2012
i think my friends and i have started and restarted group playthroughs of this game like 5 times and i've never seen more than maybe the beginning of the game. still fun everytime even if we have to go through that ice area over and over. i'll give it a proper go one day.
2021
I love ninja kiwi and I love the bloons franchise but god this was such a letdown. the exp grind to unlocking tower upgrades to use in pvp duels is the worst slog ever. ninjakiwi has made minor attempts to fix the issue in the past but this system is a nightmare to deal with as a new player which only makes the already high barrier to entry worse. the love put into this game's appearance and personality is apparent, which makes the glaring issues in this game feel so much worse. the game is rarely updated with anything meaningful, locked behind the speed of which btd 6 gets a new tower or upgrade, which is close to never. all you have to look forward to while playing are patch notes and balance changes which make the game feel stale. luckily, many of the meta issues that arose during its launch month have since been fixed and the variation in loadouts makes the ranked grind much more fun than it was initially, but i can't in good faith recommend it and it's dwindling player base seems to agree with me.
2018
monkey pop balloon (i love you ninja kiwi)
2011
in this game's defense, i was 10 years late to actually playing it and had just experienced the euphoric high that was the repentance update, which means i'm pained to say that while this game still holds up, it just can't compare to the sequel and it's dlcs. it's not really fair to compare them, but at this point if you're looking for an entry to the binding of isaac series, just get rebirth instead.
Initial grind for unlocks can be annoying at times, but the amount of replayability in this game makes it worth. every run feels fun and fresh, even when you're 150+ hours deep and still have 4/5s of the items to unlock. afterbirth was already a massive upgrade from its predecessor, but the repentance update added so much content with double the characters and items. common edmund & kilburn W
the characters and stylization is so much fun, i wish i could stand playing this game longer than just a few hours. there was clearly a lot of love put into this game that shows in every npc interaction and questline, but the gameplay loop is just too much of a slog to justify the grind needed to get through the game. might pick it up eventually and finish it/give it another chance, but the grind sucks ASS
2018
game of the decade