zeusdeegoose
2009
“Bayonetta? More like Mayonetta, ‘cause this shit spread me apart!” This joke was brought to you by the legendary @QuentTheSlayer.
The Bayonetta series! One of the most acclaimed franchises I’ve seen in general that nobody ever played. Yeah, can you believe that Bayonetta 2 barely cracked 1 million copies on Switch as of 2021? That's not terrible by any means, but you’d think it’d be a lot higher, since it was practically the Wii U’s only pride and joy, and 3/4ths of the series were heavily funded and promoted by Nintendo, plus almost every DMC game has sold like hotcakes, but no. Oh, sorry to any NES Remix 2 fans out there! Apparently, it wasn't a killer app for the failing Wii U console. Shocker. But, when Bayonetta 2 launched in 2014, they also ported Bayonetta 1 to Wii U, and a few years later, Xbox One, PS4, and the PC. The PC version is the definitive way to play the game, in my opinion. It can run up to 4K resolution, and usually maintains a stable 60fps, unlike a majority of the console versions, which don’t. A shame that Bayonetta 1 has only seen a PC release, because 2 and 3 will probably always be locked to Nintendo Switch and Wii U, as those 2 were Nintendo-funded, and also receive FPS issues, more so Bayonetta 3. But hey, emulation is always free, I suppose. And for the record, in these playthroughs, I will be emulating 2 and 3, just for the best experience possible. An almost locked 60FPS is crucial for almost any modern character action game nowadays, so I just bit the bullet. And for you rare few, I have my lawyers on speed dial if you want to contest this.
Okay, jokes aside, what the hell is a “Bayonetta”? Aside from her name being a clear nod to the weapon, the Bayonet, Bayonetta herself has become an icon within the hack n’ slash genre,and also the fighting game scene. Bayonetta was birthed from the absolute legend, Hideki Kamiya, who also directed the first Devil May Cry title. Rather than a male lead, Bayonetta was designed from the ground up, as a female witch who wielded four guns at a time. Although some shade was initially thrown at the beehive hairstyle, mimicking traditional witch hats, and lacked glasses initially, eventually, they came to a witch, with a heavy focus on the attractiveness of the character. Bayonetta, from the ground up, was designed to be attractive as all get-out, if you couldn’t tell from the box art. This girl just leaves it hanging out there like it’s nobody’s business! Hell, this even floods into gameplay a little bit. The infamous torture attacks have Bayonetta seductively execute her foes, the innuendos, “Climax”, yeah. Hideki Kamiya and crew knew what they were doing, and it shows. However, in spite of the less-than-modest presentation of Bayonetta herself, I’d actually go out on a limb to say that it empowers Bayonetta as a character. In the cutscenes, we see Bayonetta doing all of this wacky shit. She’s having fun! Flirting with her enemies, dancing around them, as she aims to secure the kill. It really makes Bayonetta out as an unstoppable badass, deliberately belittling her foes as she defeats them all promptly. I'm not a woman, so I don't really want to comment on if Bayonetta is necessarily sexist or not, but personally, I never really felt that way. The opening cutscene demonstrates this, with Bayonetta, ambushed by angels while working as a nun, decimating every single Angel in her way with style and grace. And when things get dire, as the angels barely miss her, slicing her nun attire in the products, she fully awakens to her power. And then, the ICONIC song HAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, HAAAAA, AAAAAA, AAAAAAA, AAA, x6 FLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ME TO THE MOON AND LET ME PLAYYYYYYYY AMONG THE STAAAAAAAAAAARS begins at full volume. I love this fucking track. Bayonetta has a good ass soundtrack and if you contest that fact, you're subhuman. But, back to the story and character design itself, giving Bayonetta this massive reach over her enemies demonstrates to the player how powerful Bayonetta is, and how powerful the player CAN be, with the game’s COMBAT.
GOD, Bayonetta's combat makes me SWOON. Never have I ever been so addicted to the controls of a game alone. Each time I listen to Fly Me to the Moon (Infinite Climax), I just want to start Bayonetta all over again. Bayonetta’s combat is EXCELLENT. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Hell, I might even say I enjoy the gameplay loop a little more than Devil May Cry’s gameplay loop, although I’m not entirely sure. Bayonetta herself has a few simple attacks; a punch, kick, shooting, and dodging. You’ll primarily be fighting your foes face on, but that’s not to say your guns don’t get some decent use either. You have 4 guns; two on your hands, and two on your feet. By holding an attack button, you can shoot the guns to give a little extra damage out, corresponding to which attack you throw out. So, punch to shoot the hand guns, or kick to shoot the heel guns. Or, alternatively, you can shoot your hand guns on your own, if you don’t feel like punching enemies in the face. But believe me folks, it doesn’t end there. The combo system of Bayonetta goes far deeper than you may think. Bayonetta retains the delay-based systems of Devil May Cry, but given the choice of hands and guns, the combos become much, MUCH deeper than before. Your average Devil May Cry combo goes like this. Slash, slash, wait, slash, slash. Whereas an average Bayonetta combo goes like this; Punch, punch, kick, kick, wait, kick. It adds complexity, but still remains simple enough to master. Bayonetta’s other main stick is her Witch Time, and upon dodging a majority of attacks at the last second, Bayonetta will slow down time for every enemy, and yeah, it’s as satisfying as it sounds. Outside of looking and feeling really good to do, the obvious benefit of slowing down time also adds a score multiplier to each attack done in Witch Time. So there’s no real reason to not be in Witch Time as much as possible, even if you can’t land a few attacks in. It feels great to pull off each time, just getting to wail on your enemies each time feels immaculate to watch and play. Even more immaculate is the Climaxes and Executions, which have you executing enemies in just the cutest way possible, usually killing them in a single shot. So, all of this versatility sounds pretty overpowered, right? How does Bayon- Wait, I’ve already used this segway in my Repentance review. Shit.
Straight and to the point, Bayonetta is one of the most deviously difficult games that I’ve ever played. Goddamn, I wasn’t expecting to die THIS much when going in. I knew that it wouldn’t be an easy game, but FUCK the Witch Hunts, seriously. But if it isn’t one of the most consistently fair games that I’ve played, too. Every attack is cued to perfection. To avoid frustration, most attacks have a bright shine and sound cue to it. The attacks themselves hit incredibly hard, but if you can dodge them, you’ll be a master of Bayonetta. Guess which camp I fell in? I was planning on doing a no items run of Bayonetta, but at Chapter 9, I caved. The game was just too hard for me. But, that’s okay, because before that, I was only getting Stone ranks, and each use of an item counts as half of a death, so there really wasn’t much difference in my overall score. What DID have an effect on my score were the Quick Time Events, though.
God, these just need to go. Bayonetta is an amazing game and all that jazz, but MAN, these got on my nerves really quickly. My main problem is that a grand majority of them lead to an instant death for no good reason at all, and they quite literally show up out of nowhere. At the very least, at least make the failure state cause minor damage or make it repeatable, because an outright kill from something you couldn’t see coming is not fun game design. Imagine that you’re on the way to a Pure Platinum in Chapter 2. You haven’t got hit a single time, and when you finally kill the boss without damage, you set down the controller satisfyingly, only to forget the instant kill at the VERY end of the chapter. Come on, dude! Talk about cheap and frustrating design. This especially hurt as someone who has really good hand-eye coordination, and played the Steam release with a Switch Pro Controller, as the direction of buttons doesn’t line up with the prompts on screen, as inputting the wrong buttons very frequently leads to Bayonetta’s demise. And don’t input them TOO early, because that kills you, too! For some reason. Speaking of bosses, they were... somewhat of a mixed bag. None of them are outright terrible, but there’s definitely a fair share of hot air between them. Sometimes, there’s not a whole lot to do other than firing your guns at them. They also have QTEs, although most are optional, thankfully. And failing usually doesn’t kill you, thank the fucking lord. Also on the plus side, all of the Jeanne fights were AWESOME. She serves as a skill check; Witch Time and guns won’t work for a majority of attacks, and she’s among the most threatening bosses in the entire game, packing speed and some hella’ Wicked weaves. Each encounter is almost perfectly crafted, requiring the utmost mastery of skills. And that music, man. Every 10/10 game NEEDS a 10/10 soundtrack, too. It’s simply inseparable. Jeanne is essentially the Vergil of Bayonetta, and those DMC comparisons don’t stop there.
Like DMC, you can buy abilities in the shop, all of which are of great variety and utility. In fact, I’d go as far to say that Bayonetta has a greater variety of skills than a majority of Devil May Cry games (obviously disregarding DMC 2). Good GOD, the moves you can pull off are so distinctive from one another. The Beast Within moves are among the best in the entire game, the Breakdance is a great AOE attack, also useful for revealing those hidden halos and other items, man. It’s all so good! Sure, the heel stomp attack could be a little more useful, but for the most part, all of these abilities are awesome! Uhhhh. I’m out of good segways. Shit.
Okay, time to talk about the final few chapters, and WOW, these aren’t all that great, unfortunately. Chapter 14 is mostly Space Harrier that just lasts far too long. At the end, there’s a Jeanne fight, though, which is my personal favorite of the Jeanne fights, because she has the best, most difficult attacks of them all. I kind of wonder why they didn’t just split the two chapters, though. Imagine fucking up the Platinum and then having to do Space Harrier all over again. Ugh. Chapter 15 is a... boss rush. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s just kind of... okay. Chapter 16, the final traditional misson, is just a boss fight, against Balder, and the fight would’ve been PERFECT, if it weren’t for the fucking camera. It’s like Jeanne; no Witch Time, no guns, just you and a fight to the death. The camera is just far too up close. But it's still a great send-off, into the EPILOUGE, of course. The FINAL final boss, Jubileus, is a solid little send off to the game, but I think it's just a bit too easy? First off though, Jubileus is fucking hot and you cannot say otherwise, but secondly, the boss herself hovers above you, slamming sword thingies down, and those shoot projectiles at you. Not too bad to dodge, you just Witch Time them, and bam. Beat their asses. She'll also end up changing the arena every now and then, one covered in lava, one in ice, and one in the middle of a tornado. You, once again, have to destroy the swords she plants down, and Witch Time is the key to success. Really, her fight is pretty straightforward. Most of her attacks are pretty slow and predictable, and the one that poses a threat is the Black Hole attack, which is a reset, but other than that… yeah. It's fun, but too easy in my opinion. But of course, this is capped off with the most awesome Climax. Bayonetta does an awesome 20 second long dance, summoning a massive hair demon with oddly feminine proportions (god this game is weird and I love it), and it beats the shit out Jubileus in one fell love tap, knocking Jubileus’s soul out of her body into the goddamn SUN. Yeah, talk about a fucking climax. Oh, you can control her soul as she falls? You know what? Fuck Jupiter, am I righ- I DIED??? …Okay, that makes sense. Anyways one dumb decision later, Jubileus’s body falls to the earth, brief lesbianism occurs, we destroy her body, Bayonetta dies, actually no, bisexualism occurs, Bayo winks, CREDIT ROLL!!!!
No hyperbole or anything, Bayonetta is one of my favorite games that I've played this year, and maybe one of my favorite games of all time. A must play for almost anybody. Sure, the game has it's low points (how the FUCK did i not mention Grace and Glory during this???), but overall, it's REALLY fucking fun, and serves as one of the best character action games ever made, andI'll for sure be returning for Hard Mode and afterwards, INFINITE CLIMAX (funny). Bayonetta is on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One for 10 bucks, and the game more than makes up for that price, I'd say. I'm not sure about Xbox 360 and PS3, but Bayonetta is also on Switch for $30, which is a bit of an eh deal, but hey, you get a $20 discount for Bayonetta 2 if you buy it. Speaking of Bayonetta 2, that's NOT up next, but rather Bayonetta: Bloody Fate. Yeah, for the first time in zeusdeegoose history, we have a cross-media review series (if you discount Isaac I guess). I'm still playing through Bayonetta 2, and it seems destined to be another banger, but hey, we'll see in the review. I don't know about Bayonetta 3 as I actually haven't even touched it, but from what I heard, there's some… opinions on it. But, once again we'll see. But, the moral of the story? Bayonetta is awesome and I like it. Go buy 15 copies of it right now, and I hope that you have an awesome day.
The Bayonetta series! One of the most acclaimed franchises I’ve seen in general that nobody ever played. Yeah, can you believe that Bayonetta 2 barely cracked 1 million copies on Switch as of 2021? That's not terrible by any means, but you’d think it’d be a lot higher, since it was practically the Wii U’s only pride and joy, and 3/4ths of the series were heavily funded and promoted by Nintendo, plus almost every DMC game has sold like hotcakes, but no. Oh, sorry to any NES Remix 2 fans out there! Apparently, it wasn't a killer app for the failing Wii U console. Shocker. But, when Bayonetta 2 launched in 2014, they also ported Bayonetta 1 to Wii U, and a few years later, Xbox One, PS4, and the PC. The PC version is the definitive way to play the game, in my opinion. It can run up to 4K resolution, and usually maintains a stable 60fps, unlike a majority of the console versions, which don’t. A shame that Bayonetta 1 has only seen a PC release, because 2 and 3 will probably always be locked to Nintendo Switch and Wii U, as those 2 were Nintendo-funded, and also receive FPS issues, more so Bayonetta 3. But hey, emulation is always free, I suppose. And for the record, in these playthroughs, I will be emulating 2 and 3, just for the best experience possible. An almost locked 60FPS is crucial for almost any modern character action game nowadays, so I just bit the bullet. And for you rare few, I have my lawyers on speed dial if you want to contest this.
Okay, jokes aside, what the hell is a “Bayonetta”? Aside from her name being a clear nod to the weapon, the Bayonet, Bayonetta herself has become an icon within the hack n’ slash genre,
GOD, Bayonetta's combat makes me SWOON. Never have I ever been so addicted to the controls of a game alone. Each time I listen to Fly Me to the Moon (Infinite Climax), I just want to start Bayonetta all over again. Bayonetta’s combat is EXCELLENT. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Hell, I might even say I enjoy the gameplay loop a little more than Devil May Cry’s gameplay loop, although I’m not entirely sure. Bayonetta herself has a few simple attacks; a punch, kick, shooting, and dodging. You’ll primarily be fighting your foes face on, but that’s not to say your guns don’t get some decent use either. You have 4 guns; two on your hands, and two on your feet. By holding an attack button, you can shoot the guns to give a little extra damage out, corresponding to which attack you throw out. So, punch to shoot the hand guns, or kick to shoot the heel guns. Or, alternatively, you can shoot your hand guns on your own, if you don’t feel like punching enemies in the face. But believe me folks, it doesn’t end there. The combo system of Bayonetta goes far deeper than you may think. Bayonetta retains the delay-based systems of Devil May Cry, but given the choice of hands and guns, the combos become much, MUCH deeper than before. Your average Devil May Cry combo goes like this. Slash, slash, wait, slash, slash. Whereas an average Bayonetta combo goes like this; Punch, punch, kick, kick, wait, kick. It adds complexity, but still remains simple enough to master. Bayonetta’s other main stick is her Witch Time, and upon dodging a majority of attacks at the last second, Bayonetta will slow down time for every enemy, and yeah, it’s as satisfying as it sounds. Outside of looking and feeling really good to do, the obvious benefit of slowing down time also adds a score multiplier to each attack done in Witch Time. So there’s no real reason to not be in Witch Time as much as possible, even if you can’t land a few attacks in. It feels great to pull off each time, just getting to wail on your enemies each time feels immaculate to watch and play. Even more immaculate is the Climaxes and Executions, which have you executing enemies in just the cutest way possible, usually killing them in a single shot. So, all of this versatility sounds pretty overpowered, right? How does Bayon- Wait, I’ve already used this segway in my Repentance review. Shit.
Straight and to the point, Bayonetta is one of the most deviously difficult games that I’ve ever played. Goddamn, I wasn’t expecting to die THIS much when going in. I knew that it wouldn’t be an easy game, but FUCK the Witch Hunts, seriously. But if it isn’t one of the most consistently fair games that I’ve played, too. Every attack is cued to perfection. To avoid frustration, most attacks have a bright shine and sound cue to it. The attacks themselves hit incredibly hard, but if you can dodge them, you’ll be a master of Bayonetta. Guess which camp I fell in? I was planning on doing a no items run of Bayonetta, but at Chapter 9, I caved. The game was just too hard for me. But, that’s okay, because before that, I was only getting Stone ranks, and each use of an item counts as half of a death, so there really wasn’t much difference in my overall score. What DID have an effect on my score were the Quick Time Events, though.
God, these just need to go. Bayonetta is an amazing game and all that jazz, but MAN, these got on my nerves really quickly. My main problem is that a grand majority of them lead to an instant death for no good reason at all, and they quite literally show up out of nowhere. At the very least, at least make the failure state cause minor damage or make it repeatable, because an outright kill from something you couldn’t see coming is not fun game design. Imagine that you’re on the way to a Pure Platinum in Chapter 2. You haven’t got hit a single time, and when you finally kill the boss without damage, you set down the controller satisfyingly, only to forget the instant kill at the VERY end of the chapter. Come on, dude! Talk about cheap and frustrating design. This especially hurt as someone who has really good hand-eye coordination, and played the Steam release with a Switch Pro Controller, as the direction of buttons doesn’t line up with the prompts on screen, as inputting the wrong buttons very frequently leads to Bayonetta’s demise. And don’t input them TOO early, because that kills you, too! For some reason. Speaking of bosses, they were... somewhat of a mixed bag. None of them are outright terrible, but there’s definitely a fair share of hot air between them. Sometimes, there’s not a whole lot to do other than firing your guns at them. They also have QTEs, although most are optional, thankfully. And failing usually doesn’t kill you, thank the fucking lord. Also on the plus side, all of the Jeanne fights were AWESOME. She serves as a skill check; Witch Time and guns won’t work for a majority of attacks, and she’s among the most threatening bosses in the entire game, packing speed and some hella’ Wicked weaves. Each encounter is almost perfectly crafted, requiring the utmost mastery of skills. And that music, man. Every 10/10 game NEEDS a 10/10 soundtrack, too. It’s simply inseparable. Jeanne is essentially the Vergil of Bayonetta, and those DMC comparisons don’t stop there.
Like DMC, you can buy abilities in the shop, all of which are of great variety and utility. In fact, I’d go as far to say that Bayonetta has a greater variety of skills than a majority of Devil May Cry games (obviously disregarding DMC 2). Good GOD, the moves you can pull off are so distinctive from one another. The Beast Within moves are among the best in the entire game, the Breakdance is a great AOE attack, also useful for revealing those hidden halos and other items, man. It’s all so good! Sure, the heel stomp attack could be a little more useful, but for the most part, all of these abilities are awesome! Uhhhh. I’m out of good segways. Shit.
Okay, time to talk about the final few chapters, and WOW, these aren’t all that great, unfortunately. Chapter 14 is mostly Space Harrier that just lasts far too long. At the end, there’s a Jeanne fight, though, which is my personal favorite of the Jeanne fights, because she has the best, most difficult attacks of them all. I kind of wonder why they didn’t just split the two chapters, though. Imagine fucking up the Platinum and then having to do Space Harrier all over again. Ugh. Chapter 15 is a... boss rush. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s just kind of... okay. Chapter 16, the final traditional misson, is just a boss fight, against Balder, and the fight would’ve been PERFECT, if it weren’t for the fucking camera. It’s like Jeanne; no Witch Time, no guns, just you and a fight to the death. The camera is just far too up close. But it's still a great send-off, into the EPILOUGE, of course. The FINAL final boss, Jubileus, is a solid little send off to the game, but I think it's just a bit too easy? First off though, Jubileus is fucking hot and you cannot say otherwise, but secondly, the boss herself hovers above you, slamming sword thingies down, and those shoot projectiles at you. Not too bad to dodge, you just Witch Time them, and bam. Beat their asses. She'll also end up changing the arena every now and then, one covered in lava, one in ice, and one in the middle of a tornado. You, once again, have to destroy the swords she plants down, and Witch Time is the key to success. Really, her fight is pretty straightforward. Most of her attacks are pretty slow and predictable, and the one that poses a threat is the Black Hole attack, which is a reset, but other than that… yeah. It's fun, but too easy in my opinion. But of course, this is capped off with the most awesome Climax. Bayonetta does an awesome 20 second long dance, summoning a massive hair demon with oddly feminine proportions (god this game is weird and I love it), and it beats the shit out Jubileus in one fell love tap, knocking Jubileus’s soul out of her body into the goddamn SUN. Yeah, talk about a fucking climax. Oh, you can control her soul as she falls? You know what? Fuck Jupiter, am I righ- I DIED??? …Okay, that makes sense. Anyways one dumb decision later, Jubileus’s body falls to the earth, brief lesbianism occurs, we destroy her body, Bayonetta dies, actually no, bisexualism occurs, Bayo winks, CREDIT ROLL!!!!
No hyperbole or anything, Bayonetta is one of my favorite games that I've played this year, and maybe one of my favorite games of all time. A must play for almost anybody. Sure, the game has it's low points (how the FUCK did i not mention Grace and Glory during this???), but overall, it's REALLY fucking fun, and serves as one of the best character action games ever made, andI'll for sure be returning for Hard Mode and afterwards, INFINITE CLIMAX (funny). Bayonetta is on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One for 10 bucks, and the game more than makes up for that price, I'd say. I'm not sure about Xbox 360 and PS3, but Bayonetta is also on Switch for $30, which is a bit of an eh deal, but hey, you get a $20 discount for Bayonetta 2 if you buy it. Speaking of Bayonetta 2, that's NOT up next, but rather Bayonetta: Bloody Fate. Yeah, for the first time in zeusdeegoose history, we have a cross-media review series (if you discount Isaac I guess). I'm still playing through Bayonetta 2, and it seems destined to be another banger, but hey, we'll see in the review. I don't know about Bayonetta 3 as I actually haven't even touched it, but from what I heard, there's some… opinions on it. But, once again we'll see. But, the moral of the story? Bayonetta is awesome and I like it. Go buy 15 copies of it right now, and I hope that you have an awesome day.
"HEY!I Get your fat-ass out of the way!"
'ASS"? I think you meant my awesome fat tits, you cocksucker!"
These two pieces of dialogue taken straight from the game completely sum up this game's writing. It's like they tried to make Sonic Colors an adult-oriented sitcom
'ASS"? I think you meant my awesome fat tits, you cocksucker!"
These two pieces of dialogue taken straight from the game completely sum up this game's writing. It's like they tried to make Sonic Colors an adult-oriented sitcom
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.
2010
Back to back on the PETA attack!
Hey, it beats Super Meat Boy Forever in terms of design! Aaaaand it's still one of the worst games I've ever played. Genuinely. It's not even funny bad. It's just BAD. McCardiarrac Arrest aside, this is absolutely abhorrent. Bad controls, abysmal graphics, terrible level design, I mean, shit! I could at least laugh at Cooking Mama Kills The Animals's graphics, but THIS is just blood and gore shat straight out of someone's ass. I rage quit eventually because the controls were simply THAT awful and unfun. Isn't this designed for kids???
What a joke.
Hey, it beats Super Meat Boy Forever in terms of design! Aaaaand it's still one of the worst games I've ever played. Genuinely. It's not even funny bad. It's just BAD. McCardiarrac Arrest aside, this is absolutely abhorrent. Bad controls, abysmal graphics, terrible level design, I mean, shit! I could at least laugh at Cooking Mama Kills The Animals's graphics, but THIS is just blood and gore shat straight out of someone's ass. I rage quit eventually because the controls were simply THAT awful and unfun. Isn't this designed for kids???
What a joke.
Me and my sister used to play this, not knowing that it was a PETA game. It was fun, at least at the time.
I think this is worth a playthrough for it's sheer bizarreness alone. Yes, it's bad, but it's one of those funny kind of bad games. The controls suck, but the minigames are really short. The graphics are your typical PETA shit. Uhhhh... the ending was funny? IDK. It's not a very long game; it took about 5 minutes to play. As someone who's played some of the earliest Newgrounds shit though, I wasn't phased in the slightest. Sorry, PETA! Try harder next time.
I think this is worth a playthrough for it's sheer bizarreness alone. Yes, it's bad, but it's one of those funny kind of bad games. The controls suck, but the minigames are really short. The graphics are your typical PETA shit. Uhhhh... the ending was funny? IDK. It's not a very long game; it took about 5 minutes to play. As someone who's played some of the earliest Newgrounds shit though, I wasn't phased in the slightest. Sorry, PETA! Try harder next time.
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)
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
2012
I’m left-handed
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
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
2012
Spelunky is a game that hates you. It’s randomized, filled with secrets and only a few helping hands throughout your adventure, and a few too many mistakes sends you back to the beginning of it all. There are no exploits, nor cheese to be had. There is only you, and your persistence.
As of writing, I haven’t even completed Spelunky, technically I’m not even a halfway through the game. So why am I reviewing it if I haven’t dropped/finished it yet? Because this is an experience that no other game has been able to capture. I’ve played numerous roguelikes in my days, with my favorite game of all time being a roguelike. Few (really only The Binding of Isaac) have managed to capture my attention like Spelunky. Unlike a good chunk of roguelikes which rely on the player’s reflexes and skill (which isn’t bad design for the record), Spelunky throws you into a random world and tells you to survive. You’ll find this incredibly difficult. Even with the less than threatening enemies, you’ll still find yourself dying over and over again. The goal to success is expirimentation, Spelunky’s strong suit. Since runs only last a few minutes each (10-15 minutes usually), I was more open to expirimentation with the game, compared to other roguelikes where changing my strategy mid-way through could lead to a lost run of about an hour (or so). This (and The Binding of Isaac) are the only two roguelikes that I’ve seen actually get this right, and it’s disappointing, because it works in both games’ favor, and I think a lot of roguelikes would benefit from this (ENTER THE GUNGEON.). Suddenly, as you play, once you bend the rules, rather than banging your head against a wall, the game responds accordingly. You’ll find that Dart Traps are activated with motion, and even by other enemies. So carrying anything will substantially increase your chances of survival. You can use one of the ladies as an extra HP point, use her as a meat shield for those damned dart traps, or sacrifice her for a chance at an awesome cape. You can steal from the shopkeeper which will give you several bonus items, but you have to fight him, which can easily lead to your death. And then he cock blocks the gateway to the next levels. I’m only scratching the surface of what I’ve learned through my 3 hours of playtime, and it’s not only because some of it is second nature at this point. I hope to learn more about Spelunky in my many more hours to come. I’m not sure if I’ll ever complete Spelunky, because it’s so difficult, but wishful thinking leads me to believe I will. I’ve conquered dozens of unabashedly difficult games in my lifetime, so Spelunky may be no different. But for now, Spelunky is a game that has made me feel little games have ever done. Even if you won’t see the credits, play this game. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. (and thank you alpharad for bringing my attention to this game, love you dude :D)
As of writing, I haven’t even completed Spelunky, technically I’m not even a halfway through the game. So why am I reviewing it if I haven’t dropped/finished it yet? Because this is an experience that no other game has been able to capture. I’ve played numerous roguelikes in my days, with my favorite game of all time being a roguelike. Few (really only The Binding of Isaac) have managed to capture my attention like Spelunky. Unlike a good chunk of roguelikes which rely on the player’s reflexes and skill (which isn’t bad design for the record), Spelunky throws you into a random world and tells you to survive. You’ll find this incredibly difficult. Even with the less than threatening enemies, you’ll still find yourself dying over and over again. The goal to success is expirimentation, Spelunky’s strong suit. Since runs only last a few minutes each (10-15 minutes usually), I was more open to expirimentation with the game, compared to other roguelikes where changing my strategy mid-way through could lead to a lost run of about an hour (or so). This (and The Binding of Isaac) are the only two roguelikes that I’ve seen actually get this right, and it’s disappointing, because it works in both games’ favor, and I think a lot of roguelikes would benefit from this (ENTER THE GUNGEON.). Suddenly, as you play, once you bend the rules, rather than banging your head against a wall, the game responds accordingly. You’ll find that Dart Traps are activated with motion, and even by other enemies. So carrying anything will substantially increase your chances of survival. You can use one of the ladies as an extra HP point, use her as a meat shield for those damned dart traps, or sacrifice her for a chance at an awesome cape. You can steal from the shopkeeper which will give you several bonus items, but you have to fight him, which can easily lead to your death. And then he cock blocks the gateway to the next levels. I’m only scratching the surface of what I’ve learned through my 3 hours of playtime, and it’s not only because some of it is second nature at this point. I hope to learn more about Spelunky in my many more hours to come. I’m not sure if I’ll ever complete Spelunky, because it’s so difficult, but wishful thinking leads me to believe I will. I’ve conquered dozens of unabashedly difficult games in my lifetime, so Spelunky may be no different. But for now, Spelunky is a game that has made me feel little games have ever done. Even if you won’t see the credits, play this game. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. (and thank you alpharad for bringing my attention to this game, love you dude :D)
2017
I really, REALLY hate being negative about games, contrary to my most popular reviews on this site. Who wants to just bitch and moan about how bad a game is? Sure, it’s fun after the moment, but the hours you spend leading up to the review are dreadful. This very fact was tested by The End is Nigh. Coming in from an outsider’s perspective, I was very intrigued by Nigh. A game created out of the stresses that comes with game development? Sounds interesting! And plus, it’s a game created by Edmund McMillen, who created some of my personal favorites! It’s going to be a great time, right?
You can already tell where this is going. I’m sorry, but this has to be the biggest letdown I’ve experienced in gaming so far. I just don’t like The End is Nigh. Coming a few years after Super Meat Boy, the platforming legend that it still is, The End is Nigh feels like it barely took any hints from that game’s design. And it tries. So, SO hard to embody what made Super Meat Boy so special. But it just fails. And no, to clarify, I am not disappointed that this game isn’t a renamed Super Meat Boy 2. What I am trying to say is that it simply fails to lives up to the design quality of the classic that was made by the same developer. And it suffers heavily from that. First off, the level design. I really don’t like it. Not at all. It’s rooted deep in trial and error, which is not a bad design for a game, but compared to other games like it, it’s just not as fun. The End is Nigh has numerous chapters with 20 levels within each, but the skill ceiling is simply far too low to warrant replaying any of them. The End is Nigh barely lets you toy around with it’s level gimmicks, nor does it have satisfying controls for a modern game. While the controls themselves are fine, you don’t have any major abilities to use, so most levels become very generic, and quickly. The level design itself is passable, but I don’t think they were very captivating to play. It’s just going through the same song and dance over and over again. You just grapple onto cliffs, move here, move there, and bam, onto the next stage. It’s a complicated issue, and I don’t even know why I don’t like the levels. There’s no bullshit or anything, but I thought the level design was just too standard. In this adventure, there are little gimmicks in your way, so eventually all of the levels kind of blend in and aren’t interesting at a certain point. Are they challenging? Kinda. Not hard enough to stand out from other more difficult platformers, but I guess it isn’t New Super Mario Brothers 2. But I didn’t pop off when I beat a hard level, I breathed heavy and moved on. This is also more of a personal nitpick, but I wish there was some feeling of accomplishment with beating a level. What if it was like Katana Zero and Super Meat Boy, where you’re shown a replay of all of your runs? Not just unceremoniously switching to the next level. So, if there’s no extrinsic value of enjoyment in the stages, why should you want to replay them? The Tumors. And you’ll want to collect as many of these as you can, which I’ll explain later. The tumor collecting itself also doesn’t feel that great in my opinion. Once again, it’s rooted deep in frustrating game design, and you don’t feel accomplished when you grab one. Nor does securing a tumor feel great. Once again, in Super Meat Boy and Celeste, Bandages and Strawberries weren’t placed haphazardly. There were designated areas to collect them, which furthered your enjoyment (and skills, most importantly) of the game. In Super Meat Boy as well, you actually got shit for completing the game, like new characters and whatnot, not just an achievement on Steam (an issue I have with Celeste but that's beyond the point). But in here, it’s like doing chores on a chore list. It's not as satisfying, and I only exhaust like I did in the main game when I finally secure it. And shockingly, that’s all of my major issues with the game. Yeah, a short list no doubt, but the game never deviates from the norm. By the end of The Past, I was extremely burnt out with the game. When I went back to the first chapter (thankfully you don’t have to backtrack), I lost all hope for the game at that point. And then, the game decided to suckerpunch me in the dick. You know those tumors I brought up? Yeah. Now that’s your fucking LIFE COUNT NOW. I had 30 fucking tumors going in. And there were 20 levels in a single chapter, meaning I had to do each level while dying only ONCE EACH. Seriously, FUCK THAT DESIGN CHOICE. No game I have EVER played in the 21st century has cock-blocked your progression like this. Either have no lives or NOT, especially when it’s not even COMMUNICATED TO THE PLAYER. I thought Super Meat Boy had no lives to avoid players getting frustrated, so where did that design element go? Seriously though, what the FUCK is the correlation between the amount of tumors I got in The Past compared to The Future? This design choice single handedly ruined my opinion of The End is Nigh, and proved my point that this game is so poorly designed. I already wasn’t having too much fun to begin with, but pulling this at the halfway point is seriously sadistic design. Oh, but what if I wanted to go back to collect all of the tumors I needed? I essentially needed to REPLAY THE ENTIRE GAME OVER AGAIN. I’m not even kidding, the Fast Travel only allows you to warp to the beginning of each chapter, NOT the individual levels within said chapters. Why not divide each individual chapter up into 3 to avoid this issue, or better yet let us travel to each level? It’s not that hard. These two design choices killed all motivation to continue. The level design kind of sucked to begin with. I’m not interested in redo-ing the entire game but slightly more irritating.
The End is Nigh was such a letdown to me. I think I’ve explained well enough why I didn’t enjoy it, so I don’t really have anything more to say. Uhhhhhh play Blaster Master Zero ok thanks bye
You can already tell where this is going. I’m sorry, but this has to be the biggest letdown I’ve experienced in gaming so far. I just don’t like The End is Nigh. Coming a few years after Super Meat Boy, the platforming legend that it still is, The End is Nigh feels like it barely took any hints from that game’s design. And it tries. So, SO hard to embody what made Super Meat Boy so special. But it just fails. And no, to clarify, I am not disappointed that this game isn’t a renamed Super Meat Boy 2. What I am trying to say is that it simply fails to lives up to the design quality of the classic that was made by the same developer. And it suffers heavily from that. First off, the level design. I really don’t like it. Not at all. It’s rooted deep in trial and error, which is not a bad design for a game, but compared to other games like it, it’s just not as fun. The End is Nigh has numerous chapters with 20 levels within each, but the skill ceiling is simply far too low to warrant replaying any of them. The End is Nigh barely lets you toy around with it’s level gimmicks, nor does it have satisfying controls for a modern game. While the controls themselves are fine, you don’t have any major abilities to use, so most levels become very generic, and quickly. The level design itself is passable, but I don’t think they were very captivating to play. It’s just going through the same song and dance over and over again. You just grapple onto cliffs, move here, move there, and bam, onto the next stage. It’s a complicated issue, and I don’t even know why I don’t like the levels. There’s no bullshit or anything, but I thought the level design was just too standard. In this adventure, there are little gimmicks in your way, so eventually all of the levels kind of blend in and aren’t interesting at a certain point. Are they challenging? Kinda. Not hard enough to stand out from other more difficult platformers, but I guess it isn’t New Super Mario Brothers 2. But I didn’t pop off when I beat a hard level, I breathed heavy and moved on. This is also more of a personal nitpick, but I wish there was some feeling of accomplishment with beating a level. What if it was like Katana Zero and Super Meat Boy, where you’re shown a replay of all of your runs? Not just unceremoniously switching to the next level. So, if there’s no extrinsic value of enjoyment in the stages, why should you want to replay them? The Tumors. And you’ll want to collect as many of these as you can, which I’ll explain later. The tumor collecting itself also doesn’t feel that great in my opinion. Once again, it’s rooted deep in frustrating game design, and you don’t feel accomplished when you grab one. Nor does securing a tumor feel great. Once again, in Super Meat Boy and Celeste, Bandages and Strawberries weren’t placed haphazardly. There were designated areas to collect them, which furthered your enjoyment (and skills, most importantly) of the game. In Super Meat Boy as well, you actually got shit for completing the game, like new characters and whatnot, not just an achievement on Steam (an issue I have with Celeste but that's beyond the point). But in here, it’s like doing chores on a chore list. It's not as satisfying, and I only exhaust like I did in the main game when I finally secure it. And shockingly, that’s all of my major issues with the game. Yeah, a short list no doubt, but the game never deviates from the norm. By the end of The Past, I was extremely burnt out with the game. When I went back to the first chapter (thankfully you don’t have to backtrack), I lost all hope for the game at that point. And then, the game decided to suckerpunch me in the dick. You know those tumors I brought up? Yeah. Now that’s your fucking LIFE COUNT NOW. I had 30 fucking tumors going in. And there were 20 levels in a single chapter, meaning I had to do each level while dying only ONCE EACH. Seriously, FUCK THAT DESIGN CHOICE. No game I have EVER played in the 21st century has cock-blocked your progression like this. Either have no lives or NOT, especially when it’s not even COMMUNICATED TO THE PLAYER. I thought Super Meat Boy had no lives to avoid players getting frustrated, so where did that design element go? Seriously though, what the FUCK is the correlation between the amount of tumors I got in The Past compared to The Future? This design choice single handedly ruined my opinion of The End is Nigh, and proved my point that this game is so poorly designed. I already wasn’t having too much fun to begin with, but pulling this at the halfway point is seriously sadistic design. Oh, but what if I wanted to go back to collect all of the tumors I needed? I essentially needed to REPLAY THE ENTIRE GAME OVER AGAIN. I’m not even kidding, the Fast Travel only allows you to warp to the beginning of each chapter, NOT the individual levels within said chapters. Why not divide each individual chapter up into 3 to avoid this issue, or better yet let us travel to each level? It’s not that hard. These two design choices killed all motivation to continue. The level design kind of sucked to begin with. I’m not interested in redo-ing the entire game but slightly more irritating.
The End is Nigh was such a letdown to me. I think I’ve explained well enough why I didn’t enjoy it, so I don’t really have anything more to say. Uhhhhhh play Blaster Master Zero ok thanks bye
the fact that there are 9 5.0 ratings on this scares me
2012
It took about ~300 deaths, but I fucking did it.
Almost everything in my original review still holds up. The Ice Caves is probably my least favorite area in the game but I still liked it, and Temple was a good sendoff to the game.
Hell? Doesn't exist, what are you talking about?
Almost everything in my original review still holds up. The Ice Caves is probably my least favorite area in the game but I still liked it, and Temple was a good sendoff to the game.
Hell? Doesn't exist, what are you talking about?