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)

Before I begin, I will note that (per the developers wishes) there are content warnings on their own website, viewable here. Out of a desire for a completely blind, spoiler-free experience, I obligated to not view them, but if you’re of the younger audience, or simply sensitive to controversial themes, perhaps skip over this review. Reader discretion advised. And, as a precaution, I will talk about major (and minor) spoilers, as I discuss my personal experiences in great detail with this game. And if you decide to see yourself out, whether it be of spoilers and the like, don’t worry. Because no matter what, I’ll always be waiting for you in our next review together. <3

After the developers, Black Tabby Games, called out Backloggd users on their Discord, I knew what I had to do. So I bought the game, and here we are.

Slay The Princess is one of the few games that have sold me on their visual presentation alone. Almost immediately after watching the trailer for it (thanks to Steam Discovery Queue), I wishlisted it, knowing that it would be something truly special. The hand drawn artwork captured my attention, as it is and will probably always be one of my favorite styles in the entire industry. The Princess’s striking, yet disconcerted eyes explain a character’s entire story like no other. The contrast between darkness of the background, and the bright, white foregrounds makes each character pop out. The subtle redness of it all, prominent with the Princess’s dialogue and the gore, instills uneasiness within the player. More prominent than the artstyle however, was how the trailer ended.

Slay The Princess kicks off with the main, unnamed hero, arriving in a dark path, with only a narrator to accommodate him. On said path is a cabin, which has the princess within. From the narrator’s own words, she is to bring the end of the world, unless the hero kills her. Arriving at the cabin, we see a knife and a door. The door within holds the Princess, locked up and sitting innocently. The game then asks you if you would want to slay the princess (ala the game’s title). This is where Slay The Princess really surprised me. There’s so many dialogue opportunities, and all of it from what I’ve experienced is fully voice acted. The Princess herself is highlighted in pink text, representing her initial innocence. The narrator proclaims that you mustn't listen to what the Princess asks of you, no matter what. The Princess herself is a deliberate manipulator, a troubled creature, who gives the player the deepest of stares, and really makes you question if she’s as bad as she seems. If the people who locked her up were convinced of her danger, wouldn’t they kill her outright? I opted to not kill her, out of curiosity, and also kindness. I then proceeded to cut off her hand, to which she blankly reacted, no tears nor crying. As we escape, the Narrator interjects with the desire to kill her, and forces the hero to swing at her. All player choice is neutered at this point, and the princess swiftly dodges your blade, before turning it on you. This is how the trailer ends, and my curiosity began.

After you die, you revive on the same path. Chapter 2 time. It feels like a roguelike, with all new paths and experiences opening up to you. After my initial death, I refused to even enter the cabin, and this time, the Voice of the Skeptical accompanied me.. After that, another cabin came about behind me. I refused, similarly. And, as the narrator stated, the world I had seen had faded into the Void before my very eyes. And then…

I respawned. I began taking notes for this review. I use a dual monitor, so typing notes whilst also writing was a very easy task, and as the game’s audio played in the background, I had taken a liking to the soundtrack playing in the bacground. It was a very soft, endearing piano tune. A very simple composition, but a nice one. This run, I decided to hesitate, and then run into the cabin, balls first. I also grabbed the blade as well, before noticing that it might be the key to my next fate. I made a mental note, before moving on. This time, I had charged straight on in to net the coup de grace, before recieving a blow to the face. “Holy shit that hurt!”, the game pronounced. I didn’t know The Princess practiced arm game in this cell! We engage in a duel, trading blows as the Princess bleeds out. I then give up, admonished for doing so, before getting… stepped on. Goddamn it, I had already played Bayonetta prior. Now I’M the Angel! But, once again, I took notice to her eyes. Something about them conveyed unadulurated anger, unlike her previous expressions. As her bloodied clothes dry. She shoves her knee into my windpipe, leaving me oxygen deprived. Before everything goes dark, I take one last look, before finally passing.

Loop 4, time. Am I doing something wrong? Ending 3 had already sent me back to Chapter 1. Now, I’m back on Chapter 2, where I had previously reset. Once again, inspired to use the knowledge I had previously, I was determined to NOT. TAKE. THE. DAMNED. BLADE. She can kill me through sheer will power alone, so there was no use fighting. Before entering the cabin, I was forewarned by the Narrator, and he once again warns me of her lies. And then, I had gained the Voice of the Broken, a new character. I had also noticed the corrupted music within the background during this time. Was I finally making progress? Only one way to find out.

The Cabin had completely altered this time, into a castle-like structure. Yes! I’m getting somewhere, finally! Right next to the basement door was a mirror. I clean it off, only to reveal nothing. Oh, well! Skipping the basement, I head straight into the basement. God, I could go for some Isaac Rebirth now. The Princess calls us once again, but her voice is… off now. I think we all know what that means, so with caution, I head down, without a blade. Is this what my kindness leads to? My own demise? The Princess appears far more intimidating than ever, growing far in size. Any attempt to fight her is futile at this point. And she KNOWS this. She KNOWS our pasts sins, as she states that she’s seen our previous killings. She is eternal. We attempt to kill her, she blindsighted and gruesomely kills us throughout each run. At this point, the only thing to do is kneel and beg for forgiveness. We come in for a… kiss or something idk, at least the Voice of the Broken knows what's up. I DON’T want to kill her. I don’t want her to know why I’m here. But she simply teases us, and I have no other options. She continues to tease us. She truly was destined to end the world, as she’s said. If you can’t beat em, join em… I free her from her chains, taunting us as we join her side for the rest of eternity. Is this truly our fate? Is there a way to save her? Because no matter what we do, saving her kills us, and killing her is suicide. And as we break her free, our narrator is practically killed, replaced with only the echoes of the cruel mistress herself. We attempt to take her hand, but right before our eyes, she disappears into the void. All we see now is a mirror, and much to the dismay of the hero, we approach it. We see… ourselves. And then we explore the void that now remains as a reminder of what we've done. There is no more cabin. Only the Princess remains, consumed by the hands, spewing evangelical-like nonsense. Out of desperation, I attempt to commit suicide, but it fails. I try to kill “her”, but it also fails. The world hasn't ended, but yet, this is the rest of eternity. Just me, the hands, and a shell of her former self; the princess. The Princess desires perspectives; the vessel she has now represents dominance. And she tasks us with forgetting everything that we’ve experienced thus far to continue the cycle. I refuse twice, not letting her reset my memories. She then promptly closes my game. Thanks! Now that we’re fully intertwined in the eternal cycle, there’s no way out of here, I guess. I forget everything, and reality shatters, which actually made me jump a little with the sound effect. PART 2, TIME!

I reload my save, out of curiosity. Rather disappointingly however, the same outcome happens. And I'm on Loop 1 once more. I've decided this time to be 100% peaceful.; no bullshit, no nothing. I charge in, no guns nor anything, straight to the Princess, completely unarmed. She's a lot more polite to me this time, but how do we get her out of the chains without a knife? She EATS her own hand off. Damn, how has this bitch been stuck in here since forever? She just ate her own hand off!!! Well, kind of, as we eventually just cut her hand off with a blade that mysteriously appears out of nowhere. The Narrator once again forces us to kill her, but something interesting happens this time. The Princess knows that some outside force is influencing us, and then she takes the blade, once again killing us, albeit with remorse this time. This singular line completely threw off how I perceived each run of Slay The Princess. Albeit subtly, the Princess already knows that what's happening isn't normal, not by a long shot.

RUN 2 PART 2: I directly accuse the Narrator of causing my death, and I gain a new voice; The Voice of the Smitten. He's the #2 Princess fan, so good luck stopping him! #1 being me. But once again, our cabin changes, and the Princess seemingly remembers us from before, leaving even the narrator shocked. The killing, the disarment, everything! However, once again, listening to her voice, something seems off. It's a lot less rude and demanding than previously. Maybe we fixed her? Let's rescue her, once again! Getting a closeup of her fac- wait a second. That IS a different Princess! But regardless, we slip her hands through the shackles that bind her, and she gives us a nice, warm hug. Awwww, she's so cute, disregarding her killing us in cold blood last time. But now we're left curious on what we do for the rest of our lives, but the music cuts abruptly, putting me on edge. But the GODDAMN DOOR CLOSES AGAIN. However, the power of love triumphs all, and by uniting our hands, we unlock the door, with only the wonders of the world between u- get fucked with the void lmao. Once again, it's reset time! That was… fairly short, but okay. PART 3!

I turn around, this time, then enter the cabin. I come in, say Hi, and the Princess is not as kind as before, but not necessarily hostile either. I decide to leave her downstairs on her own, but her eyes tell me all that I need to know. I will regret this. So, balls to the walls, I leave her. But even the Narrator warns me about the decision I've made. The Princess aggressively demands her own freedom, threatening to even free herself, but I keep on walking. Barricading the door, I run like it's no tomorrow. Watching eerily, I fall asleep next to the door, with the Princess calling me, begging me to open the door as she violently bangs on it. We nod off, but as we awake, the door was lock picked. The Princess has escaped, and her ass is chasing you now. Seeing what she can do, you probably know how this ends.

Run 2! Voice of the Paranoid, this time. Cabin changes, knife, mirror, same thing. We're met with a path, with the Princess out to kill us for what we just did. I don't act. She finds us, and paralyzes us from the waste down. At this point, I'm on the edge of my seat. The sound design of Slay The Princess is sublime, highlighted by this scene alone. Each effect leaves me anxious as all hell, and the only thing I can do is keep clicking. And the scene of black and white… it was just too much to take. We die as always, but we live on.

Run… 3? Starts in the night… skies. Everything is clear. We find ourselves with every single voice in the game. The cabin is a weird objecymt which shifts as we watch. Did I… fuck up? The mirror is once again fake, leaving only the blade, and we have no choice now. But as we grab it, it sifts through the earth, into the unknown depths below. And what are in those unknown Depths? THE GODDAMN PRINCESS OF COURSE! With no other options as she’s taken away our will power, we let her be free, and she thanks us, before becoming a part of the Void. Once again, we reset the universe, and now we’re back to square one. This was easily my favorite chapter of Slay The Princess thus far.

I enthusiastically head into the cabin this time, destined on cold murder as the narrator wishes us to, no lies or anything. This time, she’s a lot more hostile towards us, ala Part 1. But I charge straight in, stab her chest, and it looks like it did a lot of damage. But the Princess gets up and says “nahhhhhh i can tech this shit”, ending up dying anyways. After a job well done, we leave and see... The Void again. We can’t leave, but we end up staying in the Void for... eternity. Happy? After all of that, hell if I know. But hey, I got a good ending at least!!!! Welp, time to commit suicide and start the cycle all over again.

Voice of the Cold, we enter the cabin, it’s cold, grab knife. The Princess remains dead, as she was before. But that can’t be, right? The world was reset! Well, not entirely, as her spirit lives on, seeping through the bottom floor, heading straight at us. Rather than thinking with our fists, I hesitate. She’s dead anyways, what’s the harm? Apologizing for my past actions, the Princess seems apathetic to it. Out of the debt of our hearts, I ask her what I can do to repay her. The ghost wishes to return home, no battles, no nonsense. She just wants to live a real life. Desperate and out of options, I let her possess me, in an attempt to let her see the world. After briefly passing out, we wake up, with The Princess forever intertwined in our thoughts. We have the option of killing her, but I refuse to oblige, and we thus leave the Basement. As we open the door leading us outside, we suddenly pass out, and the Void faces us once more. As we’ve seen before, The Princess disappears into the hands of The Void, and the mirror once again appears. The evangelical being that was the Ghost states that we need one more vessel to bring her to singularity. As I near the end of the game, I wonder, which Princess to bring into this realm? Which girl to end the game on? Which one will be my final send-off to this game?

Okay yeah, I looked up how to do the Witch route. I am an absolute SUCKER for witches. So why not end the game on one? We enter the Cabin unarmed, but end up grabbing the mysterious knife. As we leave, we go in for the kill, she strikes back, killing us with her own nails. She seemingly meets her end soon enough, as we die.

THE BEST CHAPTER: II - THE WITCH!!! The cabin is grotesque this time, with roots of plants surrounding us, unarmed. Hey, wait a fucking second. THAT’S A CAT WOMAN! What a rip-off. The Witch is incredibly strong, distrusting of us, yet not hostile. I mean, after all, we did kill her. After some back and forth, we eventually get her to come with us for the rescue, not before telling her to go first, and with her subsequently sniffing us, insulting us in the process. Rude. But, not grabbing the knife was a mistake, as she reached it first. But, without warning, she closes the door on us, leaving us alone in our thoughts, with the void slowly consuming the world. As we gaze into the mirror for the final time, our reflection is blank, as the mirror cracks, and so does our reality. As the shards fall, the narrator’s true face is revealed, slowly fading away as we talk to him. What happened to these worlds, we ask. As he slowly dies, he begs us one final time, to kill the princess, once and for all. As we head to the cabin in this twisted Void, the hill bursts open and reveals…


The Princess! Every single version of her, united into one being. But, as The Princess reminds us of The Narrator’s final wishes, that leaves us with one. Last. Choice. As our playthrough comes to a close, The Princess expresses her wish for her own end, as each Princess comes back to remind us of our past killings and savings.

To slay or to not slay...? Every time we’ve come down, hostile or not, we’ve usually met our end, but that’s to be expected, no? After all, our goal is to kill the Princess, and of course she’d resist her own murder, right? Are we the ones at fault? But, we’re simply the player character in a game that FORCED us to choose to kill her. But, then again, we decided to buy the game that said “Slay The Princess”, install it, and play until the very end, out of our own will. We are the ones at fault. AND, with that revelation, I decide to SAVE The Princess, and free ourselves from this reality. But as the glass of this reality begins to crush us, the Princess and I unite into one self, as we spend the rest of eternity together, stepping into… the Infinite. We’ve finally made it back home, as the deceased Princess has wished.

While I know that my explanation of how Slay the Princess made me feel what I did was pretty beefy, it was mostly a journal of the game, as I had processed it in real time. In the end however, Slay The Princess reminds me of The End of Evangelion. Something that was definitely enjoyable on a first look, but when the journey’s all over, you think “Wow, that was actually kind of GOATed”. It's an intentionally deep and complex narrative, with multiple different choices to make, and gorgeous production values being present everywhere in its content. Each run feels different from the last, with the entire narrative changing to reflect your actions. Every variation of the Princess is an extension of your actions, and yes, while some paths felt underdeveloped (Damsel) unfortunately, I still think Slay the Princess is worth your time overall, and the visuals alone will stick with you for a very long time, much less the story and music. Every choice I made had significant meaning, and I can’t wait for my next playthrough of the next few routes. But for now, this is where Slay The Princess ends. And where MY bitching begins.

This was a bit of an experimental review style, one that I don’t plan on using much in the future, but for a game with as many paths as Slay the Princess, it really demanded this style. Hell if I know I’ll continue to use this style, but hey, it’s a thought. But speaking of reviews, I hate to announce so many things in a short time span, but I think I’m also looking into replaying the Bayonetta games soon. I absolutely LOVED Bayonetta 1 when I played it last year, but I never ended up finishing it, unfortunately. All that’s about to change, because I’ll be playing all three mainline titles, back to back, and I’ll also be including Cereza and the Lost Demon as a bonus. It’s been something I’ve always wanted to revisit. I really love Bayonetta, both as a character, and as a game as well. So, I hope you’re looking forward to that. But, that’s all for now. Until next time, my friends!

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