. And as funny as it would be, I don't want to act as if I'm some villain or something.
So... yeah. That’s all I got to say on the matter. Sorry to anyone who was expecting the review, and sorry to anyone who was involved in the first incident. It was a flawed idea from the start, and I really don’t have anyone to blame for the reviews except myself. Now, for real this time, I’m burying the hatchet. No more of my valuable time will be spent on a video game franchise made by some jizzer. I may edit this out sooner or later, because truth be told, it’s mostly irrelevant to a game series with a funny meat man, but I just needed to get my thoughts out, off of my chest, and announce that the series is canceled, as disappointing as it may be. Finally, I still have all of my Dark Witch reviews in a Google Doc, so if you'd like to see them, whether that be out of curiosity or otherwise, come on over. ;) Shoot me a DM to @zeusdeegoose, either on Twitter or Discord. They’ll remain forever unfinished, but hey, if people wanted to know how it would've played out, they can come and see. But now, with all that being said, lets just move on to greener fields because I don’t know what else to talk about.
Sooooo... it might be too early, but it may be time to start another review series. I’ve been playing a wider variety of games than ever before. Old games, new games, and even bear games. I’ve had good games and bad games, but it’s true love that we share! So I do have quite a few on my mind that I want to do. Blaster Master Zero, Super Monkey Ball, and Devil May Cry are all on my mind. So, I hope you’re looking out for those because they’re probably coming soon. Blaster Master Zero will probably be first up, as I’ve finished all of them, and then Super Monkey Ball and DMC will follow soon after. Again, there may or may not be a bit of a drought when it comes to reviews thanks to the aforementioned cancellation, so apologies. But, zeusdeegoose always comes back stronger than it was. So please tune in, when it’s ready of course. But in the meantime, I’m going back to the Basement so I can type more reviews. If you’ve read this far, I really appreciate your support, but please go outside. It’s almost Summer now, and the sun is good for your skin and health. Don’t be like me. Or hell, play Super Meat Boy! You wont regret it.
Dr Fetus has kidnapped Bandage Girl. Save Bandage Girl! It’s as simple as it gets. Well, what about the controls? You run, jump, and that’s it. So, where’s the fun? The controls. I firmly believe that Super Meat Boy has the best controls of any platformer released to date. Meat Boy is incredibly fast, while also having a floaty jump. Normally I’d say that this is bad for most games, but Super Meat Boy makes it work. All of the levels are designed with this high speed and floatiness in mind, stretching the controls to the furthest possibility. It’s most noticeable in the much later levels, but even then, this attention to detail is present in earlier levels. It makes the game feel truly limitless, by allowing you to speed through the levels, having an extremely high skill ceiling down to the very frame. It’s a bit unwieldy, but once you master it, it feels like you can do anything. And do everything you shall, because there's a catch. It’s called SUPER for a reason. Super Meat Boy is considered among the hardest platformers, and for good reason. It’s a relentlessly difficult game, doubly so for 100%, but that’s where the beauty of the game lies within. Sure, you may retry a dozen times just to unlock the Dark World level, but by all accounts, the game pushes you to that mastery by rewarding you for overcoming challenges. It wants you to succeed. It’s difficult, but fair, and one of the most rewarding to conquer. The levels all feel distinctive from one another, and each individual one teaches the player a different lesson throughout their short runtimes. The level progression of Super Meat Boy is nothing but incredible. It introduces a gimmick in one level, and each level builds upon it. And then suddenly, another gimmick pops up. And then another, and another, and another, until you’re working with all of the mechanics before you even know it. And then the Dark World version of the level shows how much better you can get with said mechanics. No gimmick feels underutilized, nor unfun and cheap, and no level feels forgettable at all. It emphasizes how strong the whole game’s design is. And if you really want a challenge, you can always go for the Bandages! The bandages of Super Meat Boy force you to master the level to even get a shot at them. Getting them is the easier part. Surviving is harder. If you so much as graze a saw with these babies, you lose the bandage, but succeed and the game proudly announces that you got the bandage. It's a feeling like no other. I had my shit absolutely rocked throughout the entirety of Super Meat Boy 100%. Getting the bandages really made me feel like I accomplished something, both in a metaphorical and literal sense, as unlocking bandages allows you to play as brand new characters.
Akin to The Binding of Isaac, all characters cover a specific niche. Meat Boy is your main man, with all of the levels designed for him first and foremost. The others give you entirely new platforming abilities, but typically have a stipulation, like for example, Commander Video. He gets a short float, but is pretty slow compared to Meat Boy. There's about 10 characters overall, a few of which require a secret code to be inputed. The cool thing about it is that most characters come from other indie games, making Super Meat Boy feel more like a video game which proves how far indie games have come. Even more interestingly, the console and PC versions of the game has different characters within them, each accommodating the difference in the Indie scene on PC and Consoles. The Warp Zones themselves have the same characters, so Commander Video from Bit.Trip, Jill from… Mighty Jill Off, Ogmo from Jumper, the titular character, Flywrench, and The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy are all here and accounted for. Meanwhile, Gish, Tim, Guy Spelunky, Pink Knight, and The Ninja are console exclusive, while Headcrab, Alien Hominid, Josef, Naija, RunMan, Captain Viridian, and MR. MINECRAFT, are all exclusive to PC. In the end, it doesn't really matter which version you play, but it kind of sucks that we never got some Super Meat Boy Definitive Edition with all of the characters from both versions, but in general, the balance of characters is very solid. While The Kid is among the best characters in the game for the best double jump in the game, he is a lot slower and jumps lower than Meat Boy. And also, in order to even get him, you need to complete the 3 hardest levels in the game, back to back.
This is a perfect transition into talking about the bane of my existence. GOLDEN GOD. Is actually really fun! Super Meat Boy will take you about a weekend to complete, but GOLDEN GOD could take upwards of a month to achieve. I played on-and-off ad nauseam over the course of a year, amd Golden God completely transforms Super Meat Boy as a game. In order to achieve Golden God, you need to
- Clear all 7 Light Worlds, with an A+ Rank
- Clear all 7 Dark Worlds (aka X worlds), harder versions of the Light World, but no A+ ranks are needed
- Obtain all 100 Bandages
- Unlock every Character
- Clear all Warp Zones, sets of 3 bite sized levels with 3 lives per level
- Clear all Glitch levels (technically optional but adds to 100%)
So... yeah, any completionist certainly has their work cut out for them. The Dark Worlds alone nearly broke me, but damn did I pop off when I cleared every one of them. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 6 are pretty manageable when it comes to their challenge, but I genuinely contemplated quitting the entire operation at World 4X. I was 100%ing each World at about 1 or 2 per day, but 4X threw off my flow by a lot. It took me about 3 days to fully beat it alone, and 5X only got more and more challenging. 5X is among the most challenging worlds in the entire game. Each level was a challenging contraption made with only the most difficult platforming setpieces in the entire game. But each time I died, the music always brought me coming back for more!
Super Meat Boy’s soundtrack is legendary, no doubt about it. Some of the most Newgrounds esque shit that you can imagine, but it’s some of that good shit nonetheless. Forest Funk was stuck in my head for months once I first conquered Super Meat Boy, Beatus Blues is an incredibly catchy tune. Can O’ Salt is a Minecraft song (described by one of my IRLs), Hell feels grand and imposing, and The Rapture feels like a goddamn military tune. The End is weirdly cinematic but also really good, and CHAPTER MOTHERFUCKING 7!
Chapter 7 is where my 100% streak really died off. I completed 5 levels a DAY at this point. There are no bandages, no warp zones, nothing. Just you, your controller, and Bandage Girl. Yeah, for Chapter 7 alone, you get to play as Bandage Girl. And these levels aren’t among the most difficult in the game, they ARE the most difficult in the game. Don’t let the happy music and overabundance of pink fool you. The Cotton Alley has some of the most pseudo-pixel perfect shit that you can imagine, but once again, it’s HARD but FAIR. I never wanted to ragequit because the game wasn’t unfair. It’s one of the hardest 2D platforming levels ever made, but one of the best. Every single piece of tech that the game taught you comes back for a spectacular finale, and a spectacular finale that is. This all culminates in the HARDEST level I’ve ever beaten. “The Four Letter Word” is IMPOSSIBLE. It’s 1 minute of straight pixel perfect platforming, easily the hardest level in the game, and it was 11 PM. I was in my room alone, with only the bright visuals of the Cotton Alley keeping me awake. But I was determined. And it took over a very long time, but after an hour, I saw Meat Boy. I was at the goal. I made the final jump, and dropped my controller. I was so satisfied, but I knew that was only half the battle. So, I got a good night’s rest, knowing that the following day would be hell.
Or was it? I powered through Cotton Alleys’ Dark World like it was nothing. I was Meat Boy. I felt the heaviness on my heart each time he died, but each victory kept me coming back for more and more. I crushed half of the levels like soda cans. But the remaining few pushed me past my breaking point. And with 4 levels to go, with just me and the game, I received... Golden God??? Welp, that was fun! Yeah, not sure why the achievement unlocked early, but I decided to leave it at that. But as the final completion reward, you unlock the Meat Ninja, who always runs and can teleport through sawblades after pressing X. You can’t use the leaderboards with him, but it’s a solid reward for 100%.
Super Meat Boy is a masterclass of game design, being one of the best platformers ever made. It has over 300 handcrafted levels, all of which test the player’s skills in the best way possible. It’s one of those pick up and play games, where you can play and clear a few levels, or complete the entire game in a sitting. It’s a fun game, to put it simply, and I can’t recommend it enough, now that the XBLA store is shutting down. Rest In Peace, but long live Steam. Welp. What is there to to cover now?
MYSELF. Yeah, I know this is pretty out of scope to cover in a controversial platforming series with a silly cube of meat, but I wanted to talk about another controversial platforming series with a Witch. A dark one, perhaps. Plus, it directly related to me and the near future of zeusdeegoose as a whole, and I’ve done so in the past with my Binding of Isaac reviews. So humor me for a bit, or, if you’ve had your fill, feel free to click off, and I wish you a good day. For many people within my Discord and other related spaces, they knew that I was re-reviewing The Legend of Dark Witch series in it’s entirety; keyword, was, and I have to upsettingly say that said review series is now canceled. Many people don’t know about it, and I think that’s a good thing. It was a series that I used to play in the past, and me and a few friends have heavily criticized over the past few years. We also have a bit of bad blood within said community itself. We were talking about it again and how the developer sucked, practically beating it down as a farce of a franchise, mostly leaving the community stuff out of it as a whole. And while I still agree those remarks about the developer, one discussion got taken pretty far as I took a jab at one of the wiki’s vandals, and that spiraled into one of the members of the server leaving. Initially, I thought it was going to be a lighthearted joke, but it was pretty inappropriate of me and for those involved, I do apologize. I won’t extrapolate anything further at the behest of the people in said chat, as the server that the discussions were held within was a private venue, and I don’t wish to share any links so said server.
Secondly, after said conversation, I realized something huge. I didn’t NEED to re-review the series. I mean, what would I get out of it? Initially, the thought going in was that this would re-introduce people into zeusdeegoose’s past by re-reviewing what got the ball rolling for the long ass review format and to bury the hatchet for the final time, but here’s the thing. I already kind of did that. I had already archived my Wiki reviews on Backloggd, and notwithstanding the occasional bias, my criticisms of each game have still held up. So the newer reviews would just be... lesser. I don’t have the energy nor the time to discuss every stage in Dark Witch 2 again when that would go against the overall message of the review series; that being that The Legend of Dark Witch is a dogshit series, aside from 1 and 2, and I don’t think it’s worth potentially burning some bridges just to prove my point. Me and other friends have already long since moved on, and potentially bringing a lolicon back into the spotlight simply isn’t worth the effort that’d I’d put into it.
Thirdly, I got burnt out. Ladies and Gentlemen, I LOVE tearing apart games I hate, believe me. Super Meat Boy Forever is one of my favorite reviews that I’ve ever made. But I can only say “This game fucking sucks” so many times before getting tired, folks. And that’s just the review side. Imagine playing 8 games back to back, 99% of which are mid, and the 1% are games that I’ve burnt myself out on and already played for hundreds of hours already (not joking, btw). I didn’t hate myself for booting up The Binding of Isaac, because The Binding of Isaac is an actually GOOD video game that I like. Wow! But whenever I boot up any Dark Witch game, I just feel disappointed.
Fourthly, who cares? I could make point after point about why NAN-A and The Legend of Dark Witch suck, but it’s fruitless. The Legend of Dark Witch is far past it’s eShop era where it was actually semi-popular. Hell, I’d bet now that the games don’t even average a sale a day, with the 3DS eShop now gone. Now, only a very small, inactive fanbase remains. Ever since me and others left, it’s a complete GHOST TOWN. Nobody cares about it anymore. I’ve barely heard anyone in my online sphere talk about it, and it remains as a niche franchise, like it should be. People got their balls blown off with 1 and 2, and then almost all of us collectively fucked off afterwards because the games SUCKED and it wasn’t active anymore. Now that the dust has settled, it’d only serve to piss people off who still give a damn about the series anymore. And trust me, they WOULD get pissed. I’ve seen it firsthand. And as funny as it would be, I don't want to act as if I'm some villain or something.
So... yeah. That’s all I got to say on the matter. Sorry to anyone who was expecting the review, and sorry to anyone who was involved in the first incident. It was a flawed idea from the start, and I really don’t have anyone to blame for the reviews except myself. Now, for real this time, I’m burying the hatchet. No more of my valuable time will be spent on a video game franchise made by some jizzer. I may edit this out sooner or later, because truth be told, it’s mostly irrelevant to a game series with a funny meat man, but I just needed to get my thoughts out, off of my chest, and announce that the series is canceled, as disappointing as it may be. Finally, I still have all of my Dark Witch reviews in a Google Doc, so if you'd like to see them, whether that be out of curiosity or otherwise, come on over. ;) Shoot me a DM to @zeusdeegoose, either on Twitter or Discord. They’ll remain forever unfinished, but hey, if people wanted to know how it would've played out, they can come and see. But now, with all that being said, lets just move on to greener fields because I don’t know what else to talk about.
Sooooo... it might be too early, but it may be time to start another review series. I’ve been playing a wider variety of games than ever before. Old games, new games, and even bear games. I’ve had good games and bad games, but it’s true love that we share! So I do have quite a few on my mind that I want to do. Blaster Master Zero, Super Monkey Ball, and Devil May Cry are all on my mind. So, I hope you’re looking out for those because they’re probably coming soon. Blaster Master Zero will probably be first up, as I’ve finished all of them, and then Super Monkey Ball and DMC will follow soon after. Again, there may or may not be a bit of a drought when it comes to reviews thanks to the aforementioned cancellation, so apologies. But, zeusdeegoose always comes back stronger than it was. So please tune in, when it’s ready of course. But in the meantime, I’m going back to the Basement so I can type more reviews. If you’ve read this far, I really appreciate your support, but please go outside. It’s almost Summer now, and the sun is good for your skin and health. Don’t be like me. Or hell, play Super Meat Boy! You wont regret it.
I would like to thank @duhnuhnuh for gifting me this game, as a part of their massive Steam Key giveaway, and I’d recommend checking it out if you’d like to try some games out for the cost of absolutely nothing.
Shantae and the Seven Sirens is sure the fifth video game entry in the Shantae video game series released on video game consoles in 2020.
Going back a few years, Shantae and the Seven Sirens feels bizarre. It entered development around March 2018-ish, and was revealed about a year later, simply as Shantae 5. It was somewhat exciting to me, as someone who hadn't played a Shantae game yet but was definitely interested in the series. I grew up watching the Shantae Pirate’s Curse commercials on the 3DS, so I knew all of the characters, and I also heard that FUCKING MUSIC! But fast-forward a few months, it was eventually revealed that it would be a timed Apple Arcade exclusive, and I think the Shantae fans died a little inside, but rest assured, the game was fully released… to no avail! I had genuinely not seen anybody talk about the new game. The Steam reception seemed positive, the Metacritic scores were solid, so what happened? It wasn't until my Summer of 2022 Shantae binge that I would beat and finish almost every game in the series, save for two. Shantae (the first one), because of a crash that was seemingly exclusive to Switch and 3DS, and Seven Sirens, and by god. I could tell why this game went under the radar. It was really… meh, for the lack of a better term. I had only played till about the first zone, but the game really lacked the fun factor of Pirate’s Curse, nor did it have the phenomenal level design of Half Genie Hero,and overall, it was just really fucking easy. Over a year later after release though, the game received a brand new update which gave it a Definitive Mode alongside 3 other modes, which was nice, although it also released to basically no fanfare. Did every Shantae fan just… disappear between 2018 and then? I wasn't aware of the new update as I was using a less than legal copy, but now that I have the Steam version, it's time to give the game another look. With the Definitive Mode, is Shantae and the Seven Sirens a worthwhile package? Or does it give me scurvy? The biggest issue is it’s lack of risk taking with the tried-and true Shantae formula, unlike the previous 3 games, making it feel very by the numbers as yet another entry in the Shantae franchise. And none of the games have felt so... generic before. Let’s pop open the hatch, and see why Seven Sirens is so disappointing (to me, at least).
Right off the bat, I do have a few praises regarding how WayForward implemented these 4 new game modes. While the Definitive Mode takes precedence over the Legacy Mode, if you wish, you can also revert to the Legacy Mode on a save by save basis, which is pretty nice. But also, another negative right off the bat. The graphics. I don’t like em, never have and never will; hell, I’ll goes as far as to say that the aesthetics are fundamentally flawed. A majority of this game’s graphics are follow the style of Half Genie Hero, but there’s a big issue with how the game is presented. Half Genie Hero was a beautiful game, being presented in the 2.5D art style that looked incredible on the eyes. The background had so many layers, the models were high quality, it was a really pretty looking indie game. Compare this screenshot to this one from Seven Sirens and the problem should be immediately apparent. Seven Sirens is presented in a 2D plain, and it looks flatter than my man boobs, not to mention the occasional model in the overworld which just looks out of place, like the many plants you’ll find. The cutscenes are the strongest visual aspect to the game. Studio Trigger animated the intro to the game, and it looks great. It's a bit too general for my tastes, as Risky really isn't a major part of the story, but it still looks frantic and fun overall. The in-game cutscenes aren't as fast paced as the first, but it still looks okay to me. But aside from the in-game cutscenes, it just doesn’t look appealing to me, akin to how the soundtrack never caught my ears.
You can really feel the loss of Jake Kaufman in the sound department here. The soundtrack of each individual Shantae game has been mostly solid, maybe save for the first game, but at least that released on GBC, and the compositions were actually pretty catchy. The composition team behind Seven Sirens was lead by Professor Sakamoto, and a variety of composer contributed to the soundtrack. But, what happened here??? All of it takes a chiptune-esque approach, which is fine (albeit odd for a hand-drawn graphic platformer), but it simply doesn’t sound memorable, nor really all that good. There’s a few decent songs here and there, but for the most part, the music is just… noise. No cohesion or anything., just… music… It’s easily my least favorite soundtrack in the entire series, and I really hope they can clap back with Advance.
When it comes to the game itself, it’s... odd to say the least, at least when it comes to progression and structure. Classic Shantae (2000 and Risky’s Revenge) had a big open map, while the Modern Games (Pirate’s Curse and Half Genie Hero) had much smaller, multiple maps. Sure, Half Genie Hero made it a level-by-level structure, but you still had to use your abilities to explore through to progress. It worked, although it was awkward at times to backtrack. Seven Sirens returns to the Classic Shantae style while also mixing in Modern Shantae, to somewhat mediocre results. Unlike previous Shantae games which had you use your abilities to progress, Shantae and the Seven Sirens opted for a more “find x item, bring it to here” design. It’s not terrible, but a part of me really missed the more character based progression of the previous games. It gave you an “Aha!” moment, but Seven Sirens doesn’t really do that all too well. At best, I really felt a sense of satisfaction that I was at least making progress, but what game fails at that? Maybe it’s because the abilities themselves... kind of suck.
Seven Sirens attempts to integrate the animals into your moveset, but it doesn’t really feel as great at how Pirate’s Curse did it. In Pirate’s Curse, you were always using all of your abilities at once. Not because you necessarily had to, but it was really fun to do so, and most of the level design in that game encouraged that. Big, flat open plain with a bunch of enemies you don't want to deal with? Annihilate their asses with the Dash. Seven Sirens, on the other hand, fails at this. I really only enjoyed the Newt Dash. The rest are kind of okay. You use them to progress. That’s it. No practical uses outside of combat, like Elephant, or Monkey from the classic games. But, if Shantae is a belly dancing genie, watt about her dances though? So… the dances. They’re all pretty annoying. Not only do they eat up your magic, meaning players going for the most combat-positive upgrades are essentially shot in the foot. But the dances themselves are really, really boring. Shantae uses an element, changes something in the current room, get the thing you need, move on. Needless to say. It’s not FUN. It’s so boring, like, is this REALLY the best you could do? What if the transformations changed your player character, but they all have different movesets which provide individual benefits? As it stands, the current system, it’s really not all that great.
As for the level design… it’s just your average Metroidvania level design. Well, what’s the issue? It’s JUST your average Metroidvania level design. Enemies are present in the map, everything connects together, use ability (without any inherent satisfaction to be had as it’s the most predictable thing you can fucking imagine), move on. Seriously, what happened to the level design in between Half Genie Hero and Seven Sirens? The levels aren’t dynamic at all, and not even the fucking enemies are different. It’s just so… AVERAGE. Ugh. At least the enemies are occasionally fun to fight, but good lord. Not to mention the multi-staged fetch quests throughout Paradise Island. Shantae’s fetch quests, at least since Pirate’s Curse, have been pretty reserved. Usually you have to return to an area only once, rarely twice, and never again. And it was actually fun, since all of your abilities were awesome to use, complimenting the previous level design. Sure, Half-Genie Hero wasn't as great in this aspect, as the animals weren't integrated into your moves, but at the very least you had the teleport dance, as well as less backtracking in general. Seven Sirens is absolutely loaded with this, but unlike Pirate’s Curse, the moveset is just too unviable for general use. There's a few more than Pirate’s Curse, but once again, they're not all for general use. The best out of the few is easily the triple jump and dash. The rest are just awkwardly bad. The shell is too unwieldy for general platforming, and hitting a big enough enemy completely stops it. It's thankfully manually charged, unlike Pirate's Curse, which was a bit finicky, but it's still eclipsed by the Pirate's Curse dash. And the Drill and Frog just kinda… sucked. They're just too slow and tedious, good lord. That's the best way to describe this game. It's not doing anything innovative, just existing half of the time. And it infuriates me. There needs to be a case study on how Seven Sirens fails at competent modern Metroidvania design. Rather than expressing its level design through your own player character, it remains stagnant by only requiring the bare minimum of you, leaving it as the least engaging of the centrilogy, soon to be hexology. Advance better not have these problems, because this game is severely lacking in the fun factor of the previous games.
But why are we traveling through this big, open world, gaining new abilities and rescuing these half-naked women? Well, look no further than the plot. Shantae and her friends are invited to “Paradise Island” (seriously???), an island filled with sunshine non-stop. It's here where Shantae meets four other Half Genies, as a plot point established in the first game; Plink, the smallest one, Vera, the best one, Zapple, the strong one, Filin, obviously Rottytops, and Harmony, the tallest one, holy shit. All of them get ready for a massive Half-Genie Festival, but on the night of the festival, all of the genies (sparing Shantae) disappear. Determined to find answers, Shantae explores all throughout Paradise Island in search of the Half-Genies. Risky Boots is encountered but denies any foul-play at hand The Half-Genies and even the bosses themselves are pretty one-note for the most part. It's about as video-gamey as plot structure gets. Find Half-Genie, kill Siren, bam, onto the next thing. Oh, but surprise surprise, Risky Boots was behind the entire thing!!! Well, partially at least. Because the Empress Siren made a deal with Risky if Risky kidnapped the 5 Half-Genies. Soooo… yeah. Almost entirely Risky’s fault. But here’s the thing. If Risky wanted to kidnap the genies, how in the HELL did she not take notice to Shantae? Shantae is Risky's arch nemesis; she’s SEEN Shantae do her genie moves in previous games. Why only leave Shantae? Why not kidnap them all? Sure, It’d be overkill, but nobody else would be able to rescue the Half Genes, let alone Rottytops and friends while they’re lazing about. Oh, and the Empress Siren? She just feeds off of the Genies to survive because Harmony’s mother placed a spell on her. Then she practically kills Risky, and then plans to become immortal by taking everyone’s life force. They fight, a shitty boss battle occurs- WAIT.
I’m completely with Yuzrnaime on this, the fights are genuinely TERRIBLE. Not only do they have an UNHEALTHY amount of HP, a majority of them sped long periods of time in invulnerability. IT’S GENUINELY IRRITATING. I’d type out a long ass rant, but I’m writing this at 2AM. Bitch, PLEASE. But once you kill Empress, she dies, Risky comes back, Shantae and friends leave, the end. Sweet dreams.
Seven Sirens is certainly one of the most disappointing games I've ever played through. As a follow up to the two best entries in the series, it really falters. It's a game with 80% hot air in between it's content, succeeding at almost nothing it does in the remaining 20%. I didn't feel terribly angry while playing, just mildly annoyed. Shantae's abilities? Occasionally fun, but mostly annoying. The world map? Generic and mostly annoying. The dungeon designs? Among the worst in the series for simply how annoying they are. The bosses? Padded out and annoying. The music? Bland, and more importantly, annoying. I left Seven Sirens mostly ambivalent to its content, no desire to really play it, but most importantly, annoyed. I feel annoyed at this game's very existence. Not angry. Simply. Annoyed.
Shantae and the Seven Sirens is sure the fifth video game entry in the Shantae video game series released on video game consoles in 2020.
Going back a few years, Shantae and the Seven Sirens feels bizarre. It entered development around March 2018-ish, and was revealed about a year later, simply as Shantae 5. It was somewhat exciting to me, as someone who hadn't played a Shantae game yet but was definitely interested in the series. I grew up watching the Shantae Pirate’s Curse commercials on the 3DS, so I knew all of the characters, and I also heard that FUCKING MUSIC! But fast-forward a few months, it was eventually revealed that it would be a timed Apple Arcade exclusive, and I think the Shantae fans died a little inside, but rest assured, the game was fully released… to no avail! I had genuinely not seen anybody talk about the new game. The Steam reception seemed positive, the Metacritic scores were solid, so what happened? It wasn't until my Summer of 2022 Shantae binge that I would beat and finish almost every game in the series, save for two. Shantae (the first one), because of a crash that was seemingly exclusive to Switch and 3DS, and Seven Sirens, and by god. I could tell why this game went under the radar. It was really… meh, for the lack of a better term. I had only played till about the first zone, but the game really lacked the fun factor of Pirate’s Curse, nor did it have the phenomenal level design of Half Genie Hero,and overall, it was just really fucking easy. Over a year later after release though, the game received a brand new update which gave it a Definitive Mode alongside 3 other modes, which was nice, although it also released to basically no fanfare. Did every Shantae fan just… disappear between 2018 and then? I wasn't aware of the new update as I was using a less than legal copy, but now that I have the Steam version, it's time to give the game another look. With the Definitive Mode, is Shantae and the Seven Sirens a worthwhile package? Or does it give me scurvy? The biggest issue is it’s lack of risk taking with the tried-and true Shantae formula, unlike the previous 3 games, making it feel very by the numbers as yet another entry in the Shantae franchise. And none of the games have felt so... generic before. Let’s pop open the hatch, and see why Seven Sirens is so disappointing (to me, at least).
Right off the bat, I do have a few praises regarding how WayForward implemented these 4 new game modes. While the Definitive Mode takes precedence over the Legacy Mode, if you wish, you can also revert to the Legacy Mode on a save by save basis, which is pretty nice. But also, another negative right off the bat. The graphics. I don’t like em, never have and never will; hell, I’ll goes as far as to say that the aesthetics are fundamentally flawed. A majority of this game’s graphics are follow the style of Half Genie Hero, but there’s a big issue with how the game is presented. Half Genie Hero was a beautiful game, being presented in the 2.5D art style that looked incredible on the eyes. The background had so many layers, the models were high quality, it was a really pretty looking indie game. Compare this screenshot to this one from Seven Sirens and the problem should be immediately apparent. Seven Sirens is presented in a 2D plain, and it looks flatter than my man boobs, not to mention the occasional model in the overworld which just looks out of place, like the many plants you’ll find. The cutscenes are the strongest visual aspect to the game. Studio Trigger animated the intro to the game, and it looks great. It's a bit too general for my tastes, as Risky really isn't a major part of the story, but it still looks frantic and fun overall. The in-game cutscenes aren't as fast paced as the first, but it still looks okay to me. But aside from the in-game cutscenes, it just doesn’t look appealing to me, akin to how the soundtrack never caught my ears.
You can really feel the loss of Jake Kaufman in the sound department here. The soundtrack of each individual Shantae game has been mostly solid, maybe save for the first game, but at least that released on GBC, and the compositions were actually pretty catchy. The composition team behind Seven Sirens was lead by Professor Sakamoto, and a variety of composer contributed to the soundtrack. But, what happened here??? All of it takes a chiptune-esque approach, which is fine (albeit odd for a hand-drawn graphic platformer), but it simply doesn’t sound memorable, nor really all that good. There’s a few decent songs here and there, but for the most part, the music is just… noise. No cohesion or anything., just… music… It’s easily my least favorite soundtrack in the entire series, and I really hope they can clap back with Advance.
When it comes to the game itself, it’s... odd to say the least, at least when it comes to progression and structure. Classic Shantae (2000 and Risky’s Revenge) had a big open map, while the Modern Games (Pirate’s Curse and Half Genie Hero) had much smaller, multiple maps. Sure, Half Genie Hero made it a level-by-level structure, but you still had to use your abilities to explore through to progress. It worked, although it was awkward at times to backtrack. Seven Sirens returns to the Classic Shantae style while also mixing in Modern Shantae, to somewhat mediocre results. Unlike previous Shantae games which had you use your abilities to progress, Shantae and the Seven Sirens opted for a more “find x item, bring it to here” design. It’s not terrible, but a part of me really missed the more character based progression of the previous games. It gave you an “Aha!” moment, but Seven Sirens doesn’t really do that all too well. At best, I really felt a sense of satisfaction that I was at least making progress, but what game fails at that? Maybe it’s because the abilities themselves... kind of suck.
Seven Sirens attempts to integrate the animals into your moveset, but it doesn’t really feel as great at how Pirate’s Curse did it. In Pirate’s Curse, you were always using all of your abilities at once. Not because you necessarily had to, but it was really fun to do so, and most of the level design in that game encouraged that. Big, flat open plain with a bunch of enemies you don't want to deal with? Annihilate their asses with the Dash. Seven Sirens, on the other hand, fails at this. I really only enjoyed the Newt Dash. The rest are kind of okay. You use them to progress. That’s it. No practical uses outside of combat, like Elephant, or Monkey from the classic games. But, if Shantae is a belly dancing genie, watt about her dances though? So… the dances. They’re all pretty annoying. Not only do they eat up your magic, meaning players going for the most combat-positive upgrades are essentially shot in the foot. But the dances themselves are really, really boring. Shantae uses an element, changes something in the current room, get the thing you need, move on. Needless to say. It’s not FUN. It’s so boring, like, is this REALLY the best you could do? What if the transformations changed your player character, but they all have different movesets which provide individual benefits? As it stands, the current system, it’s really not all that great.
As for the level design… it’s just your average Metroidvania level design. Well, what’s the issue? It’s JUST your average Metroidvania level design. Enemies are present in the map, everything connects together, use ability (without any inherent satisfaction to be had as it’s the most predictable thing you can fucking imagine), move on. Seriously, what happened to the level design in between Half Genie Hero and Seven Sirens? The levels aren’t dynamic at all, and not even the fucking enemies are different. It’s just so… AVERAGE. Ugh. At least the enemies are occasionally fun to fight, but good lord. Not to mention the multi-staged fetch quests throughout Paradise Island. Shantae’s fetch quests, at least since Pirate’s Curse, have been pretty reserved. Usually you have to return to an area only once, rarely twice, and never again. And it was actually fun, since all of your abilities were awesome to use, complimenting the previous level design. Sure, Half-Genie Hero wasn't as great in this aspect, as the animals weren't integrated into your moves, but at the very least you had the teleport dance, as well as less backtracking in general. Seven Sirens is absolutely loaded with this, but unlike Pirate’s Curse, the moveset is just too unviable for general use. There's a few more than Pirate’s Curse, but once again, they're not all for general use. The best out of the few is easily the triple jump and dash. The rest are just awkwardly bad. The shell is too unwieldy for general platforming, and hitting a big enough enemy completely stops it. It's thankfully manually charged, unlike Pirate's Curse, which was a bit finicky, but it's still eclipsed by the Pirate's Curse dash. And the Drill and Frog just kinda… sucked. They're just too slow and tedious, good lord. That's the best way to describe this game. It's not doing anything innovative, just existing half of the time. And it infuriates me. There needs to be a case study on how Seven Sirens fails at competent modern Metroidvania design. Rather than expressing its level design through your own player character, it remains stagnant by only requiring the bare minimum of you, leaving it as the least engaging of the centrilogy, soon to be hexology. Advance better not have these problems, because this game is severely lacking in the fun factor of the previous games.
But why are we traveling through this big, open world, gaining new abilities and rescuing these half-naked women? Well, look no further than the plot. Shantae and her friends are invited to “Paradise Island” (seriously???), an island filled with sunshine non-stop. It's here where Shantae meets four other Half Genies, as a plot point established in the first game; Plink, the smallest one, Vera, the best one, Zapple, the strong one, Filin, obviously Rottytops, and Harmony, the tallest one, holy shit. All of them get ready for a massive Half-Genie Festival, but on the night of the festival, all of the genies (sparing Shantae) disappear. Determined to find answers, Shantae explores all throughout Paradise Island in search of the Half-Genies. Risky Boots is encountered but denies any foul-play at hand The Half-Genies and even the bosses themselves are pretty one-note for the most part. It's about as video-gamey as plot structure gets. Find Half-Genie, kill Siren, bam, onto the next thing. Oh, but surprise surprise, Risky Boots was behind the entire thing!!! Well, partially at least. Because the Empress Siren made a deal with Risky if Risky kidnapped the 5 Half-Genies. Soooo… yeah. Almost entirely Risky’s fault. But here’s the thing. If Risky wanted to kidnap the genies, how in the HELL did she not take notice to Shantae? Shantae is Risky's arch nemesis; she’s SEEN Shantae do her genie moves in previous games. Why only leave Shantae? Why not kidnap them all? Sure, It’d be overkill, but nobody else would be able to rescue the Half Genes, let alone Rottytops and friends while they’re lazing about. Oh, and the Empress Siren? She just feeds off of the Genies to survive because Harmony’s mother placed a spell on her. Then she practically kills Risky, and then plans to become immortal by taking everyone’s life force. They fight, a shitty boss battle occurs- WAIT.
I’m completely with Yuzrnaime on this, the fights are genuinely TERRIBLE. Not only do they have an UNHEALTHY amount of HP, a majority of them sped long periods of time in invulnerability. IT’S GENUINELY IRRITATING. I’d type out a long ass rant, but I’m writing this at 2AM. Bitch, PLEASE. But once you kill Empress, she dies, Risky comes back, Shantae and friends leave, the end. Sweet dreams.
Seven Sirens is certainly one of the most disappointing games I've ever played through. As a follow up to the two best entries in the series, it really falters. It's a game with 80% hot air in between it's content, succeeding at almost nothing it does in the remaining 20%. I didn't feel terribly angry while playing, just mildly annoyed. Shantae's abilities? Occasionally fun, but mostly annoying. The world map? Generic and mostly annoying. The dungeon designs? Among the worst in the series for simply how annoying they are. The bosses? Padded out and annoying. The music? Bland, and more importantly, annoying. I left Seven Sirens mostly ambivalent to its content, no desire to really play it, but most importantly, annoyed. I feel annoyed at this game's very existence. Not angry. Simply. Annoyed.
This review contains spoilers
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)
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.
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)
Dark Witch fans stared me dead into the eyes and told me this was worth $30.
It’s JUST Solitaire but with some VTubers. Good character design, but if you like VTubers, I think there might be a perfect site for them. No Dark Witch twist, nor actual clever gameplay. Why would you EVER buy this? Look at Holocure or Holo X Break, and those fuckers are making actually fun VTuber games for FREE!
This is the Dark Witch equivalent of the “Mario Slapped on A Box” joke. Needless to say, if you want an actually fun game, play Balatro instead. What a joke.
It’s JUST Solitaire but with some VTubers. Good character design, but if you like VTubers, I think there might be a perfect site for them. No Dark Witch twist, nor actual clever gameplay. Why would you EVER buy this? Look at Holocure or Holo X Break, and those fuckers are making actually fun VTuber games for FREE!
This is the Dark Witch equivalent of the “Mario Slapped on A Box” joke. Needless to say, if you want an actually fun game, play Balatro instead. What a joke.
THE BINDING OF ISAAC WARP ZONE: S H A R D S O F I S A A C
Back in my original review, I think I sold Wrath of the Lamb a little short. I had called it one of the most unfun, bullshit things I had ever played coming from Edmund McMillen. But, there was one, small. Perhaps a tiny issue. Maybe with skill? Hell if I know...
Wrath of the Lamb is where The Binding of Isaac truly began, adding all types of new shit into the game. From bosses, to items, and even modes, Wrath of the Lamb is one of the most influential expansions to Isaac as a whole, and solidified the game as a masterpiece. Did 2011 simply not have enough content for you? Well, it's Wrath of the Lamb now, bitches!
This is where the alternate floors come into play, and the greater enemy variety is more apparent here than ever. I didn’t notice how limited 2011’s enemies were until I installed Wrath of the Lamb, because holy shit. This is way bigger! And the bosses? Far more intimidating than before. Each boss is far more devious than the previous Flash bosses, being faster and even more intimidating with the new music, which goes just as hard as the rest of the soundtrack. The difficulty of the game itself is so much higher than before. I nearly died on the first FLOOR when playing, it’s that grueling. In fact, it might be a little... too hard. I do really like Wrath of the Lamb (now that I don’t suck at it), but in GOD’S NAME, at least play Flash for a little bit before downloading it, because the type of shit you’ll encounter far exceeds the difficulty of any expansion to Isaac, and yes, even Repentance. To compensate, Angel rooms have now been added, and you can also manipulate them into spawning, and these have weaker items, like Rebirth, but the pool doesn’t suck now!!! Hooray! And, just like every previous Isaac expansion, there’s new story. There’s the Cathedral, and The Chest. Now, you might say that I already covered these, but Wrath of the Lamb’s Cathedral is NOT the same as Rebirth’s, not by a long shot. It’s a far more challenging area, with enemies being far superior and faster, and the final boss (Isaac) has been completely changed in Rebirth, honestly one of the only things Rebirth did worse compared to Flash. It’s a complete slap fight, with Isaac only firing and firing hundreds of tears towards you. After doing that for a bit, he stands up and starts firing homing tears in a D-Pad pattern, and does it even more frequently, before finally gaining flight, summoning so many enemies and light beams, descending down on the player. And this is where the true fight begins, easily being the hardest part of the battle. And the music, once again, is fucking incredible. After killing him, you get a piece of an image on the title, and I think you know what that means. So after 6 kills, you get The Polaroid trinket, and it drops after killing Mom. Now, go into the Chest dropped from killing Isaac, and bam. You’re in the final chapter of the game. This floor is essentially a victory lap, with every dropped chest being converted into items, and the final boss is Blue Baby. He’s essentially the Hard Mode of the Isaac fight, shooting even more tears, having more health, and having the ability to teleport across the room. And, for the final time, the Chest drops. The final ending shows numerous polaroids, showing Isaac’s memories, as the screen slowly fades to back, while the Library music plays in the background. Nightmare fuel. But, when it comes to the rest of Wrath of the Lamb, there’s not much to say that hasn’t been said already in my prior reviews. All of the new items are pretty cool, there’s even more run variety, and practically everything from Flash is fixed, so yeah. Wrath of the Lamb is pretty damn good, if I say so myself.
Except for ONE, tiny, SMALL issue. 100%ing Wrath of the Lamb is fucking TERRIBLE. Okay, so we all know the usual “defeat every boss with every character” stick, right? I neglected to mention this in my previous review, but Flash Isaac is just as straightforward as Afterbirth when it comes to 100%. But thought Flash was too easy? You sir, have not played Wrath of the Lamb. And it’s all due to a little update in 2015, without Mcillen’s involvement. Wrath of the Lamb wasn’t too taxing of a 100% prior. Sure, Isaac and ??? were pretty hard, but once you got it down the first time, the difficulty only snowballed. And the challenges weren’t so bad either, so 100% was pretty fun and engaging. But... in 2015... oh man, Curse Alert for those who care.
ETERNAL EDITION IS THE WORST FUCKING THING EVER INTRODUCED INTO THIS GODDAMN FRANCHISE. HOLY SHIT, WHERE DO I BEGIN WITH THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT??? There’s NO new items nor anything in this update, only Hard mode, taking most of, if not ALL of the fun out of 100%. That’s the entire fucking POINT of The Binding of Isaac. The achievements are difficult WITHIN REASON! You actually get shit for going out of your way to do something difficult. THAT’S WHY IT’S FUN! I need way more incentive to play Hard mode rather than an achievement on Steam. That’s what made Super Meat Boy 100% so fun. The Meat Ninja is actually a cool unlockable, even IF Leaderboards are disabled with him! Shit, if you couldn’t come up with any new items, just take some from Rebirth, that would be COOL and neat to see in the older version of Isaac. You use Godhead for your achievement icon already, why not go all the way? Oh, and Hard Mode? I kid you not, this is some f the most grueling, unfun BULLSHIT THAT I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN THE BINDING OF ISAAC. The D6 got nerfed for no fucking reason, the Eternal Bosses are controller breaking frustration, and the difficulty relies on heavy luck to even succeed. I’m not kidding when I say I had an awesome run but with low HP, and I had over 5 seconds of unavoidable damage that KILLED me and made me start ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way back to the fucking Basement. Great and fun game design, Himsl. Oh, and whoever designed Eternal Monstro can eat a dick t- OH, OOPS! Eternal Edition isn’t fun. Don’t go for these achievements. Seriously, they’re awful. Wrath of the Lamb is an amazing game, but simply put, Eternal Edition just sucks.
But overall, Flash Isaac as a whole is pretty solid, despite Eternal Edition being far from the greatest. If you’re getting tired of Rebirth, I’d recommend trying out Flash, even for a little bit. It’s shockingly fun, and I think it held up pretty well. Hell, I'd say that it's on the same tier as Rebirth in terms of greatness. But thats enough dawdling. We all know what’s coming next. So it’s time for the finale, the PINNACLE of zeusdeegoose. Until then, my friends.
“Life isn't fair, isn't it? / Wrath forges his fury, his sin / From within he cries” “Wrath” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
Back in my original review, I think I sold Wrath of the Lamb a little short. I had called it one of the most unfun, bullshit things I had ever played coming from Edmund McMillen. But, there was one, small. Perhaps a tiny issue. Maybe with skill? Hell if I know...
Wrath of the Lamb is where The Binding of Isaac truly began, adding all types of new shit into the game. From bosses, to items, and even modes, Wrath of the Lamb is one of the most influential expansions to Isaac as a whole, and solidified the game as a masterpiece. Did 2011 simply not have enough content for you? Well, it's Wrath of the Lamb now, bitches!
This is where the alternate floors come into play, and the greater enemy variety is more apparent here than ever. I didn’t notice how limited 2011’s enemies were until I installed Wrath of the Lamb, because holy shit. This is way bigger! And the bosses? Far more intimidating than before. Each boss is far more devious than the previous Flash bosses, being faster and even more intimidating with the new music, which goes just as hard as the rest of the soundtrack. The difficulty of the game itself is so much higher than before. I nearly died on the first FLOOR when playing, it’s that grueling. In fact, it might be a little... too hard. I do really like Wrath of the Lamb (now that I don’t suck at it), but in GOD’S NAME, at least play Flash for a little bit before downloading it, because the type of shit you’ll encounter far exceeds the difficulty of any expansion to Isaac, and yes, even Repentance. To compensate, Angel rooms have now been added, and you can also manipulate them into spawning, and these have weaker items, like Rebirth, but the pool doesn’t suck now!!! Hooray! And, just like every previous Isaac expansion, there’s new story. There’s the Cathedral, and The Chest. Now, you might say that I already covered these, but Wrath of the Lamb’s Cathedral is NOT the same as Rebirth’s, not by a long shot. It’s a far more challenging area, with enemies being far superior and faster, and the final boss (Isaac) has been completely changed in Rebirth, honestly one of the only things Rebirth did worse compared to Flash. It’s a complete slap fight, with Isaac only firing and firing hundreds of tears towards you. After doing that for a bit, he stands up and starts firing homing tears in a D-Pad pattern, and does it even more frequently, before finally gaining flight, summoning so many enemies and light beams, descending down on the player. And this is where the true fight begins, easily being the hardest part of the battle. And the music, once again, is fucking incredible. After killing him, you get a piece of an image on the title, and I think you know what that means. So after 6 kills, you get The Polaroid trinket, and it drops after killing Mom. Now, go into the Chest dropped from killing Isaac, and bam. You’re in the final chapter of the game. This floor is essentially a victory lap, with every dropped chest being converted into items, and the final boss is Blue Baby. He’s essentially the Hard Mode of the Isaac fight, shooting even more tears, having more health, and having the ability to teleport across the room. And, for the final time, the Chest drops. The final ending shows numerous polaroids, showing Isaac’s memories, as the screen slowly fades to back, while the Library music plays in the background. Nightmare fuel. But, when it comes to the rest of Wrath of the Lamb, there’s not much to say that hasn’t been said already in my prior reviews. All of the new items are pretty cool, there’s even more run variety, and practically everything from Flash is fixed, so yeah. Wrath of the Lamb is pretty damn good, if I say so myself.
Except for ONE, tiny, SMALL issue. 100%ing Wrath of the Lamb is fucking TERRIBLE. Okay, so we all know the usual “defeat every boss with every character” stick, right? I neglected to mention this in my previous review, but Flash Isaac is just as straightforward as Afterbirth when it comes to 100%. But thought Flash was too easy? You sir, have not played Wrath of the Lamb. And it’s all due to a little update in 2015, without Mcillen’s involvement. Wrath of the Lamb wasn’t too taxing of a 100% prior. Sure, Isaac and ??? were pretty hard, but once you got it down the first time, the difficulty only snowballed. And the challenges weren’t so bad either, so 100% was pretty fun and engaging. But... in 2015... oh man, Curse Alert for those who care.
ETERNAL EDITION IS THE WORST FUCKING THING EVER INTRODUCED INTO THIS GODDAMN FRANCHISE. HOLY SHIT, WHERE DO I BEGIN WITH THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT??? There’s NO new items nor anything in this update, only Hard mode, taking most of, if not ALL of the fun out of 100%. That’s the entire fucking POINT of The Binding of Isaac. The achievements are difficult WITHIN REASON! You actually get shit for going out of your way to do something difficult. THAT’S WHY IT’S FUN! I need way more incentive to play Hard mode rather than an achievement on Steam. That’s what made Super Meat Boy 100% so fun. The Meat Ninja is actually a cool unlockable, even IF Leaderboards are disabled with him! Shit, if you couldn’t come up with any new items, just take some from Rebirth, that would be COOL and neat to see in the older version of Isaac. You use Godhead for your achievement icon already, why not go all the way? Oh, and Hard Mode? I kid you not, this is some f the most grueling, unfun BULLSHIT THAT I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN THE BINDING OF ISAAC. The D6 got nerfed for no fucking reason, the Eternal Bosses are controller breaking frustration, and the difficulty relies on heavy luck to even succeed. I’m not kidding when I say I had an awesome run but with low HP, and I had over 5 seconds of unavoidable damage that KILLED me and made me start ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way back to the fucking Basement. Great and fun game design, Himsl. Oh, and whoever designed Eternal Monstro can eat a dick t- OH, OOPS! Eternal Edition isn’t fun. Don’t go for these achievements. Seriously, they’re awful. Wrath of the Lamb is an amazing game, but simply put, Eternal Edition just sucks.
But overall, Flash Isaac as a whole is pretty solid, despite Eternal Edition being far from the greatest. If you’re getting tired of Rebirth, I’d recommend trying out Flash, even for a little bit. It’s shockingly fun, and I think it held up pretty well. Hell, I'd say that it's on the same tier as Rebirth in terms of greatness. But thats enough dawdling. We all know what’s coming next. So it’s time for the finale, the PINNACLE of zeusdeegoose. Until then, my friends.
“Life isn't fair, isn't it? / Wrath forges his fury, his sin / From within he cries” “Wrath” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
Needless to say, A B A N D O N E D .
2022
I would like to thank @duhnuhnuh for gifting me this game, as a part of their massive Steam Key giveaway, and I’d recommend checking it out if you’d like to try some games out for the cost of absolutely nothing.
OlliOlli World is a game that requires you to master it’s mechanics in order to enjoy it to the fullest. Look at my score and you’ll see that I clearly haven’t done that. I do enjoy OlliOlli World, but it’s in a weird place, something akin to Spelunky 2. A sequel for OlliOlli fans, that will leave some disappointed and even confused. I did play OlliOlli on the 3DS a while back, and remember being extremely... conflicted on it. So I don’t know why I picked OlliOlli World specifically, but here we are. World is essentially just those two games, only much, MUCH improved. What I like a lot more about World compared to OlliOlli is the increased focus on player tutorials and support. OlliOlli told you to simply “Look in the Tricktionary!”, but it didn’t really feel that great to do, as it’s just buckets of information dumped straight on the player. Right off the bat, World fixes that, having a whole world to play around in from the get-go. I didn’t feel so left in the dark, so I was already having a decent time by myself. The second thing that World improves on is the level design of Olli. OlliOlli’s level design was pretty flat and not all too fulfilling. There were grind rails, you could do tricks, and that’s really it. World just straight up has better level design. There’s so much new mechanics at play here! From massive grind rails, to alternative, yet more difficult paths, and just a greater sense of speed overall. Also, the tricks were far more pronounced in World than in OlliOlli. I looked up some of the later levels in OlliOlli and I don’t even think they can compare to even the earliest levels in World. Combined with a solid soundtrack, and we have a bit of a banger here! Far better than OlliOlli at least. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get down with that game. It just wasn’t all that fun.
But unfortunately, it’s not perfect... I do like the mechanics, but I kind of wish there was a bit more variety? It’s a fun loop, but one that only lasts for so long. Like, what if your ingame scores correlated to some shop that you could buy more tricks in, kind of like DMC? I played this on my Steam Deck and I have to say that this was a perfect fit for the game. I can just complete a few levels and hop out. I can see myself finishing the game in the future, but we’ll see. This is a bit of a temporary rating, so we’ll see how the game amps up over time!
OlliOlli World is a game that requires you to master it’s mechanics in order to enjoy it to the fullest. Look at my score and you’ll see that I clearly haven’t done that. I do enjoy OlliOlli World, but it’s in a weird place, something akin to Spelunky 2. A sequel for OlliOlli fans, that will leave some disappointed and even confused. I did play OlliOlli on the 3DS a while back, and remember being extremely... conflicted on it. So I don’t know why I picked OlliOlli World specifically, but here we are. World is essentially just those two games, only much, MUCH improved. What I like a lot more about World compared to OlliOlli is the increased focus on player tutorials and support. OlliOlli told you to simply “Look in the Tricktionary!”, but it didn’t really feel that great to do, as it’s just buckets of information dumped straight on the player. Right off the bat, World fixes that, having a whole world to play around in from the get-go. I didn’t feel so left in the dark, so I was already having a decent time by myself. The second thing that World improves on is the level design of Olli. OlliOlli’s level design was pretty flat and not all too fulfilling. There were grind rails, you could do tricks, and that’s really it. World just straight up has better level design. There’s so much new mechanics at play here! From massive grind rails, to alternative, yet more difficult paths, and just a greater sense of speed overall. Also, the tricks were far more pronounced in World than in OlliOlli. I looked up some of the later levels in OlliOlli and I don’t even think they can compare to even the earliest levels in World. Combined with a solid soundtrack, and we have a bit of a banger here! Far better than OlliOlli at least. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get down with that game. It just wasn’t all that fun.
But unfortunately, it’s not perfect... I do like the mechanics, but I kind of wish there was a bit more variety? It’s a fun loop, but one that only lasts for so long. Like, what if your ingame scores correlated to some shop that you could buy more tricks in, kind of like DMC? I played this on my Steam Deck and I have to say that this was a perfect fit for the game. I can just complete a few levels and hop out. I can see myself finishing the game in the future, but we’ll see. This is a bit of a temporary rating, so we’ll see how the game amps up over time!
2011
THE BINDING OF ISAAC WARP ZONE: S H A R D S O F I S A A C
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
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
2019
THE BINDING OF ISAAC WARP ZONE: S H A R D S O F I S A A C
"Bum-Bo Got Coin!" is the Isaac equivalent to "Don't Trust Them New _________ Over There" from The Boondocks.
The Legend of Bum-bo is a fucking WEIRD game. It’s the prequel to The Binding of Isaac, but I never fully played it, and I couldn’t say I would recommend it, but I kind of liked it at the same time? It’s complicated. This one’s gonna be pretty “”quick”” because of that, so buckle up. This is my pretty brief review for The Legend of Bumbo.
Okay, so Bumbo is some guy with Mii Hands, who gets his shit stolen. And then he descends into the depths below, only to fight all of the monsters in his path. There’s not much to overarching story itself; Bum-bo kind of just goes through the motions, and upon clearing a new floor, the run ends, the next character is unlocked, and you get another new floor. It’s pretty straightforward, but The Legend of Bum-bo adds some important pieces to the story of The Legend of Bum-bo. In the 5th ending of the game, the ending is suddenly interrupted by Isaac’s mother, storming in and taking the cardboard set from Isaac. It’s revealed that The Legend of Bum-bo was made by Isaac’s father, and the Mom threw it out. It’s such a well done scene, with the voice acting and music really selling the fear that Isaac goes through. And, in the end, the cutscene points to The Binding of Isaac’s title screen. A great way to segway into the game. But, if you 100% the game, and get 10 Jackpot endings, which are endings you get at random, Bum-bo creates an underground society where he is king. Bum-bo goes on all kinds of adventures, with monsters to fight. And then, the game pans out once again to reveal that Isaac’s dad is the narrator of the game. He made The Legend of Bum-bo as a way to escape from the real world for Isaac. The Dad taught Isaac the power of his imagination, in order to make this world a reality for him. But, this very action would cause Isaac’s downfall, no matter how good it seems. Is that a good storyline, or what? I absolutely love it when Edmund reveals new elements into the storyline. It makes the story feel so open, and interpretation heavy. I’ve already explained why Isaac has a phenomenal story, so if you’d like a full explanation of why I think it’s amazing, check out the Rebirth review.
But on the game itself, does it stand up on its own? It’s a match-4 puzzle game, where each tile does something different. Activated items are the main focus of the gameplay, and they alter the board or damage enemies. Bum-bo has 3 HP, and if he dies, it’s Game Over, back to the start. Each enemy is on a grid based system, but at times battles can get pretty overwhelming. The game is simple dumb fun, but I wish there was a little more variety to each individual run, like The Binding of Isaac. Bum-bo gets a little more stale than Isaac and FAST. Sure, each individual character adds some variety, but in the end, you’re doing the same thing ad nauseam. Match, use item, repeat. What if there were passive items that added all new tiles, or items that expanded the board? Or perhaps allow the player to pick up different weapons to spice up their attacks? I feel like there’s a lot of missed potential with Bum-bo’s kit here. Oh, and the boss fights... Yeah, not the greatest to say the least. They’re just too tanky for my liking. Each boss just has too many enemies, and making one mistake too easily leads to a dead run, in my opinion. But after that, the game just kind of goes on...? It doesn’t really change up the formula much. And while it was fun for a few hours, it did get pretty stale, so I just ended up dropping the game. One thing I can praise The Legend of Bum-bo on is its PHENOMENAL presentation. Everything in the cardboard world is so animated and colorful, and the soundtrack is pretty solid to boot. A good effort all around, but the game kind of falls short for me otherwise.
The Legend of Bum-bo is fucking WEIRD. I don’t think it’s really a bad game, but it’s not all that great either. A solid effort, but not all that fun, unfortunately. It has good production values, and amazing music, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. Consider it on a sale, and not much else.
“"I want coin" I say / In reality I lay / in grim thoughts all day” - “Bumbo” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
"Bum-Bo Got Coin!" is the Isaac equivalent to "Don't Trust Them New _________ Over There" from The Boondocks.
The Legend of Bum-bo is a fucking WEIRD game. It’s the prequel to The Binding of Isaac, but I never fully played it, and I couldn’t say I would recommend it, but I kind of liked it at the same time? It’s complicated. This one’s gonna be pretty “”quick”” because of that, so buckle up. This is my pretty brief review for The Legend of Bumbo.
Okay, so Bumbo is some guy with Mii Hands, who gets his shit stolen. And then he descends into the depths below, only to fight all of the monsters in his path. There’s not much to overarching story itself; Bum-bo kind of just goes through the motions, and upon clearing a new floor, the run ends, the next character is unlocked, and you get another new floor. It’s pretty straightforward, but The Legend of Bum-bo adds some important pieces to the story of The Legend of Bum-bo. In the 5th ending of the game, the ending is suddenly interrupted by Isaac’s mother, storming in and taking the cardboard set from Isaac. It’s revealed that The Legend of Bum-bo was made by Isaac’s father, and the Mom threw it out. It’s such a well done scene, with the voice acting and music really selling the fear that Isaac goes through. And, in the end, the cutscene points to The Binding of Isaac’s title screen. A great way to segway into the game. But, if you 100% the game, and get 10 Jackpot endings, which are endings you get at random, Bum-bo creates an underground society where he is king. Bum-bo goes on all kinds of adventures, with monsters to fight. And then, the game pans out once again to reveal that Isaac’s dad is the narrator of the game. He made The Legend of Bum-bo as a way to escape from the real world for Isaac. The Dad taught Isaac the power of his imagination, in order to make this world a reality for him. But, this very action would cause Isaac’s downfall, no matter how good it seems. Is that a good storyline, or what? I absolutely love it when Edmund reveals new elements into the storyline. It makes the story feel so open, and interpretation heavy. I’ve already explained why Isaac has a phenomenal story, so if you’d like a full explanation of why I think it’s amazing, check out the Rebirth review.
But on the game itself, does it stand up on its own? It’s a match-4 puzzle game, where each tile does something different. Activated items are the main focus of the gameplay, and they alter the board or damage enemies. Bum-bo has 3 HP, and if he dies, it’s Game Over, back to the start. Each enemy is on a grid based system, but at times battles can get pretty overwhelming. The game is simple dumb fun, but I wish there was a little more variety to each individual run, like The Binding of Isaac. Bum-bo gets a little more stale than Isaac and FAST. Sure, each individual character adds some variety, but in the end, you’re doing the same thing ad nauseam. Match, use item, repeat. What if there were passive items that added all new tiles, or items that expanded the board? Or perhaps allow the player to pick up different weapons to spice up their attacks? I feel like there’s a lot of missed potential with Bum-bo’s kit here. Oh, and the boss fights... Yeah, not the greatest to say the least. They’re just too tanky for my liking. Each boss just has too many enemies, and making one mistake too easily leads to a dead run, in my opinion. But after that, the game just kind of goes on...? It doesn’t really change up the formula much. And while it was fun for a few hours, it did get pretty stale, so I just ended up dropping the game. One thing I can praise The Legend of Bum-bo on is its PHENOMENAL presentation. Everything in the cardboard world is so animated and colorful, and the soundtrack is pretty solid to boot. A good effort all around, but the game kind of falls short for me otherwise.
The Legend of Bum-bo is fucking WEIRD. I don’t think it’s really a bad game, but it’s not all that great either. A solid effort, but not all that fun, unfortunately. It has good production values, and amazing music, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. Consider it on a sale, and not much else.
“"I want coin" I say / In reality I lay / in grim thoughts all day” - “Bumbo” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
THE BINDING OF ISAAC WARP ZONE: S H A R D S O F I S A A C
This is my Shrek the Third.
Straight and to the point, this is the ONLY, and I mean ONLY time I genuinely do not have anything that is unambiguously positive to say regarding The Binding of Isaac. Rebirth is an INCREDIBLE game. Afterbirth was decent. Repentance is my FAVORITE game of ALL time. Flash was good. The Legend of Bumbo was also good (if unpolished at times). So that leaves ONE release, that flabbergasts the mind at how it costs 10 United States Dollars. That ONE stain on Isaac’s legacy that shan't be forgotten. That ONE DLC that’s more worthless than that 25 Lives bullshit in Sonic Lost World. THAT ONE DLC THAT IS...
Afterbirth+, also referred to as the worst fucking thing in existence by the overarching Isaac community, is easily the worst DLC I have ever played, and I mean that with no hyperbole, or anything of the sorts. It’s that BAD. There's almost NOTHING to be enjoyed here that couldn't be found within the previous, and infinitely more fun predecessors, and I highly recommend that literally skip over to Repentance.
EXHIBIT A: The new items are actually dogshit! There were about 70 new items in this DLC at launch, a poultry amount compared to the likes of Rebirth and Wrath of the Lamb, and almost all are terrible to boot. The most gimmicky, incompatible, Enter The Gungeon-tier bullshit you could ever imagine. The items are far too niche to be useful, and rarely synergize with the hundreds of previous items. Almost all provide little to no benefits to any run, or are just too finicky to be worth a damn. Remember the old-school D-Infinity? You know, the item that gave you a new dice each time you used it? That shit was so ass. Or Adrenaline? Which gives you more damage for each empty heart container? Or Greed’s Gullet? Or Large Zit? Or Brown Nugget? Or Shade? Sure, each DLC had it’s fair share of bad or niche items, but not to this level. And even if you got a bad item, it didn’t matter because they all SYNERGIZED. That’s the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT of The Binding of Isaac, and ensures that most of your runs are GOOD. But when your items border on no synergies, you lose a lit of your run’s overall potential. And the items themselves plainly suck, so what’s the point? Introducing too many bad items into the fray doesn’t make your DLC harder, it makes it more unfun and luck based. But difficulty doesn’t mean anything when your DLC is even EASIER than before! Not only is it as easy as previous releases, the game breaks have only gotten easier. A new item introduced, The Tarot Cloth, is a GAME WINNING item, and it’s pretty common at that. It doubles almost all consumables’ effectiveness. Ever wanted to have infinite money? Bam, Tarot Cloth + 2 of Diamonds, and you’ve broken the game. Or hell, Rune of Jera for the easiest game breaks in the world. Or get IV Bag and Restock for quite LITERALLY infinite money and items. Shit, you might as well remove the roguelike elements of Isaac at this point. And the actual content here? It is some of the most irritating bullshit you’ll ever find in roguelike history. The Void? GREEDIER MODE??? CHALLENGES?!?!?! ALL FUCKING TERRIBLE. I’ll be damned if I could find genuinely anything within the rough here, filled with rehashed and unfun content. I WISH I was joking, this DLC genuinely sucks and is a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire game’s DESIGN. Let's start off from the very top, with THE VOID!
EXHIBIT B: Look guys, it's the ultimate conclusion to Isaac’s story! For the first, erm, second... third... FOURTH, FOURTH TIME GUYS! Aren't you excited? And what's the ultimate final floor? What do you have to get in order to see the true ending of The Binding of Isaac? It's fucking random. Upon each Final boss kill, a small Void portal has a chance to appear. No items needed, nor skill involved. Off to a great start. And then you have the actual floor itself. It's a big, open floor, with 6 bosses each (one of which holds the final boss, Delirium), built off the backs of each individual floor already within the game. How fuuuuuuun… This is so fucking shameless. I'm not even fucking kidding. There's literally NO new enemies on this floor, aside from these weird ass portal things which… spew out other reused enem- 10 UNITED STATES DOLLARS EVERYBODY! It's so fucking LAZY. It just becomes so repetitive, traveling slowly between every floor, likely smiting anything in your path because of how strong you are, doubly more so if you dare to get Curse of the Lost and have no fucking map. And when you eventually, after 9 million years, find the final boss Delirium, you're in for an ass-blasting finale. Now, before I speak, let me just say that conceptually, Delirium is such a fucking cool fight on paper. AND he has a pretty banging design. Representing Isaac’s final dying delusions in a single boss is really interesting. But fuuuuck me if this fight isn’t annoying! Guess what Delirium is? Literally all of the bosses encountered in your past runs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!2!2!2! He transforms into each boss that you've encountered in prior runs, but now with a million bullets and twice as fast. Oh and get telefragged because fun and fair game design. Self admittedly, the boss isn't too bad to fight, in fact, it's kinda fun at points. But the fight itself is so creatively bankrupt and anti-climactic. When I think of the Repentance bosses, they all stick out in my mind because actually cool stuff happens leading up to them. In fact, there's borderline no storyline to this floor either. No rhyme nor reason. A Void just appears. Happens every Tuesday. And the contents within the floor barely correlate to the ending at all. Isaac dies… again? We get to see an argument between his Mom and Dad (not a new plot point but I digress), and then he dies. PLUS CAN'T EVEN INVENT NEW STORY! It's so funnily terrible at everything it does. And then Isaac walks into Purgatory? I was so confused when I got this ending. It’s not something I brought up, but almost every Isaac ending had correlated to the story, even a little bit. Even the one that was least connected to the story, the Hush ending, made sense because Blue Baby (dead Isaac) IS Hush. It’d make sense to show Isaac dead after that, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS! What does some Semen-esque Demon have to do with parents fighting? Sure, the actual floor connects with this, but not the ending! Yeah, I guess Isaac dying would be something that Delirium represents, but where the HELL did the parents’ arguments come into play at all? But in the end, does it matter? Because overall, the Void FUCKING SUCKS. It’s so ludo-narratively dissonant for its own good, and the gameplay is abysmal as the final chapter of The Binding of Isaac. Good music but 2/10. Moving on.
EXHIBIT C: Speaking of Voids, Apollyon, the new character! He starts with The Voi- It's the fucking D6. The Void absorbs items and gives you stats. Literally, in WHAT SCENARIO DO YOU NOT USE THE D6 WHEN YOU USE VOID??? Oh, it can absorb active items??? Okay??? Oh, no, that's some QUALITY 5 shit right there. Apollyon sucks and he is lame good character design tho 3/10.
EXHIBIT D: Greedier Mode. Need I say more? 0/10
Okay, but for real this time. Greedier Mode is commonly cited as one of the worst elements to Isaac as a whole. And this time, I actually agree. Hell, I even LIKED Greed Mode in the original. So what's so bad about Greedier?
First off, you have to donate 500 coins just to UNLOCK IT. That’s a big issue when it comes to game progression, as you won’t be able to even play Greedier even if you wanted to. Isaac has already let you play Hard Mode from the start, so I can’t see why Greedier had to be different here. Second of all, the mode itself fucking SUCKS. You get a poultry amount of money, barely enough to even SURVIVE, one extra wave spawns, and the timer is so sped up, oh my god, make it end please. Basic enemies also can be champions with no rewards for killing them. But hey, at least the Jam chance for the Donation Machine is decreased!!!! God. I am tired. And now the final boss has a second phase that lasts all of 2 seconds? Cool???
Exhibit E: Challenges. THIS is my breaking point. You might’ve thought Greedier was, or Delirium? No. The challenges in Rebirth and Afterbirth were fine, if a little short, and perhaps too easy. THE CHALLENGES IN AFTERBIRTH PLUS. They’re all TERRIBLE. EVERY SINGLE ONE HAS GIVEN ME FUCKING EPILEPSY. Pokey Mans and Pong are the only moderately okay ones, but the final 3 made me lose all hope for this game. April’s Fool: Everything has the wrong sprite and everything is the Bloat. We’re so funny, guys! It’s not like Spelunky, Nuclear Throne, and almost any roguelike is cooking us up on the market right now! Backasswards: Clear the game with 8-10 randomized items and do it backwards. Fun game de- LITERALLY JUST HOLD R UNTIL YOU GET A BROKEN ITEM COMBO!!! But, believe me folks. None of these compare to the worst challenge in the history of The Binding of Isaac. Do you wish to know the name? Well, here it is (barring the curse word).
ULTRA MOTHERFUCKING HARD. OH MY GOD. I have no idea what the entire developer team was on when creating this fucking challenge (or DLC in general!), but this is straight up poppycock. ALL CURSES ARE ENABLED, NO HEARTS SPAWN, AND EVERYTHING IS A CHAMPION!!! Do I even need to explain why this sucks? And guess what you get for completing ultimately one of the worst challenges in the game? A starting trinket. Uno. For Samson, which is a character you’ve probably 100%ed at this point. A SINGULAR FUCKING TRINKET. Not a cool ass item or anything for all of your troubles, like almost EVERY SINGLE ISAAC RELEASE HAS DONE AT THIS POINT, BUT NO! ONE FUCKING TRINKEY THAT SUCKS SHIT ANYWAYS. Hooray, I REALLY feel accomplished! This is a game that’s priced at $10, by the way? Could’ve fooled me!
At this point, what else is there to talk about? Victory Laps; runs that don’t even give you achievements during them? Or 100%, as unfun as the main game? Oh, guys, you gotta do everything with every character all over again. AND, as an additional fuck you, do 31 DAILY RUNS IN A FUCKING ROW. I AM NOT JOKING, AT LAUNCH, YOU HAD TO DO 31 FUCKING DAILY RUNS FOR A SINGULAR PILL. FUCK YOU! But yeah. Afterbirth Plus 100% SUCKS.
Before I close out this review, I wanted to mention the mod support, and zeusdeegoose policy. All products I review are reviewed as-is; mods are irrelevant to this discussion overall. Because if I did, basically every product I’ve review would be at least worth a 6/10; maybe higher. So that’s why I’ve neglected to mention it. But I will note that, while the mods for Afterbirth+ are cool, barring the numerous NSFW mods that have caused irreparable damage to the community (god, I hate you all), the mod scene for Afterbirth+ was limited by an incredibly shitty API. Not even Afterbirth+ could get mod support right, one of the main draws for the DLC in the FIRST PLACE! Later on, Repentance would release with these issues intact unfortunately, and modders had to REVERSE ENGINEER the entire game just to get an actually USEABLE API. What a shitshow, man...
Afterbirth+ is one of the worst expansions ever released, and I wholeheartedly stand by that. It’s unfun, recycled, unexciting content with absolutely nothing in it’s favor. Ultimately one of the worst releases I’ve seen, get it away from me, goodnight.
Or... was it? Well, announced before the release that the game would receive Booster Packs, small additions of content made by the community. What are my thoughts on these? Just as, if not more terrible than the base game. It’s just more items, and while some of these are pretty good, like Tech Zero, Mystery Gift, among others, the base game is still just as bad as before. Sure, The Forgotten is... cool, but other than that, there’s nothing. Delirium still sucks, Greedier Mode is still unfun bullshit, and overall, there’s still a major lack of content. But hey, at least they fixed the Dedication bullshit. God, what a joke. I have nothing else to add; Plus sucks, play Rebirth, Afterbirth, Antibirth, literally any other Isaac expansion instead instead, goodnight sweet prince, I’m out.
“The void inside cries / Consuming dissatisfied / Eating all alive ” - “Afterbirth Plus” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
This is my Shrek the Third.
Straight and to the point, this is the ONLY, and I mean ONLY time I genuinely do not have anything that is unambiguously positive to say regarding The Binding of Isaac. Rebirth is an INCREDIBLE game. Afterbirth was decent. Repentance is my FAVORITE game of ALL time. Flash was good. The Legend of Bumbo was also good (if unpolished at times). So that leaves ONE release, that flabbergasts the mind at how it costs 10 United States Dollars. That ONE stain on Isaac’s legacy that shan't be forgotten. That ONE DLC that’s more worthless than that 25 Lives bullshit in Sonic Lost World. THAT ONE DLC THAT IS...
Afterbirth+, also referred to as the worst fucking thing in existence by the overarching Isaac community, is easily the worst DLC I have ever played, and I mean that with no hyperbole, or anything of the sorts. It’s that BAD. There's almost NOTHING to be enjoyed here that couldn't be found within the previous, and infinitely more fun predecessors, and I highly recommend that literally skip over to Repentance.
EXHIBIT A: The new items are actually dogshit! There were about 70 new items in this DLC at launch, a poultry amount compared to the likes of Rebirth and Wrath of the Lamb, and almost all are terrible to boot. The most gimmicky, incompatible, Enter The Gungeon-tier bullshit you could ever imagine. The items are far too niche to be useful, and rarely synergize with the hundreds of previous items. Almost all provide little to no benefits to any run, or are just too finicky to be worth a damn. Remember the old-school D-Infinity? You know, the item that gave you a new dice each time you used it? That shit was so ass. Or Adrenaline? Which gives you more damage for each empty heart container? Or Greed’s Gullet? Or Large Zit? Or Brown Nugget? Or Shade? Sure, each DLC had it’s fair share of bad or niche items, but not to this level. And even if you got a bad item, it didn’t matter because they all SYNERGIZED. That’s the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT of The Binding of Isaac, and ensures that most of your runs are GOOD. But when your items border on no synergies, you lose a lit of your run’s overall potential. And the items themselves plainly suck, so what’s the point? Introducing too many bad items into the fray doesn’t make your DLC harder, it makes it more unfun and luck based. But difficulty doesn’t mean anything when your DLC is even EASIER than before! Not only is it as easy as previous releases, the game breaks have only gotten easier. A new item introduced, The Tarot Cloth, is a GAME WINNING item, and it’s pretty common at that. It doubles almost all consumables’ effectiveness. Ever wanted to have infinite money? Bam, Tarot Cloth + 2 of Diamonds, and you’ve broken the game. Or hell, Rune of Jera for the easiest game breaks in the world. Or get IV Bag and Restock for quite LITERALLY infinite money and items. Shit, you might as well remove the roguelike elements of Isaac at this point. And the actual content here? It is some of the most irritating bullshit you’ll ever find in roguelike history. The Void? GREEDIER MODE??? CHALLENGES?!?!?! ALL FUCKING TERRIBLE. I’ll be damned if I could find genuinely anything within the rough here, filled with rehashed and unfun content. I WISH I was joking, this DLC genuinely sucks and is a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire game’s DESIGN. Let's start off from the very top, with THE VOID!
EXHIBIT B: Look guys, it's the ultimate conclusion to Isaac’s story! For the first, erm, second... third... FOURTH, FOURTH TIME GUYS! Aren't you excited? And what's the ultimate final floor? What do you have to get in order to see the true ending of The Binding of Isaac? It's fucking random. Upon each Final boss kill, a small Void portal has a chance to appear. No items needed, nor skill involved. Off to a great start. And then you have the actual floor itself. It's a big, open floor, with 6 bosses each (one of which holds the final boss, Delirium), built off the backs of each individual floor already within the game. How fuuuuuuun… This is so fucking shameless. I'm not even fucking kidding. There's literally NO new enemies on this floor, aside from these weird ass portal things which… spew out other reused enem- 10 UNITED STATES DOLLARS EVERYBODY! It's so fucking LAZY. It just becomes so repetitive, traveling slowly between every floor, likely smiting anything in your path because of how strong you are, doubly more so if you dare to get Curse of the Lost and have no fucking map. And when you eventually, after 9 million years, find the final boss Delirium, you're in for an ass-blasting finale. Now, before I speak, let me just say that conceptually, Delirium is such a fucking cool fight on paper. AND he has a pretty banging design. Representing Isaac’s final dying delusions in a single boss is really interesting. But fuuuuck me if this fight isn’t annoying! Guess what Delirium is? Literally all of the bosses encountered in your past runs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!2!2!2! He transforms into each boss that you've encountered in prior runs, but now with a million bullets and twice as fast. Oh and get telefragged because fun and fair game design. Self admittedly, the boss isn't too bad to fight, in fact, it's kinda fun at points. But the fight itself is so creatively bankrupt and anti-climactic. When I think of the Repentance bosses, they all stick out in my mind because actually cool stuff happens leading up to them. In fact, there's borderline no storyline to this floor either. No rhyme nor reason. A Void just appears. Happens every Tuesday. And the contents within the floor barely correlate to the ending at all. Isaac dies… again? We get to see an argument between his Mom and Dad (not a new plot point but I digress), and then he dies. PLUS CAN'T EVEN INVENT NEW STORY! It's so funnily terrible at everything it does. And then Isaac walks into Purgatory? I was so confused when I got this ending. It’s not something I brought up, but almost every Isaac ending had correlated to the story, even a little bit. Even the one that was least connected to the story, the Hush ending, made sense because Blue Baby (dead Isaac) IS Hush. It’d make sense to show Isaac dead after that, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS! What does some Semen-esque Demon have to do with parents fighting? Sure, the actual floor connects with this, but not the ending! Yeah, I guess Isaac dying would be something that Delirium represents, but where the HELL did the parents’ arguments come into play at all? But in the end, does it matter? Because overall, the Void FUCKING SUCKS. It’s so ludo-narratively dissonant for its own good, and the gameplay is abysmal as the final chapter of The Binding of Isaac. Good music but 2/10. Moving on.
EXHIBIT C: Speaking of Voids, Apollyon, the new character! He starts with The Voi- It's the fucking D6. The Void absorbs items and gives you stats. Literally, in WHAT SCENARIO DO YOU NOT USE THE D6 WHEN YOU USE VOID??? Oh, it can absorb active items??? Okay??? Oh, no, that's some QUALITY 5 shit right there. Apollyon sucks and he is lame good character design tho 3/10.
EXHIBIT D: Greedier Mode. Need I say more? 0/10
Okay, but for real this time. Greedier Mode is commonly cited as one of the worst elements to Isaac as a whole. And this time, I actually agree. Hell, I even LIKED Greed Mode in the original. So what's so bad about Greedier?
First off, you have to donate 500 coins just to UNLOCK IT. That’s a big issue when it comes to game progression, as you won’t be able to even play Greedier even if you wanted to. Isaac has already let you play Hard Mode from the start, so I can’t see why Greedier had to be different here. Second of all, the mode itself fucking SUCKS. You get a poultry amount of money, barely enough to even SURVIVE, one extra wave spawns, and the timer is so sped up, oh my god, make it end please. Basic enemies also can be champions with no rewards for killing them. But hey, at least the Jam chance for the Donation Machine is decreased!!!! God. I am tired. And now the final boss has a second phase that lasts all of 2 seconds? Cool???
Exhibit E: Challenges. THIS is my breaking point. You might’ve thought Greedier was, or Delirium? No. The challenges in Rebirth and Afterbirth were fine, if a little short, and perhaps too easy. THE CHALLENGES IN AFTERBIRTH PLUS. They’re all TERRIBLE. EVERY SINGLE ONE HAS GIVEN ME FUCKING EPILEPSY. Pokey Mans and Pong are the only moderately okay ones, but the final 3 made me lose all hope for this game. April’s Fool: Everything has the wrong sprite and everything is the Bloat. We’re so funny, guys! It’s not like Spelunky, Nuclear Throne, and almost any roguelike is cooking us up on the market right now! Backasswards: Clear the game with 8-10 randomized items and do it backwards. Fun game de- LITERALLY JUST HOLD R UNTIL YOU GET A BROKEN ITEM COMBO!!! But, believe me folks. None of these compare to the worst challenge in the history of The Binding of Isaac. Do you wish to know the name? Well, here it is (barring the curse word).
ULTRA MOTHERFUCKING HARD. OH MY GOD. I have no idea what the entire developer team was on when creating this fucking challenge (or DLC in general!), but this is straight up poppycock. ALL CURSES ARE ENABLED, NO HEARTS SPAWN, AND EVERYTHING IS A CHAMPION!!! Do I even need to explain why this sucks? And guess what you get for completing ultimately one of the worst challenges in the game? A starting trinket. Uno. For Samson, which is a character you’ve probably 100%ed at this point. A SINGULAR FUCKING TRINKET. Not a cool ass item or anything for all of your troubles, like almost EVERY SINGLE ISAAC RELEASE HAS DONE AT THIS POINT, BUT NO! ONE FUCKING TRINKEY THAT SUCKS SHIT ANYWAYS. Hooray, I REALLY feel accomplished! This is a game that’s priced at $10, by the way? Could’ve fooled me!
At this point, what else is there to talk about? Victory Laps; runs that don’t even give you achievements during them? Or 100%, as unfun as the main game? Oh, guys, you gotta do everything with every character all over again. AND, as an additional fuck you, do 31 DAILY RUNS IN A FUCKING ROW. I AM NOT JOKING, AT LAUNCH, YOU HAD TO DO 31 FUCKING DAILY RUNS FOR A SINGULAR PILL. FUCK YOU! But yeah. Afterbirth Plus 100% SUCKS.
Before I close out this review, I wanted to mention the mod support, and zeusdeegoose policy. All products I review are reviewed as-is; mods are irrelevant to this discussion overall. Because if I did, basically every product I’ve review would be at least worth a 6/10; maybe higher. So that’s why I’ve neglected to mention it. But I will note that, while the mods for Afterbirth+ are cool, barring the numerous NSFW mods that have caused irreparable damage to the community (god, I hate you all), the mod scene for Afterbirth+ was limited by an incredibly shitty API. Not even Afterbirth+ could get mod support right, one of the main draws for the DLC in the FIRST PLACE! Later on, Repentance would release with these issues intact unfortunately, and modders had to REVERSE ENGINEER the entire game just to get an actually USEABLE API. What a shitshow, man...
Afterbirth+ is one of the worst expansions ever released, and I wholeheartedly stand by that. It’s unfun, recycled, unexciting content with absolutely nothing in it’s favor. Ultimately one of the worst releases I’ve seen, get it away from me, goodnight.
Or... was it? Well, announced before the release that the game would receive Booster Packs, small additions of content made by the community. What are my thoughts on these? Just as, if not more terrible than the base game. It’s just more items, and while some of these are pretty good, like Tech Zero, Mystery Gift, among others, the base game is still just as bad as before. Sure, The Forgotten is... cool, but other than that, there’s nothing. Delirium still sucks, Greedier Mode is still unfun bullshit, and overall, there’s still a major lack of content. But hey, at least they fixed the Dedication bullshit. God, what a joke. I have nothing else to add; Plus sucks, play Rebirth, Afterbirth, Antibirth, literally any other Isaac expansion instead instead, goodnight sweet prince, I’m out.
“The void inside cries / Consuming dissatisfied / Eating all alive ” - “Afterbirth Plus” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
This review contains spoilers
THE BINDING OF ISAAC WARP ZONE: S H A R D S O F I S A A C
When Rebirth released, it was clear that it was a smash hit. So of COURSE they would capitalize on Rebirth’s success. For the record, I've never played Afterbirth standalone until this review. It’s a good DLC, no doubt, but the quality difference between Rebirth and Afterbirth is a bit apparent. Rebirth is an incredible game, but Afterbirth is just a good one. It doesn’t really change the formula at all, instead adding more to the core gameplay, which is totally fine as Rebirth is essentially a perfect game in my eyes. So, let’s hop into the Basement once more, shall we?
Okay, right off the bat, Afterbirth sports some improvements over Rebirth. Numerous items have been altered, usually for the better. Numerous items, including Dr Fetus and Bob’s Rotten Head have scaling damage now, an inarguable improvement overall. Lost Contact now allows familiars to block shots as well. Numerous items can be stacked now, like Mom’s Knife shooting two knives. Head of Krampus now rotates occasionally. That’s sort of annoying, but I’ll take it. Flush now one-shots all Poop-based bosses, neat. Most importantly, a lot of new synergies have been added to the mix, most notably to Dr. Fetus and Brimstone. But, arguably, the most important rework; Troll Bombs now explode at random intervals, fuck you. Jokes aside, Afterbirth added a whole lot of tweaks to improve the gameplay of Rebirth, which is pretty nice to say the least. Sacrifice rooms are actually good now, there’s a fuck ton of new room layouts, and now if you’ve unlocked It Lives, a Deal door on Womb 2 now actually has a deal! It’s a lot of minute shit, but hey, it’s nice to see. The two major additions of this expansion come in an entirely new game mode, and also an addition to the already existing campaign. We’ll cover the latter first.
By killing Mom’s Heart in under 30 minutes, you gain access to the... Blue Womb? It’s not a major floor, which is a bit of a shame. It has 2 treasure rooms, a shop, and the Boss door, which houses... Hush. Hush... is in a weird spot. I don’t hate him all too much, but I don’t really like him that much, either. First off, you start off with a Blue Baby fight, and then after he dies... the real Hush spawns? Okay... He shoots a million bullets, which are decently difficult to dodge. God, when does this boss end? He has so much HP! And now he’s attacking really fas- oh, and I died. Okay... Hush has had an issue since Afterbirth that makes him ridiculously fast if he gets to 50% HP, and while it doesn’t make the fight impossible by a long shot, it does make the fight occasionally irritating. When you get a continuum attack combined with his eye lasers, be prepared to take damage, because I 100%, zeusdeegoose guarantee you that it will happen. Aside from that, the fight is okay I suppose. It takes a little long... Actually now that I think about it, Mega Satan takes a little longer now. What’s up with that? Well, this is called “Boss Armor”, a mechanic introduced in Afterbirth which aims to make fights more challenging for those who have higher DPS in a single run. Depending on your DPS (and actual damage stat), about 9% of your attack’s original damage can get cut to compensate for you higher damage. It’s a bit of a dilemma. Sure, it levels the playing field for those who have slightly less than desirable runs, but on the other hand, it doesn’t really make bosses “harder”. In the end, it’s not really something to knock against the game since it really doesn’t affect you too much in the long term, but it is something that I should note here. Hush is kind of disappointing, but he’s a harmless side addition to runs. Once you kill him at least once, you get an ending which depicts Isaac dying once more in the Chest, and then seeing his new life in Purgatory. After that, we see his Mom opening the Chest, only to find his skeleton. The ending is skipped on subsequent runs, and instead lets you go to the Cathedral or Sheol, just like in a regular Womb run. I really wish that the Blue Womb was a full floor, like almost every other end-game floor. In the files, there’s actually some enemies that go totally unused in the game, which is a shame. Having a big, open floor with a bunch of enemies to kill before you fight a boss would be cool. But as is, it’s just fine. Hey, at least you get 2 extra items for doing it! So... what else is going on in Afterbirth?
Well, the Basement also received some new renovations! Introducing, the Burning Basement, Flooded Caves, the Dankest Depths, and the Scarred Womb. These aren’t wholly new floors, but they attempt to change the fundamental designs of each floor, somewhat akin to curses. For example, the Burning Basement focuses on grounded enemies, rather than flying enemies. The levels have entirely new aesthetics and enemies, and I really like what they did here. All of the remixes slap HARD. Kave Diluvii is among my favorite tracks in the game. It’s pretty groovy and relaxed compared to the normal Caves track. Afterbirth’s soundtrack meets the bar of Rebirth’s, and fits in perfectly with the older tracks. Great stuff overall. Speaking of Basement renovations, there’s new room layouts!!! Uh... New achievements... Shit... Looks like we have to talk about the elephant in the room, right?
Greed Mode is a bit of a controversial game mode. Many dislike it, and believe it’s removal would be a net positive. Perhaps my spiciest take on this site, Greed Mode... is actually really fun! Yeah, it can get repetitive, and it does have it’s issues, but I think it’s a solid alternative to the main game. Essentially, you’re in a large ass arena, with a treasure room, boss pool item, and a curse room. You collect coins for each round you pass, and you spend them in a shop which holds various infinitely respawning pickups, and also items and trinkets. What I like about Greed Mode is that they try to keep the original Isaac spirit in-tact. Not only is there still secret rooms and the like, you can still earn deals. Whilst deals are no longer earned from no-hitting floors, as that’d be far too difficult, instead, you have to clear an additional round of harder bosses, which is a solid tradeoff. In fact, compared to the regular modes, Greed mode promotes defensive builds. Angel deals are EXTREMELY overpowered in Greed Mode, because you can get tons of more items thanks to the guaranteed chance. And since Angel deals tend to give more HP, Devil Deals are essentially irrelevant. Hell, even Devil Deals got NERFED. Now they have a bunch of... out of place items? Seriously, why is Technology here? Good item, but why is it here? And since red HP infinitely restocks in the shop, and are cheaper than soul hearts, why would you even go for a soul heart build? As I was making my way down, I noticed something odd. There’s 2 new floors, the Shop and... Ultra Greed? Shop is your typical Greed Mode floor, minus the treasure room and Boss item room; a weird omission but I’ll allow it. And then, Ultra Greed, the final floor... is seriously awesome! First off, you fight Regular Greed and a few other bosses, most of which you’ll clap within seconds, but Ultra Greed is the main attraction. He’s a fast and dynamic fight, spinning around, throwing hundreds of projectiles at you, and the slot machine attack always forces you to move across the arena, lest he gain a gajillion enemies to fight for him, or even heal. Also, this fucking song. It’s probably one of my favorite fights in the game, if I’m being honest. But once you kill him, he drops a Greed Donation Machine, and you can all tell where this is going. Yep, you gotta fill it all up for 100%. And don’t be so hasty with your spending in previous floors. Greed Mode challenges you to deliberately take less items in order to get more cool ass unlocks. Risk vs Reward, anybody? I would praise Greed Mode if it weren’t for one, small issue. The game crashed whenever I got to 109 coins in the Donation Machine. Yeah, I have no idea why, but they fixed it now. At least I can earn the new unlocks in Greed Mode. It’s pretty standard for the most part. Eve holds the Razor, nickel shopkeep- THE LOST HOLDS MANTLE NOW??? 10/10 DLC, BUY NOW. Wait a second, when did they fix this? 109 hours after Afterbirth’s release? Perhaps it’s a coincidence, or maybe they’re poking fun at themselves. What else is there in this DLC... Oh! What about the improved collection page introduced in Afterb- Wait, what about the 109th item? It’s Money = Power, that’s been in Rebirth for a while now. Maybe I’ll check over it one last time. “Where are you”? Wait... The Lost earns the Holy Mantle? He was datamined, right? How many hours after release? 109?! No... this can’t be! A NEW CHARACTER???
Yes folks, you heard me right. An ARG took place spanning the course of over a month after Afterbirth’s release, involving phone calls to numbers with pre recorded voicemails, to discovering Imgur links by converting Achievement text to ASCII code, to finding a Twitter account with a password by digging up a mini-statue with the account name and the password with it. THAT is fucking dedication right there, and really shows that they cared about Afterbirth’s release. But... who’s this new guy? Or, before I get ahead of myself, who’s this new girl? Lilith, unlocked by slaying Ultra Greed as Azazel, is a very familiar-centric character, who can’t shoot tears, but instead fights with an Incubus. She also starts with Box of Friends, which doubles all of her Familiars. Aaaand, that’s it! She’s not a terribly deep character to play. You essentially double your damage each time you use Box of Friends, and that’s it. Fighting with the familiar can be pretty disorienting at times, and exploding tears may as well be a death wish for those who dare pick them up with Lilith. If you unironically grab Dr. Fetus with Lilith, you are a US Marine, my friend. But, other than that, she’s decently fun. Anyways, the main attraction. The motherfucking KEEPER. Keeper is the Rebirth Lost of Afterbirth. The bottom-tier bitch that everyone hates to play as, except the Isaac die-hards who suck Edmund off daily. The Keeper has 2 “coin hearts'' and cannot gain anymore (he only heals with coins), which counts as red heart damage, meaning you cannot get hit for deals, and he has shit stats, but at least he has a triple shot. Yeah, he fucking sucks, Obviously. But the only reason I’m not raging out of my ass is that he holds the Wooden Nickel at a certain point, an activated item that has a 50/50 chance to drop a coin. The sad part is that he also has some pretty bad unlocks, meaning there’s no reason to play as him, discounting 100%. Sure, Deep Pockets is okay I suppose, and got a little better in Repentance, but the rest are kind of duds, and Sticky Nickels are effectively a downgrade. And of course, you have to do all of his marks in Hard Mode for 100%, as well as all of the other character’s marks. Now you have to do Hush, Ultra Greed, and now Mega Satan, from Rebirth. And hey, now once you get all of a character’s marks, you get a secret! Aside from the usual “pick up every item”, “do every challenge” stick, Afterbirth 100% is pretty relaxed compared to Rebirth. There aren't many achievements which you'll need a guide to get; in fact, the only miscellaneous achievement is Blinding Baby, which requires you to use Blank Card with The Sun. Sure, The Keeper may suck the biggest dildo imaginable, but other than that, this isn't too hard! In fact, they made some achievements easier, such as The Lost's unlocks, and getting Super Meat Boy and Bandage Girl! In fact, it's kind of… too easy? Now that The Lost is free-er than oxygen, not much stands between you and 100%. Keeper is mildly annoying, but if you can kill Hush as The Lost, you can definitely do it as The Keeper. Some challenges can be hellish, like Brains, but it's far from difficult. I'm surprised that they didn't double down on the difficulty, but eh, nitpicks, nitpicks. And with that, 100% in Afterbirth is finally ACHIEVED! Oh, yeah, 1001%! And the game called me a nerd, fuck you.
Afterbirth isn't as good as what came before it, that being Rebirth, but I think it was still a solid update to a phenomenal game overall. Sure, it might not be as groundbreaking as said predecessor, but treading new grounds wasn’t needed as Rebirth was already a damn good game to begin with. Afterbirth could only really add to said greatness, and I think that it works overall. Still as addictive as ever, and a pretty fun video game. But there’s one question that lays within everyone’s minds. What happens after a postpartum? A… postpartum… Plus… oh, I am in hell.
“The Keeper of fate / Greed overwhelms, grasps the helm / Much wealth harms the health” - “Afterbirth” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
When Rebirth released, it was clear that it was a smash hit. So of COURSE they would capitalize on Rebirth’s success. For the record, I've never played Afterbirth standalone until this review. It’s a good DLC, no doubt, but the quality difference between Rebirth and Afterbirth is a bit apparent. Rebirth is an incredible game, but Afterbirth is just a good one. It doesn’t really change the formula at all, instead adding more to the core gameplay, which is totally fine as Rebirth is essentially a perfect game in my eyes. So, let’s hop into the Basement once more, shall we?
Okay, right off the bat, Afterbirth sports some improvements over Rebirth. Numerous items have been altered, usually for the better. Numerous items, including Dr Fetus and Bob’s Rotten Head have scaling damage now, an inarguable improvement overall. Lost Contact now allows familiars to block shots as well. Numerous items can be stacked now, like Mom’s Knife shooting two knives. Head of Krampus now rotates occasionally. That’s sort of annoying, but I’ll take it. Flush now one-shots all Poop-based bosses, neat. Most importantly, a lot of new synergies have been added to the mix, most notably to Dr. Fetus and Brimstone. But, arguably, the most important rework; Troll Bombs now explode at random intervals, fuck you. Jokes aside, Afterbirth added a whole lot of tweaks to improve the gameplay of Rebirth, which is pretty nice to say the least. Sacrifice rooms are actually good now, there’s a fuck ton of new room layouts, and now if you’ve unlocked It Lives, a Deal door on Womb 2 now actually has a deal! It’s a lot of minute shit, but hey, it’s nice to see. The two major additions of this expansion come in an entirely new game mode, and also an addition to the already existing campaign. We’ll cover the latter first.
By killing Mom’s Heart in under 30 minutes, you gain access to the... Blue Womb? It’s not a major floor, which is a bit of a shame. It has 2 treasure rooms, a shop, and the Boss door, which houses... Hush. Hush... is in a weird spot. I don’t hate him all too much, but I don’t really like him that much, either. First off, you start off with a Blue Baby fight, and then after he dies... the real Hush spawns? Okay... He shoots a million bullets, which are decently difficult to dodge. God, when does this boss end? He has so much HP! And now he’s attacking really fas- oh, and I died. Okay... Hush has had an issue since Afterbirth that makes him ridiculously fast if he gets to 50% HP, and while it doesn’t make the fight impossible by a long shot, it does make the fight occasionally irritating. When you get a continuum attack combined with his eye lasers, be prepared to take damage, because I 100%, zeusdeegoose guarantee you that it will happen. Aside from that, the fight is okay I suppose. It takes a little long... Actually now that I think about it, Mega Satan takes a little longer now. What’s up with that? Well, this is called “Boss Armor”, a mechanic introduced in Afterbirth which aims to make fights more challenging for those who have higher DPS in a single run. Depending on your DPS (and actual damage stat), about 9% of your attack’s original damage can get cut to compensate for you higher damage. It’s a bit of a dilemma. Sure, it levels the playing field for those who have slightly less than desirable runs, but on the other hand, it doesn’t really make bosses “harder”. In the end, it’s not really something to knock against the game since it really doesn’t affect you too much in the long term, but it is something that I should note here. Hush is kind of disappointing, but he’s a harmless side addition to runs. Once you kill him at least once, you get an ending which depicts Isaac dying once more in the Chest, and then seeing his new life in Purgatory. After that, we see his Mom opening the Chest, only to find his skeleton. The ending is skipped on subsequent runs, and instead lets you go to the Cathedral or Sheol, just like in a regular Womb run. I really wish that the Blue Womb was a full floor, like almost every other end-game floor. In the files, there’s actually some enemies that go totally unused in the game, which is a shame. Having a big, open floor with a bunch of enemies to kill before you fight a boss would be cool. But as is, it’s just fine. Hey, at least you get 2 extra items for doing it! So... what else is going on in Afterbirth?
Well, the Basement also received some new renovations! Introducing, the Burning Basement, Flooded Caves, the Dankest Depths, and the Scarred Womb. These aren’t wholly new floors, but they attempt to change the fundamental designs of each floor, somewhat akin to curses. For example, the Burning Basement focuses on grounded enemies, rather than flying enemies. The levels have entirely new aesthetics and enemies, and I really like what they did here. All of the remixes slap HARD. Kave Diluvii is among my favorite tracks in the game. It’s pretty groovy and relaxed compared to the normal Caves track. Afterbirth’s soundtrack meets the bar of Rebirth’s, and fits in perfectly with the older tracks. Great stuff overall. Speaking of Basement renovations, there’s new room layouts!!! Uh... New achievements... Shit... Looks like we have to talk about the elephant in the room, right?
Greed Mode is a bit of a controversial game mode. Many dislike it, and believe it’s removal would be a net positive. Perhaps my spiciest take on this site, Greed Mode... is actually really fun! Yeah, it can get repetitive, and it does have it’s issues, but I think it’s a solid alternative to the main game. Essentially, you’re in a large ass arena, with a treasure room, boss pool item, and a curse room. You collect coins for each round you pass, and you spend them in a shop which holds various infinitely respawning pickups, and also items and trinkets. What I like about Greed Mode is that they try to keep the original Isaac spirit in-tact. Not only is there still secret rooms and the like, you can still earn deals. Whilst deals are no longer earned from no-hitting floors, as that’d be far too difficult, instead, you have to clear an additional round of harder bosses, which is a solid tradeoff. In fact, compared to the regular modes, Greed mode promotes defensive builds. Angel deals are EXTREMELY overpowered in Greed Mode, because you can get tons of more items thanks to the guaranteed chance. And since Angel deals tend to give more HP, Devil Deals are essentially irrelevant. Hell, even Devil Deals got NERFED. Now they have a bunch of... out of place items? Seriously, why is Technology here? Good item, but why is it here? And since red HP infinitely restocks in the shop, and are cheaper than soul hearts, why would you even go for a soul heart build? As I was making my way down, I noticed something odd. There’s 2 new floors, the Shop and... Ultra Greed? Shop is your typical Greed Mode floor, minus the treasure room and Boss item room; a weird omission but I’ll allow it. And then, Ultra Greed, the final floor... is seriously awesome! First off, you fight Regular Greed and a few other bosses, most of which you’ll clap within seconds, but Ultra Greed is the main attraction. He’s a fast and dynamic fight, spinning around, throwing hundreds of projectiles at you, and the slot machine attack always forces you to move across the arena, lest he gain a gajillion enemies to fight for him, or even heal. Also, this fucking song. It’s probably one of my favorite fights in the game, if I’m being honest. But once you kill him, he drops a Greed Donation Machine, and you can all tell where this is going. Yep, you gotta fill it all up for 100%. And don’t be so hasty with your spending in previous floors. Greed Mode challenges you to deliberately take less items in order to get more cool ass unlocks. Risk vs Reward, anybody? I would praise Greed Mode if it weren’t for one, small issue. The game crashed whenever I got to 109 coins in the Donation Machine. Yeah, I have no idea why, but they fixed it now. At least I can earn the new unlocks in Greed Mode. It’s pretty standard for the most part. Eve holds the Razor, nickel shopkeep- THE LOST HOLDS MANTLE NOW??? 10/10 DLC, BUY NOW. Wait a second, when did they fix this? 109 hours after Afterbirth’s release? Perhaps it’s a coincidence, or maybe they’re poking fun at themselves. What else is there in this DLC... Oh! What about the improved collection page introduced in Afterb- Wait, what about the 109th item? It’s Money = Power, that’s been in Rebirth for a while now. Maybe I’ll check over it one last time. “Where are you”? Wait... The Lost earns the Holy Mantle? He was datamined, right? How many hours after release? 109?! No... this can’t be! A NEW CHARACTER???
Yes folks, you heard me right. An ARG took place spanning the course of over a month after Afterbirth’s release, involving phone calls to numbers with pre recorded voicemails, to discovering Imgur links by converting Achievement text to ASCII code, to finding a Twitter account with a password by digging up a mini-statue with the account name and the password with it. THAT is fucking dedication right there, and really shows that they cared about Afterbirth’s release. But... who’s this new guy? Or, before I get ahead of myself, who’s this new girl? Lilith, unlocked by slaying Ultra Greed as Azazel, is a very familiar-centric character, who can’t shoot tears, but instead fights with an Incubus. She also starts with Box of Friends, which doubles all of her Familiars. Aaaand, that’s it! She’s not a terribly deep character to play. You essentially double your damage each time you use Box of Friends, and that’s it. Fighting with the familiar can be pretty disorienting at times, and exploding tears may as well be a death wish for those who dare pick them up with Lilith. If you unironically grab Dr. Fetus with Lilith, you are a US Marine, my friend. But, other than that, she’s decently fun. Anyways, the main attraction. The motherfucking KEEPER. Keeper is the Rebirth Lost of Afterbirth. The bottom-tier bitch that everyone hates to play as, except the Isaac die-hards who suck Edmund off daily. The Keeper has 2 “coin hearts'' and cannot gain anymore (he only heals with coins), which counts as red heart damage, meaning you cannot get hit for deals, and he has shit stats, but at least he has a triple shot. Yeah, he fucking sucks, Obviously. But the only reason I’m not raging out of my ass is that he holds the Wooden Nickel at a certain point, an activated item that has a 50/50 chance to drop a coin. The sad part is that he also has some pretty bad unlocks, meaning there’s no reason to play as him, discounting 100%. Sure, Deep Pockets is okay I suppose, and got a little better in Repentance, but the rest are kind of duds, and Sticky Nickels are effectively a downgrade. And of course, you have to do all of his marks in Hard Mode for 100%, as well as all of the other character’s marks. Now you have to do Hush, Ultra Greed, and now Mega Satan, from Rebirth. And hey, now once you get all of a character’s marks, you get a secret! Aside from the usual “pick up every item”, “do every challenge” stick, Afterbirth 100% is pretty relaxed compared to Rebirth. There aren't many achievements which you'll need a guide to get; in fact, the only miscellaneous achievement is Blinding Baby, which requires you to use Blank Card with The Sun. Sure, The Keeper may suck the biggest dildo imaginable, but other than that, this isn't too hard! In fact, they made some achievements easier, such as The Lost's unlocks, and getting Super Meat Boy and Bandage Girl! In fact, it's kind of… too easy? Now that The Lost is free-er than oxygen, not much stands between you and 100%. Keeper is mildly annoying, but if you can kill Hush as The Lost, you can definitely do it as The Keeper. Some challenges can be hellish, like Brains, but it's far from difficult. I'm surprised that they didn't double down on the difficulty, but eh, nitpicks, nitpicks. And with that, 100% in Afterbirth is finally ACHIEVED! Oh, yeah, 1001%! And the game called me a nerd, fuck you.
Afterbirth isn't as good as what came before it, that being Rebirth, but I think it was still a solid update to a phenomenal game overall. Sure, it might not be as groundbreaking as said predecessor, but treading new grounds wasn’t needed as Rebirth was already a damn good game to begin with. Afterbirth could only really add to said greatness, and I think that it works overall. Still as addictive as ever, and a pretty fun video game. But there’s one question that lays within everyone’s minds. What happens after a postpartum? A… postpartum… Plus… oh, I am in hell.
“The Keeper of fate / Greed overwhelms, grasps the helm / Much wealth harms the health” - “Afterbirth” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
2023
DestroyerOfMid is foaming at the mouth rn
This review contains spoilers
THE BINDING OF ISAAC WARP ZONE: S H A R D S O F I S A A C
EDIT: Slight change to Eden character description. 💖💖💖
It might be pretentious of me to call Rebirth the perfect game. Keyword, might.
But uhhh, it's time for what the entirety of ZeusDeeGoose has been building up to. From shitposts to seemingly endless reviews, here is the review to end all reviews. The K.O. punch, the Industry Baby, here IS…
The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is my favorite game of all time. Bar none. I’ve always pushed the game as amazing, but never really put pen to paper on why it’s so incredible. I’ve known about Rebirth since around 2015, where it was finally put on the 3DS eShop. It looked so... interesting. The cover art had captured my attention like no other. The crying child, the monsters, the... tentacles? It perplexed me in no way any other game has done before, but it was love at first sight. So I immediately clicked on it. I wanted to experience what this game had to offer, and I was ready to buy a New 3DS just to experience it. Before getting cock-blocked by the parental controls, but whatever. 8 years later, New 3DS in tow, nearing the end of the 3DS eShop as a whole (rest in peace), I played Rebirth on the good old New 3DS, and I really did like it, and then I rebought the game (alongside the original), and all of the DLC for both versions, and I was almost instantly hooked for a year straight. Needless to say, I love The Binding of Isaac as a whole. If you know me, I’ve praised The Binding of Isaac to kingdom come, using it as a point of reference for the bar of quality most games should strive for, especially indie games. Any person I meet? Play The Binding of Isaac. Any game recommendations? The Binding of Isaac. I was talking to a security guard at Washington DC, and asked him if he had played any games, and he said he plays Battlefield, and I roughly responded with “PLAY THE BINDING OF ISAAC!”, taking hyper fixations to the next level. And, of course, on that trip I brought my New 3DS to Washington DC, JUST to play The Binding of Isaac, although I dabbled in Mario Kart 7 with some friends. Any time we were on the bus, I’d pop open my 3DS just to play it. I’m pretty sure my friends got tired of the buh-duh... duh-duh-duh-duhduhduh each time I started a new run, but we all enjoyed the trip. I almost beat the entire game on that trip, but unfortunately couldn’t kill Mega Satan in time. Awwwww. But on the night I got home I killed him. It was 3AM in the morning, but I fucking did it.
But, enough about the DC trip, what about the game itself? If you’re not familiar with Rebirth or the original, fear not, as coming into Isaac Rebirth, I had no idea what roguelikes even played like, other than the fact that they were randomized, but also featured permanent death. It was a bit… overwhelming to me? Losing all of my progress didn't seem all that fun to me, as I had played Minecraft previously and found its dropping inventory to be discouraging, and thought Isaac Rebirth would be the same. But, needless to say, my opinion changed pretty quickly on Rebirth, and roguelikes as a whole. Some of my favorite video games are roguelikes, but without my prior exposure to Rebirth, I don't think I would've been as receptive to the genre. And why is that, you may ask? I’m going to explain almost everything that makes the game a masterpiece of a roguelike like no other (sorry, Rogue), DLC by DLC, in-depth, zeusdeegoose style! I’ll also be covering the smaller games in the series, like the original, and the spinoff, The Legend of Bum-bo. I’ve never played Four Souls before, so that’ll be excluded from this short series.
The order will be as follows: Rebirth, Afterbirth, Afterbirth Plus, The Legend of Bum-bo, 2011, Wrath of the Lamb, and finally, Repentance.
The order may seem off to some, considering how Repentance is last in line, but it’s for good reason, trust me. You geese will be eating well tonight! (i'm so sorry)
I’m also spoiling the game rotten, because if you haven’t played the game yet, I strongly suggest going in completely and utterly blind. That’s how I did it, and I feel like having a wiki beside me would’ve ruined a lot of the fun. That’s what I do when going into almost any roguelike, but it matters most here since that’s a majority of the game; discovery. Discovering what each item does, all of the synergies it has, and the context in between each item. It’s a fun process that adds a lot of mystery and suspense to even the littlest of item pickups, and I cannot help but feel it’s too easily lost for newer players. EID is cool and all, but I think I’d recommend saving it, at least until the post-game. It’s your game, and the only stipulation for mods is lacking achievements until you kill Mom, but I still think the game is better experienced without EID for the first time, as finding what each item does is satisfying in it of itself. But if you do use EID, I won’t stop you from enjoying the game as you please. But, with all of that being said, it’s time to explore the Basement, and find the treasure trove that is this review! This is my full, 100%, complete review of The Binding of Isaac Rebirth! Presented proudly by ZeusDeeGoose (& co.).
Content warning for The Binding of Isaac's story contents: Brief mentions of Suicide and Self-harm, Heavy references towards Abuse and Religious discussion
I usually never cover the stories of games in any of my reviews, and usually it’s because they don’t have any impact on the overall score. Not to say that I don’t care for them, but The Binding of Isaac perfectly intertwines gameplay and story, like no other game I’ve seen. It’s like FNAF if it actually had good storytelling!!! Half kidding, but with that being said, like FNAF, The Binding of Isaac is a heavily disconnected narrative, open to various interpretations and ideas. Almost every item connects to the story in every way, and little hints are given throughout each subsequent run victory, and each unlock to paint a grim, yet realistic storyline, despite the less-than-realistic gameplay within the game itself. What I also enjoy about the storytelling is that each release of a major expansion added to the story in a meaningful way, but also stands on their own as cohesive stories. The later endings in some of the future DLCs are a little too blatant for my tastes, but we’ll get to that later.
If you’ve heard anything about The Binding of Isaac, you’ve absolutely heard about the story in some way, shape or form. Not only for how batshit it is initially, but how depressing it eventually gets. The gist of what the game tells you is that “isaac mom watch bible bwoadcasts on tv and went a little nuts thanks to a voice from above and wants to re-enact the binding of isaac but isaac jumps into a trapdoor”, but eventually transforms into “Isaac commits suicide by suffocating in a Chest because he simply couldn’t take it anymore. The End.” The reason why is because the initial story is from Isaac’s perspective, but as he slowly dies, he eventually has to face reality, and what happens after he dies, as he feels as if he’s a sinner. There is no “good ending”. Isaac will always die, no matter what. And that's what I really liked about it. Not every story needs a happy ending (and especially in a story that discusses child abuse and beliefs being used as a false justification for said abuse). But I don’t think that the point of the game’s story is that religion is necessarily bad. It’s that using religion as something to punish someone is immoral, nor should we shame those who chose to not partake in religion, and rather unfortunately, that fact is frequently ignored in our world. This game helped me be more comfortable about my own religious beliefs. As someone who has struggled over their religion as of recent, I felt so validated by Isaac’s struggles. Although I wouldn’t consider myself an atheist, I’m still struggling with who or what I believe in, or if I should even believe in any entity at all. Whilst the game never gives an answer as to if you should believe in religion, it did contribute to my thoughts of religion. I really like how Edmund McMillen never shies away from controversial topics, because I’ve never seen any game that covers religion in depth like The Binding of Isaac. The entire game’s environment reflects the grim nature of the game, not shying away from the disturbing and occasionally haunting themes of the entire game. Each area feels dishearteningly oppressive, with blood and other bodily fluids of all kinds being used to add to the environment. It’s a grotesque game, but remember that this is from the perspective of a 5 year old. That’s why the items are unidentified, being discoveries of a relatively young child in a world that’s too big for him. That’s why he believes that his mother is re-enacting the story of The Binding of Isaac, because he’s using his imagination to create false parallels between himself and the Bible. That’s why there’s a relatively low brow humor bar, spirals of shit and all. That’s why he fights himself. Due to a misunderstanding of religion, he hates what he sees in himself. Once again, as a kid who was exposed to religion constantly, I was always concerned about sinning, even the most mild sins. However, I would come to realize, that according to the Bible, your sins are forgiven easily. This is perspective that Isaac lacks; an intentional flaw in his character, and makes him fear himself. This entire misunderstanding leads to the death of him. That’s fucked up. Every element of the game, from the characters representing Isaac’s own thoughts about himself, to the items painting the picture of abuse and neglect. It’s a solid story overall, with unprecedented storytelling, with eye opening themes and a nearly flawless execution in storytelling, a story told like no other, and interpretations out the wazoo. Hell, I’ll contribute a theory right now; Range up items are often represented with more sexual items, representing libido. But as many people know, religion tends to disfavor sexual activity outside of marriage. And as the Range ups are among the worst items in the entire game, it represents this very fact. Or how the entirety of the game is a conflict of Isaac’s own personality, due to the billions of possible individual runs? BOOM, MatPat is shaking in his boots right now. Regardless, despite my several hundred hours, I'm not some lore master, I'm just here to shoot tears and have fun. I know someone who is, though! Listen, I would absolutely love to analyze the entirety of the game’s many items, hints, and even more, but that could be potentially hours of pure content, and I don’t have the time for that. I mean, this is a game, right? Of course the story couldn’t be THAT good, right? What matters more is the gameplay!
Content Warning over.
As I’ve said previously, The Binding of Isaac integrates story and gameplay almost perfectly. You traverse through randomly generated dungeons that slowly increase in difficulty, increasing in size and becoming harder as you descend down The Basement. Although the “game” is incredibly short, the threat of permanently losing all of your items looms over your head throughout the run. Each run is about 30 minutes long, meaning that dying and retrying isn’t so punishing when it happens. This one of those roguelikes that masters the “one more run” mentality that lots of roguelikes similarly embody. The game is forgiving, but If you fuck up one too many times, there’s no permanent progression loss. Each run helps contribute even the littlest of help to future runs, but more on that later down.
The controls of the game are incredibly simple, as you move with the Left Stick and shoot in 4 directions with the Right Stick (or buttons if you prefer), making the game very simple to pick up and play, and the controls themselves feel incredibly fluid and fun. As I had mentioned previously, the aesthetics of the game are incredibly strong, with the game sporting solid pixel art, supported with great visual effects, and profound sound design. The music is pretty catchy to me, and it immerses me into the run. I also like the “layers” of the tracks, which play whenever you’re locked into combat. Bosses get even more intense, with the foreboding sound effect before battle, as well as incredibly intense boss tracks. Crusade, Matricide, Ventricide, Infantcide, Ascension, I mean, jesus. Talk about a good soundtrack, guys! On your journey through The Basement, you’ll encounter items on the way down, which are what keep The Binding of Isaac so fresh and replayable. In Rebirth, there are about 300+ items to collect, all of which have different effects and abilities. Some items are triggered manually by the player, with the triggers, but a majority of items are passive, all of which give random effects and abilities. Even with the large amount of items, you’ll eventually see all of them, so what keeps the gameplay fresh and exciting for hours to come? THE SYNERGIES.
One of the defining aspect of The Binding of Isaac is it’s large focus on synergies. Almost every item has at least one notable synergy, all of which add to the replay value of the game. Not only does this ensure that the game has a consistent difficulty curve by making synergies easier to find than oxygen, but also adds a sense of individuality to each run. With the amount of items, unique interactions in between those items, and the individual room layouts, Rebirth almost feels endless to me, and this would only be improved in later releases, with more content in general. To see Isaac grow in each run, gaining a different sense of personality each run, to see him take on gods and monsters, even himself at times, makes Rebirth a joy to come back to each and every time I start a new run.
A common point of criticism with Rebirth is that it apparently takes “no skill” to win? Yeah, obviously. I find the “no skill” argument to be largely irrelevant, as yes, the game does have various items, some of which are a cut above the rest, but calling it “luck based” is a complete misunderstanding of the game’s design as a whole. In fact, I’d say Rebirth is TOO easy, but more on that later. And I can prove it, too. Not only is the ratio of bad, good, and great items extremely fair and consistent, not feeling too powerful nor weak in terms of strength, by avoiding red heart damage on a floor, they can guarantee a “deal”, primarily of which will be a Devil deal, housing some of the most powerful items within the game, in exchange for their own health. Deals are an incredibly consistent way of obtaining good items, but it requires YOU, yes, YOU, to man up and actually be good at the game. It’s Risk Vs Reward done at it’s finest; do you want that cool-ass Brimstone laser? Well, you’re going to have to survive with less HP than usual in order to keep it, and that’s just one example. If you don’t like losing your HP, you could risk getting collectively shunned by the entire community and go for deals with the Angel. These are deals which are completely free, but require you to skip taking any deals with the Devil, and they only have one item to choose from. A lot of people claim that Angel deals are unviable, but I think they’re kind of missing the point, as not risking your HP gets you the worse items. Personally, I do think Angels, while a neat idea, are still outclassed by Devil deals. But, I’m not starting another Angels VS Devils debate. Lord knows how many there’s been. But back to the main point, if you’re still struggling with the game, you can always try to unlock some new characters, many of which will benefit you compared to base Isaac, who starts with nothing until a certain point. By all accounts, the game is on your side. It’s just up to you to keep up with the game’s difficulty, which is already pretty low to begin with, but more on that later. Yes, I know I’m saying that a lot, but Rebirth is fucking huge, okay? Yes, the game is random. But you have to grab the randomness by the balls and use it to your advantage, whilst also not being too sloppy on your part to win. Like Spelunky, you have to experiment and actually think to win consistently. Victory is not guaranteed for your first couple of runs, but if you really dig deep and try everything, maybe pick up that item that you don’t know anything about, only then can you truly succeed.
But not only do you have to embrace the randomness of the game in order to win, but the game itself changes as you play, quite literally. Remember when I said that each run contributes to your future runs? Well, it’s time to talk about SECRETS. Secrets are the bread and butter of The Binding of Isaac, bestowing new stuff into almost any run. From items, to bosses, and even new floors. To go back to the story for a bit, your first end goal is to kill Mom. For your average player, this could take a fair amount of tries, as the player learns the game and adapts to the environment, combined with Mom being a pretty difficult boss for a newcomer. Mom can be quite unpredictable, with her constantly spawning enemies, while the infamous foot stomps easily catch you off guard. It serves as a skill check for the following part of the game; once you kill Mom for the first time, you get the fake-out ending, with Isaac defeating Mom, but she comes back soon after. One curious player may check out the menu and realize that there’s over 16 different endings. This starts quite possibly the longest gameplay arc of the game; The Womb. In this cursed crimson floor, you always take a full heart of damage (without The Wafer of course), and the enemies are much more dastardly than before, with a greater variety and number of them than previously, as well as less items being present than before. This shows off the progressive difficulty of the game, both in a hypothetical and literal sense, as several secrets are tied to difficulty, like the alternate floors for the first 3 floors, an increase in champions (harder versions of enemies, denoted with a specific color), and also an increase in “curses”, which are bestowed upon the current floor at random.
They try to force you to approach a floor differently, making it more difficult, to slightly mixed results. Most of these are just kind of annoying, including a no map mode, invisible HP mode, randomly teleporting to new rooms, darkness, and being unable to see items picked up. The only one that’s not annoying is the XL floors, which also skips an additional floor and gives you two item rooms. I think the main thing curses suffer from is that they lack Risk vs Reward. Take Spelunky for example, which have a similar mechanic dubbed “level feelings”. They do make the floor harder, but usually add some sort of benefit to counterbalance it. Take the darkness idea again. Yes, it makes the level darker, but you can collect fireflies for additional cash. This could easily work with Isaac, too. Putting out fires gives a higher chance for pickups, OR better quality of the pickups in general. Maybe a no Map floor gives less rooms, and a no HP floor gives more hearts. Darkness could give you an extra item, and a random teleport room has a chance of creating a new room entirely. There are so many ideas I have with curses, but it kind of sucks that they haven’t been touched at all since Rebirth’s release. As it stands, curses are an interesting idea, but they quickly become more irritating as time goes on. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but it’s a big nitpick that I have with Rebirth. On the note of nitpicks, I will also draw attention to the Challenges of the game. The in-game challenges, like curses, feel underdeveloped. Far too many of them give overpowered item combos, then ask you to simply survive. They never really feel “challenging” to the player; even Purist, which I can assume is intended to be the hardest challenge based on its underlining in the menu, is incredibly easy, even though it takes away all of the treasure rooms and shops.People who say Isaac is luck based are fuming at the mouth right now. Very little of these are even “challenging” in some way, really the only arguably difficult one is Suicide King, which has you shooting explosive tears which home back in on you, but that’s really it. And that bit about the Challenges somewhat applies to the game as a whole, as even though I believe the game forces you to get good at it, it snowballs in your favor far too easily. I may be biased with my several hundred hours of The Binding of Isaac across 4 different versions, but I’d figure I’d bring it up as it’s frequently mentioned when reflecting on Rebirth, especially now that we have Repentance. Even when your runs aren't absolutely broken, Rebirth will still be pretty easy to beat. Once again, a nitpick, one that doesn't really hold much relevance to me. I'm up for a challenge, and all that (peep my favorite games), but an easy game is usually fine to me. Aaaand, with all of that, I can say that Rebirth is essentially a perfect game (to me, at least). I'm serious, I only have 3 nitpicks with this game, all of which are pretty minor. A slightly annoying, but not detrimental game mechanic in runs, a harmless side mode that still has all of the great qualities of the main game, and a difficulty level, which doesn't really affect me. Sooooo... can I go back to talking about how good this game is?
After killing Mom’s Heart 11 times, you can access the Cathedral or Sheol, but if you’re really good at the game, avoiding Red Heart damage on Womb 2 at any kill count almost always guarantees you a deal with the Angel or Devil, which allows you to go to the Cathedral or Sheol respectively, allowing already experienced players to skip major chunks of the game. Is this a well thought out game or what? Really, what else is there to nitpick? In these areas, you have to fight either Isaac, or Satan, and do it 5 times to access each respective final chapter; The Chest or The Dark Room. However, while you’re in the process of killing all of these bosses over and over again, you may come across a hole in the wall when killing Mom. This giant room holds 4 free items, but you can walk out... if you dare. But... it can’t be that easy, right? I’ll take the best item, just to be caref- why is there boss music? This is the infamous Boss rush, an onslaught of 15 sets of 2 bosses each, and it can either be the best or worst thing ever. Boss Rush is fucking intense, even with a good run. While you have a lot of leeway, Boss Rush often leaves you scraping for more HP, doubly so if you’re playing as a character who depends on low HP. It’s a difficult, yet rewarding mode to blast through each run, with you needing to give it your all to win. Once again, RISK VS REWARD. I can’t stress this enough. Boss Rush is pretty fun, but once it’s finally over, you get another item and yet another secret to mark your victory.
The final floors of Rebirth, The Chest and The Dark Room are essentially a victory lap, with each individual chest giving you a different item for the final battle, between... Isaac but dead??? Or The Lamb. Each path sports wholly unique fights and enemy patterns, making it feel like both are different enough from each other. Dead Isaac is probably my least favorite of the two; the fight ends before it can really get good; hell, I’d even say Isaac is harder in some cases. But The Lamb is a fair bit better than its blue brethren. He has a larger amount of HP, and he actually throws out ipecac shots, which explode. And then, his head and body splits at 50% HP, with the head gaining a few more tricky attacks than before. And the music in each fight is fucking INTENSE. Ascension is my favorite track in the game, bar none. It’s so ridiculously epic, like holy shit. It really feels like you’re overcoming the great dread within you. There’s so much damn BASS. It truly feels like the final battle. The Fallen Angel is a little worse than Ascension, but I still like it. It just gets a little too repetitive for my liking, that’s all. But it still feels pretty awesome. I know I already gassed up the Rebirth soundtrack to kingdom come, but holy FUCK it’s genuinely incredible. It knows when to rock out, how to be somber, and how to convey Isaac’s thoughts. It’s great. Diptera Sonata always feels like you’re on the edge of what your next run may have, Sodden Hollow is really fucking groovy, Abyss feels just like the title, and Viscera... Well, disregarding that, THE CELLAR! That awesome rock tune will never fail to be an earworm. Crusade makes every single Dingle look like fucking Sans. And The Calm makes you reflect on your past floor, what to do, where to go next. I could go ON AND ON about how good this game is, you have no IDEA. And you thought we were done? HELL NO! Once you beat either Dead Isaac or The Lamb once, something... interesting happens.
The game ominously states that the Angels “are waiting”? Well, I think you all know what that means. It’s time to go back into the Basement for one last time! Give Satan the middle finger, and head into the arms of Christ? And what happens? Uhhhh... The angels aren’t doing anything. Walking into them doesn’t do anything. What about a bomb?
The famous last words of zeusdeegoose. Rest in Peace, 2023-2024
Bombing the Angel Statue initiates a boss battle with an Angel, which REALLY caught me off guard. But after defeating the Angel, you get... Key Piece 1? Okay, so then you have to get another Key Piece by bombing another Angel, and then make your way down to Chapter 6, for the final time. A massive golden door appears, and after collecting all 4 items in the room, feel free to head in. And then... for REAL this time... you can fight Mega Satan, god, I am tired.
It’s not a bad fight; far from it, in fact. It kind of reminds me of shmup arcade games, in a way. It’s a massive arena, and Mega Satan is at the forefront of it all. He spawns hundreds of bullets, while you keep shooting him. And in his second phase, his skull appears (Terraria reference), spewing flames at you. But once his skull cracks ONCE AND FOR ALL, with potentially over a HUNDRED runs done by the player already, you think you’re done, right? Well, kind of. This is the end of all of Rebirth’s campaign, but 100%ing is a different story. You have 6 completion marks you have on each respective character, which are, as follows: Mom’s Heart, Boss Rush, Isaac, Satan, Dead Isaac, and The Lamb. And you need to do all of that on all 10 characters in Hard Mode, which predictably makes the game harder. So you can realistically expect to do that in 2-3 runs. I’d complain about the monotony of this, but like I said, Rebirth already encourages replayability to the fullest degree, so it’s actually really fun. Quickly, to save my fingers from carpal tunnel, the characters in Rebirth are solid, having their own strengths and weaknesses. Isaac is the basic bitch, Cain is lucky and does a little more damage, Maggy is the skill issue character, Judas is the glass cannon, Eve is the self-damaging character, ??? is the intentionally bad, but still fun character, Samson is the skill issue character, Lazarus is the skill issue character, Azazel is the best character in the game, and Eden is the genderfluid one (kind of like me). Yes, the game could use a lot less characters based on self damage, and the characters are a LITTLE too similar to base Isaac for comfort, but everything else about them is fundamentally solid. So after doing all of that, which will probably take you a good week or so, boom. All unlocks for every character. Are you still done? Hell no! You still have to do all 20 challenges, a majority of which are free and are already probably done at this point, so yeah. Easy. And after ALL of that, are you still done? NO. You have to fill the Donation Machine all the way up to 999 coins, or you can use a glitch to do it. Are you STILL done? HELLLLLLLLLLL NO, GIRL. Do all of this miscellaneous bullshit, like playing the slot machine. Are you still done? Have you explored every nook and cranny for the Plat- NO YOU FUCKING BUFFOON. You have to touch every item, which isn’t too hard on it’s own, as you’ll probably do all of this during your trip to Platinum God. But... after all of that, you finally set down your controller (or keyboard, if you’re one of those people?) satisfyingly, knowing that one of the greatest games of all time has been officially 100%ed. You are a Platinum God, friend! Welcome to the club, drinks are in the fridge. But... you feel... odd. Your achievements say that there’s still roughly a dozen to go. Could there be something... you’re... missing?
WAIT. You remember how I talked about the game’s numerous secrets? Well, take that literally, because there's a secret SO complex, that it's nearly impossible to figure out on your own. In fact, it was so secret that it had to be datamined exactly 109 hours after Rebirth released. What’s the secret, you may ask? If Isaac dies in a Sacrifice Room with The Missing Poster, it will show a piece of a torn-off paper, revealing itself to be the next secret to the puzzle, that being Isaac’s Last Will (the death screen which states where you are and what you were killed by). If, in sequential order, Isaac gets killed by a Mulliboom in The Basement, Magdalene kills herself with her own bombs in The Caves, Judas is killed by Mom, and Azazel is killed by Satan, a new character is unlocked, which is the bane of my and many other Rebirth players’ existence.
THE MOTHERFUCKING LOST. The Lost is by far one of the WORST characters in any roguelikes history, more specifically the REBIRTH incarnation and the Rebirth version ALONE. He only has 2 benefits. One; he starts with flight, which is always great, and he can get free deals with the Devil no matter what, which is always pretty cool. So what's the tradeoff? YOU HAVE NO FUCKING WAY TO PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST ANY DAMAGE. NONE, NADA. Get hit once due to a bad dodge? Eat SHIT, go back all the way to the FUCKING BASEMENT, NERD. I mean, shit! Talk about punishing design, one that's not ultimately suited for this game. Sure, The Lost is an intentionally bad character, but ??? (the other “challenge” character), gave the player lenience when it came to their mistakes, but it also forced you to rethink your entire strategy. Devil Deals are much riskier with ??? as a result of your lack of red heart containers, and you have to take less damage in general as well if you want any chance of survival. The Lost feels like ramming your head into a wall until you see pretty stars and pass out. And yes, you could argue that The Lost can get Holy Mantle, or Dead Cat for an easier time. But that’s quite literally luck based, and isn’t fun. I got all of his marks in Rebirth ONCE on the 3DS. And quite frankly, I’m not interested in doing it ever again. The only silver lining is that you never need to play as him, unless you’re doing 100%, and you also don’t have to fight Mega Satan as him for 100% because he’s not a mark. But disregarding all of that, FUCK The Lost, and thank god for Afterbirth making him actually fun to play as. But this is Rebirth, so yeah. Fuck that guy. You have to do ALL of his marks in Hard Mode, but what do you get for all of your troubles? One of the best items in the game, GODHEAD. The TRUE mark of mastery. Although I think The Lost is a fundamentally flawed character, I won’t say that powering through and finally unlocking Godhead, alongside all of these other cool items isn’t satisfying. Now, after all of that, you can actually rest easy... until you check out Edmund’s Tumblr to find out there’s a new DLC get fucked LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Disregarding The Lost and the like, I believe Isaac Rebirth is one of the greatest video games ever crafted, with very little flaws overall. I do have my gripes with it, of course, like any game, but at the end of the day, it’s still one of the greatest roguelikes to be released to date. Even games like Dead Cells and lots of non-traditional roguelikes have their roots within The Binding of Isaac. The Binding of Isaac has become less of a game, and more of a starting platform for aspiring creators and artists (including me, peep this). I could barely find a flaw in Rebirth's gameplay that isn't just a nitpick. It's a fundamentally sound game, with almost endless replayability. And did I even mention how fucking addictive Rebirth is? Seriously, even after 700 hours across numerous platforms in the span of a year, I still play Rebirth to this day. It's a game I'll probably never get tired of popping it in and starting a new descent into the Basement. And when I get my hands on the Switch release, oh man. But, what's next for Isaac? Well, what happens after Birth? A postpartum!
“A birth in full bloom / Endless basement drenched in gore / Stuck in the nightmare...” - “A Rebirth” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
EDIT: Slight change to Eden character description. 💖💖💖
It might be pretentious of me to call Rebirth the perfect game. Keyword, might.
But uhhh, it's time for what the entirety of ZeusDeeGoose has been building up to. From shitposts to seemingly endless reviews, here is the review to end all reviews. The K.O. punch, the Industry Baby, here IS…
The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is my favorite game of all time. Bar none. I’ve always pushed the game as amazing, but never really put pen to paper on why it’s so incredible. I’ve known about Rebirth since around 2015, where it was finally put on the 3DS eShop. It looked so... interesting. The cover art had captured my attention like no other. The crying child, the monsters, the... tentacles? It perplexed me in no way any other game has done before, but it was love at first sight. So I immediately clicked on it. I wanted to experience what this game had to offer, and I was ready to buy a New 3DS just to experience it. Before getting cock-blocked by the parental controls, but whatever. 8 years later, New 3DS in tow, nearing the end of the 3DS eShop as a whole (rest in peace), I played Rebirth on the good old New 3DS, and I really did like it, and then I rebought the game (alongside the original), and all of the DLC for both versions, and I was almost instantly hooked for a year straight. Needless to say, I love The Binding of Isaac as a whole. If you know me, I’ve praised The Binding of Isaac to kingdom come, using it as a point of reference for the bar of quality most games should strive for, especially indie games. Any person I meet? Play The Binding of Isaac. Any game recommendations? The Binding of Isaac. I was talking to a security guard at Washington DC, and asked him if he had played any games, and he said he plays Battlefield, and I roughly responded with “PLAY THE BINDING OF ISAAC!”, taking hyper fixations to the next level. And, of course, on that trip I brought my New 3DS to Washington DC, JUST to play The Binding of Isaac, although I dabbled in Mario Kart 7 with some friends. Any time we were on the bus, I’d pop open my 3DS just to play it. I’m pretty sure my friends got tired of the buh-duh... duh-duh-duh-duhduhduh each time I started a new run, but we all enjoyed the trip. I almost beat the entire game on that trip, but unfortunately couldn’t kill Mega Satan in time. Awwwww. But on the night I got home I killed him. It was 3AM in the morning, but I fucking did it.
But, enough about the DC trip, what about the game itself? If you’re not familiar with Rebirth or the original, fear not, as coming into Isaac Rebirth, I had no idea what roguelikes even played like, other than the fact that they were randomized, but also featured permanent death. It was a bit… overwhelming to me? Losing all of my progress didn't seem all that fun to me, as I had played Minecraft previously and found its dropping inventory to be discouraging, and thought Isaac Rebirth would be the same. But, needless to say, my opinion changed pretty quickly on Rebirth, and roguelikes as a whole. Some of my favorite video games are roguelikes, but without my prior exposure to Rebirth, I don't think I would've been as receptive to the genre. And why is that, you may ask? I’m going to explain almost everything that makes the game a masterpiece of a roguelike like no other (sorry, Rogue), DLC by DLC, in-depth, zeusdeegoose style! I’ll also be covering the smaller games in the series, like the original, and the spinoff, The Legend of Bum-bo. I’ve never played Four Souls before, so that’ll be excluded from this short series.
The order will be as follows: Rebirth, Afterbirth, Afterbirth Plus, The Legend of Bum-bo, 2011, Wrath of the Lamb, and finally, Repentance.
The order may seem off to some, considering how Repentance is last in line, but it’s for good reason, trust me. You geese will be eating well tonight! (i'm so sorry)
I’m also spoiling the game rotten, because if you haven’t played the game yet, I strongly suggest going in completely and utterly blind. That’s how I did it, and I feel like having a wiki beside me would’ve ruined a lot of the fun. That’s what I do when going into almost any roguelike, but it matters most here since that’s a majority of the game; discovery. Discovering what each item does, all of the synergies it has, and the context in between each item. It’s a fun process that adds a lot of mystery and suspense to even the littlest of item pickups, and I cannot help but feel it’s too easily lost for newer players. EID is cool and all, but I think I’d recommend saving it, at least until the post-game. It’s your game, and the only stipulation for mods is lacking achievements until you kill Mom, but I still think the game is better experienced without EID for the first time, as finding what each item does is satisfying in it of itself. But if you do use EID, I won’t stop you from enjoying the game as you please. But, with all of that being said, it’s time to explore the Basement, and find the treasure trove that is this review! This is my full, 100%, complete review of The Binding of Isaac Rebirth! Presented proudly by ZeusDeeGoose (& co.).
Content warning for The Binding of Isaac's story contents: Brief mentions of Suicide and Self-harm, Heavy references towards Abuse and Religious discussion
I usually never cover the stories of games in any of my reviews, and usually it’s because they don’t have any impact on the overall score. Not to say that I don’t care for them, but The Binding of Isaac perfectly intertwines gameplay and story, like no other game I’ve seen. It’s like FNAF if it actually had good storytelling!!! Half kidding, but with that being said, like FNAF, The Binding of Isaac is a heavily disconnected narrative, open to various interpretations and ideas. Almost every item connects to the story in every way, and little hints are given throughout each subsequent run victory, and each unlock to paint a grim, yet realistic storyline, despite the less-than-realistic gameplay within the game itself. What I also enjoy about the storytelling is that each release of a major expansion added to the story in a meaningful way, but also stands on their own as cohesive stories. The later endings in some of the future DLCs are a little too blatant for my tastes, but we’ll get to that later.
If you’ve heard anything about The Binding of Isaac, you’ve absolutely heard about the story in some way, shape or form. Not only for how batshit it is initially, but how depressing it eventually gets. The gist of what the game tells you is that “isaac mom watch bible bwoadcasts on tv and went a little nuts thanks to a voice from above and wants to re-enact the binding of isaac but isaac jumps into a trapdoor”, but eventually transforms into “Isaac commits suicide by suffocating in a Chest because he simply couldn’t take it anymore. The End.” The reason why is because the initial story is from Isaac’s perspective, but as he slowly dies, he eventually has to face reality, and what happens after he dies, as he feels as if he’s a sinner. There is no “good ending”. Isaac will always die, no matter what. And that's what I really liked about it. Not every story needs a happy ending (and especially in a story that discusses child abuse and beliefs being used as a false justification for said abuse). But I don’t think that the point of the game’s story is that religion is necessarily bad. It’s that using religion as something to punish someone is immoral, nor should we shame those who chose to not partake in religion, and rather unfortunately, that fact is frequently ignored in our world. This game helped me be more comfortable about my own religious beliefs. As someone who has struggled over their religion as of recent, I felt so validated by Isaac’s struggles. Although I wouldn’t consider myself an atheist, I’m still struggling with who or what I believe in, or if I should even believe in any entity at all. Whilst the game never gives an answer as to if you should believe in religion, it did contribute to my thoughts of religion. I really like how Edmund McMillen never shies away from controversial topics, because I’ve never seen any game that covers religion in depth like The Binding of Isaac. The entire game’s environment reflects the grim nature of the game, not shying away from the disturbing and occasionally haunting themes of the entire game. Each area feels dishearteningly oppressive, with blood and other bodily fluids of all kinds being used to add to the environment. It’s a grotesque game, but remember that this is from the perspective of a 5 year old. That’s why the items are unidentified, being discoveries of a relatively young child in a world that’s too big for him. That’s why he believes that his mother is re-enacting the story of The Binding of Isaac, because he’s using his imagination to create false parallels between himself and the Bible. That’s why there’s a relatively low brow humor bar, spirals of shit and all. That’s why he fights himself. Due to a misunderstanding of religion, he hates what he sees in himself. Once again, as a kid who was exposed to religion constantly, I was always concerned about sinning, even the most mild sins. However, I would come to realize, that according to the Bible, your sins are forgiven easily. This is perspective that Isaac lacks; an intentional flaw in his character, and makes him fear himself. This entire misunderstanding leads to the death of him. That’s fucked up. Every element of the game, from the characters representing Isaac’s own thoughts about himself, to the items painting the picture of abuse and neglect. It’s a solid story overall, with unprecedented storytelling, with eye opening themes and a nearly flawless execution in storytelling, a story told like no other, and interpretations out the wazoo. Hell, I’ll contribute a theory right now; Range up items are often represented with more sexual items, representing libido. But as many people know, religion tends to disfavor sexual activity outside of marriage. And as the Range ups are among the worst items in the entire game, it represents this very fact. Or how the entirety of the game is a conflict of Isaac’s own personality, due to the billions of possible individual runs? BOOM, MatPat is shaking in his boots right now. Regardless, despite my several hundred hours, I'm not some lore master, I'm just here to shoot tears and have fun. I know someone who is, though! Listen, I would absolutely love to analyze the entirety of the game’s many items, hints, and even more, but that could be potentially hours of pure content, and I don’t have the time for that. I mean, this is a game, right? Of course the story couldn’t be THAT good, right? What matters more is the gameplay!
Content Warning over.
As I’ve said previously, The Binding of Isaac integrates story and gameplay almost perfectly. You traverse through randomly generated dungeons that slowly increase in difficulty, increasing in size and becoming harder as you descend down The Basement. Although the “game” is incredibly short, the threat of permanently losing all of your items looms over your head throughout the run. Each run is about 30 minutes long, meaning that dying and retrying isn’t so punishing when it happens. This one of those roguelikes that masters the “one more run” mentality that lots of roguelikes similarly embody. The game is forgiving, but If you fuck up one too many times, there’s no permanent progression loss. Each run helps contribute even the littlest of help to future runs, but more on that later down.
The controls of the game are incredibly simple, as you move with the Left Stick and shoot in 4 directions with the Right Stick (or buttons if you prefer), making the game very simple to pick up and play, and the controls themselves feel incredibly fluid and fun. As I had mentioned previously, the aesthetics of the game are incredibly strong, with the game sporting solid pixel art, supported with great visual effects, and profound sound design. The music is pretty catchy to me, and it immerses me into the run. I also like the “layers” of the tracks, which play whenever you’re locked into combat. Bosses get even more intense, with the foreboding sound effect before battle, as well as incredibly intense boss tracks. Crusade, Matricide, Ventricide, Infantcide, Ascension, I mean, jesus. Talk about a good soundtrack, guys! On your journey through The Basement, you’ll encounter items on the way down, which are what keep The Binding of Isaac so fresh and replayable. In Rebirth, there are about 300+ items to collect, all of which have different effects and abilities. Some items are triggered manually by the player, with the triggers, but a majority of items are passive, all of which give random effects and abilities. Even with the large amount of items, you’ll eventually see all of them, so what keeps the gameplay fresh and exciting for hours to come? THE SYNERGIES.
One of the defining aspect of The Binding of Isaac is it’s large focus on synergies. Almost every item has at least one notable synergy, all of which add to the replay value of the game. Not only does this ensure that the game has a consistent difficulty curve by making synergies easier to find than oxygen, but also adds a sense of individuality to each run. With the amount of items, unique interactions in between those items, and the individual room layouts, Rebirth almost feels endless to me, and this would only be improved in later releases, with more content in general. To see Isaac grow in each run, gaining a different sense of personality each run, to see him take on gods and monsters, even himself at times, makes Rebirth a joy to come back to each and every time I start a new run.
A common point of criticism with Rebirth is that it apparently takes “no skill” to win? Yeah, obviously. I find the “no skill” argument to be largely irrelevant, as yes, the game does have various items, some of which are a cut above the rest, but calling it “luck based” is a complete misunderstanding of the game’s design as a whole. In fact, I’d say Rebirth is TOO easy, but more on that later. And I can prove it, too. Not only is the ratio of bad, good, and great items extremely fair and consistent, not feeling too powerful nor weak in terms of strength, by avoiding red heart damage on a floor, they can guarantee a “deal”, primarily of which will be a Devil deal, housing some of the most powerful items within the game, in exchange for their own health. Deals are an incredibly consistent way of obtaining good items, but it requires YOU, yes, YOU, to man up and actually be good at the game. It’s Risk Vs Reward done at it’s finest; do you want that cool-ass Brimstone laser? Well, you’re going to have to survive with less HP than usual in order to keep it, and that’s just one example. If you don’t like losing your HP, you could risk getting collectively shunned by the entire community and go for deals with the Angel. These are deals which are completely free, but require you to skip taking any deals with the Devil, and they only have one item to choose from. A lot of people claim that Angel deals are unviable, but I think they’re kind of missing the point, as not risking your HP gets you the worse items. Personally, I do think Angels, while a neat idea, are still outclassed by Devil deals. But, I’m not starting another Angels VS Devils debate. Lord knows how many there’s been. But back to the main point, if you’re still struggling with the game, you can always try to unlock some new characters, many of which will benefit you compared to base Isaac, who starts with nothing until a certain point. By all accounts, the game is on your side. It’s just up to you to keep up with the game’s difficulty, which is already pretty low to begin with, but more on that later. Yes, I know I’m saying that a lot, but Rebirth is fucking huge, okay? Yes, the game is random. But you have to grab the randomness by the balls and use it to your advantage, whilst also not being too sloppy on your part to win. Like Spelunky, you have to experiment and actually think to win consistently. Victory is not guaranteed for your first couple of runs, but if you really dig deep and try everything, maybe pick up that item that you don’t know anything about, only then can you truly succeed.
But not only do you have to embrace the randomness of the game in order to win, but the game itself changes as you play, quite literally. Remember when I said that each run contributes to your future runs? Well, it’s time to talk about SECRETS. Secrets are the bread and butter of The Binding of Isaac, bestowing new stuff into almost any run. From items, to bosses, and even new floors. To go back to the story for a bit, your first end goal is to kill Mom. For your average player, this could take a fair amount of tries, as the player learns the game and adapts to the environment, combined with Mom being a pretty difficult boss for a newcomer. Mom can be quite unpredictable, with her constantly spawning enemies, while the infamous foot stomps easily catch you off guard. It serves as a skill check for the following part of the game; once you kill Mom for the first time, you get the fake-out ending, with Isaac defeating Mom, but she comes back soon after. One curious player may check out the menu and realize that there’s over 16 different endings. This starts quite possibly the longest gameplay arc of the game; The Womb. In this cursed crimson floor, you always take a full heart of damage (without The Wafer of course), and the enemies are much more dastardly than before, with a greater variety and number of them than previously, as well as less items being present than before. This shows off the progressive difficulty of the game, both in a hypothetical and literal sense, as several secrets are tied to difficulty, like the alternate floors for the first 3 floors, an increase in champions (harder versions of enemies, denoted with a specific color), and also an increase in “curses”, which are bestowed upon the current floor at random.
They try to force you to approach a floor differently, making it more difficult, to slightly mixed results. Most of these are just kind of annoying, including a no map mode, invisible HP mode, randomly teleporting to new rooms, darkness, and being unable to see items picked up. The only one that’s not annoying is the XL floors, which also skips an additional floor and gives you two item rooms. I think the main thing curses suffer from is that they lack Risk vs Reward. Take Spelunky for example, which have a similar mechanic dubbed “level feelings”. They do make the floor harder, but usually add some sort of benefit to counterbalance it. Take the darkness idea again. Yes, it makes the level darker, but you can collect fireflies for additional cash. This could easily work with Isaac, too. Putting out fires gives a higher chance for pickups, OR better quality of the pickups in general. Maybe a no Map floor gives less rooms, and a no HP floor gives more hearts. Darkness could give you an extra item, and a random teleport room has a chance of creating a new room entirely. There are so many ideas I have with curses, but it kind of sucks that they haven’t been touched at all since Rebirth’s release. As it stands, curses are an interesting idea, but they quickly become more irritating as time goes on. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but it’s a big nitpick that I have with Rebirth. On the note of nitpicks, I will also draw attention to the Challenges of the game. The in-game challenges, like curses, feel underdeveloped. Far too many of them give overpowered item combos, then ask you to simply survive. They never really feel “challenging” to the player; even Purist, which I can assume is intended to be the hardest challenge based on its underlining in the menu, is incredibly easy, even though it takes away all of the treasure rooms and shops.
After killing Mom’s Heart 11 times, you can access the Cathedral or Sheol, but if you’re really good at the game, avoiding Red Heart damage on Womb 2 at any kill count almost always guarantees you a deal with the Angel or Devil, which allows you to go to the Cathedral or Sheol respectively, allowing already experienced players to skip major chunks of the game. Is this a well thought out game or what? Really, what else is there to nitpick? In these areas, you have to fight either Isaac, or Satan, and do it 5 times to access each respective final chapter; The Chest or The Dark Room. However, while you’re in the process of killing all of these bosses over and over again, you may come across a hole in the wall when killing Mom. This giant room holds 4 free items, but you can walk out... if you dare. But... it can’t be that easy, right? I’ll take the best item, just to be caref- why is there boss music? This is the infamous Boss rush, an onslaught of 15 sets of 2 bosses each, and it can either be the best or worst thing ever. Boss Rush is fucking intense, even with a good run. While you have a lot of leeway, Boss Rush often leaves you scraping for more HP, doubly so if you’re playing as a character who depends on low HP. It’s a difficult, yet rewarding mode to blast through each run, with you needing to give it your all to win. Once again, RISK VS REWARD. I can’t stress this enough. Boss Rush is pretty fun, but once it’s finally over, you get another item and yet another secret to mark your victory.
The final floors of Rebirth, The Chest and The Dark Room are essentially a victory lap, with each individual chest giving you a different item for the final battle, between... Isaac but dead??? Or The Lamb. Each path sports wholly unique fights and enemy patterns, making it feel like both are different enough from each other. Dead Isaac is probably my least favorite of the two; the fight ends before it can really get good; hell, I’d even say Isaac is harder in some cases. But The Lamb is a fair bit better than its blue brethren. He has a larger amount of HP, and he actually throws out ipecac shots, which explode. And then, his head and body splits at 50% HP, with the head gaining a few more tricky attacks than before. And the music in each fight is fucking INTENSE. Ascension is my favorite track in the game, bar none. It’s so ridiculously epic, like holy shit. It really feels like you’re overcoming the great dread within you. There’s so much damn BASS. It truly feels like the final battle. The Fallen Angel is a little worse than Ascension, but I still like it. It just gets a little too repetitive for my liking, that’s all. But it still feels pretty awesome. I know I already gassed up the Rebirth soundtrack to kingdom come, but holy FUCK it’s genuinely incredible. It knows when to rock out, how to be somber, and how to convey Isaac’s thoughts. It’s great. Diptera Sonata always feels like you’re on the edge of what your next run may have, Sodden Hollow is really fucking groovy, Abyss feels just like the title, and Viscera... Well, disregarding that, THE CELLAR! That awesome rock tune will never fail to be an earworm. Crusade makes every single Dingle look like fucking Sans. And The Calm makes you reflect on your past floor, what to do, where to go next. I could go ON AND ON about how good this game is, you have no IDEA. And you thought we were done? HELL NO! Once you beat either Dead Isaac or The Lamb once, something... interesting happens.
The game ominously states that the Angels “are waiting”? Well, I think you all know what that means. It’s time to go back into the Basement for one last time! Give Satan the middle finger, and head into the arms of Christ? And what happens? Uhhhh... The angels aren’t doing anything. Walking into them doesn’t do anything. What about a bomb?
The famous last words of zeusdeegoose. Rest in Peace, 2023-2024
Bombing the Angel Statue initiates a boss battle with an Angel, which REALLY caught me off guard. But after defeating the Angel, you get... Key Piece 1? Okay, so then you have to get another Key Piece by bombing another Angel, and then make your way down to Chapter 6, for the final time. A massive golden door appears, and after collecting all 4 items in the room, feel free to head in. And then... for REAL this time... you can fight Mega Satan, god, I am tired.
It’s not a bad fight; far from it, in fact. It kind of reminds me of shmup arcade games, in a way. It’s a massive arena, and Mega Satan is at the forefront of it all. He spawns hundreds of bullets, while you keep shooting him. And in his second phase, his skull appears (Terraria reference), spewing flames at you. But once his skull cracks ONCE AND FOR ALL, with potentially over a HUNDRED runs done by the player already, you think you’re done, right? Well, kind of. This is the end of all of Rebirth’s campaign, but 100%ing is a different story. You have 6 completion marks you have on each respective character, which are, as follows: Mom’s Heart, Boss Rush, Isaac, Satan, Dead Isaac, and The Lamb. And you need to do all of that on all 10 characters in Hard Mode, which predictably makes the game harder. So you can realistically expect to do that in 2-3 runs. I’d complain about the monotony of this, but like I said, Rebirth already encourages replayability to the fullest degree, so it’s actually really fun. Quickly, to save my fingers from carpal tunnel, the characters in Rebirth are solid, having their own strengths and weaknesses. Isaac is the basic bitch, Cain is lucky and does a little more damage, Maggy is the skill issue character, Judas is the glass cannon, Eve is the self-damaging character, ??? is the intentionally bad, but still fun character, Samson is the skill issue character, Lazarus is the skill issue character, Azazel is the best character in the game, and Eden is the genderfluid one (kind of like me). Yes, the game could use a lot less characters based on self damage, and the characters are a LITTLE too similar to base Isaac for comfort, but everything else about them is fundamentally solid. So after doing all of that, which will probably take you a good week or so, boom. All unlocks for every character. Are you still done? Hell no! You still have to do all 20 challenges, a majority of which are free and are already probably done at this point, so yeah. Easy. And after ALL of that, are you still done? NO. You have to fill the Donation Machine all the way up to 999 coins, or you can use a glitch to do it. Are you STILL done? HELLLLLLLLLLL NO, GIRL. Do all of this miscellaneous bullshit, like playing the slot machine. Are you still done? Have you explored every nook and cranny for the Plat- NO YOU FUCKING BUFFOON. You have to touch every item, which isn’t too hard on it’s own, as you’ll probably do all of this during your trip to Platinum God. But... after all of that, you finally set down your controller (or keyboard, if you’re one of those people?) satisfyingly, knowing that one of the greatest games of all time has been officially 100%ed. You are a Platinum God, friend! Welcome to the club, drinks are in the fridge. But... you feel... odd. Your achievements say that there’s still roughly a dozen to go. Could there be something... you’re... missing?
WAIT. You remember how I talked about the game’s numerous secrets? Well, take that literally, because there's a secret SO complex, that it's nearly impossible to figure out on your own. In fact, it was so secret that it had to be datamined exactly 109 hours after Rebirth released. What’s the secret, you may ask? If Isaac dies in a Sacrifice Room with The Missing Poster, it will show a piece of a torn-off paper, revealing itself to be the next secret to the puzzle, that being Isaac’s Last Will (the death screen which states where you are and what you were killed by). If, in sequential order, Isaac gets killed by a Mulliboom in The Basement, Magdalene kills herself with her own bombs in The Caves, Judas is killed by Mom, and Azazel is killed by Satan, a new character is unlocked, which is the bane of my and many other Rebirth players’ existence.
THE MOTHERFUCKING LOST. The Lost is by far one of the WORST characters in any roguelikes history, more specifically the REBIRTH incarnation and the Rebirth version ALONE. He only has 2 benefits. One; he starts with flight, which is always great, and he can get free deals with the Devil no matter what, which is always pretty cool. So what's the tradeoff? YOU HAVE NO FUCKING WAY TO PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST ANY DAMAGE. NONE, NADA. Get hit once due to a bad dodge? Eat SHIT, go back all the way to the FUCKING BASEMENT, NERD. I mean, shit! Talk about punishing design, one that's not ultimately suited for this game. Sure, The Lost is an intentionally bad character, but ??? (the other “challenge” character), gave the player lenience when it came to their mistakes, but it also forced you to rethink your entire strategy. Devil Deals are much riskier with ??? as a result of your lack of red heart containers, and you have to take less damage in general as well if you want any chance of survival. The Lost feels like ramming your head into a wall until you see pretty stars and pass out. And yes, you could argue that The Lost can get Holy Mantle, or Dead Cat for an easier time. But that’s quite literally luck based, and isn’t fun. I got all of his marks in Rebirth ONCE on the 3DS. And quite frankly, I’m not interested in doing it ever again. The only silver lining is that you never need to play as him, unless you’re doing 100%, and you also don’t have to fight Mega Satan as him for 100% because he’s not a mark. But disregarding all of that, FUCK The Lost, and thank god for Afterbirth making him actually fun to play as. But this is Rebirth, so yeah. Fuck that guy. You have to do ALL of his marks in Hard Mode, but what do you get for all of your troubles? One of the best items in the game, GODHEAD. The TRUE mark of mastery. Although I think The Lost is a fundamentally flawed character, I won’t say that powering through and finally unlocking Godhead, alongside all of these other cool items isn’t satisfying. Now, after all of that, you can actually rest easy... until you check out Edmund’s Tumblr to find out there’s a new DLC get fucked LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Disregarding The Lost and the like, I believe Isaac Rebirth is one of the greatest video games ever crafted, with very little flaws overall. I do have my gripes with it, of course, like any game, but at the end of the day, it’s still one of the greatest roguelikes to be released to date. Even games like Dead Cells and lots of non-traditional roguelikes have their roots within The Binding of Isaac. The Binding of Isaac has become less of a game, and more of a starting platform for aspiring creators and artists (including me, peep this). I could barely find a flaw in Rebirth's gameplay that isn't just a nitpick. It's a fundamentally sound game, with almost endless replayability. And did I even mention how fucking addictive Rebirth is? Seriously, even after 700 hours across numerous platforms in the span of a year, I still play Rebirth to this day. It's a game I'll probably never get tired of popping it in and starting a new descent into the Basement. And when I get my hands on the Switch release, oh man. But, what's next for Isaac? Well, what happens after Birth? A postpartum!
“A birth in full bloom / Endless basement drenched in gore / Stuck in the nightmare...” - “A Rebirth” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
