Binding Of Isaac Review

Well folks, let’s take a look at this happy little game about unicorns, a mother’s love for her son, televangelists, voices, and regular corn.

Binding Of Isaac was a bit deal back when it came out for multiple reasons and all of them really pretty good. The game was kind of an outlier at the time of it’s release in terms of it’s play style and content. We’ll get into that here in a bit. We’ve got an order to stick with here.

The story is that Isaac, our hero, is chilling in his bed room. His mom, while watching the 700 Club or that Joel Olseteen asshole, starts hearing voices from above telling her that if she really does believe in God and wants to obey him and make him happy, she needs to go all Abraham on Isaac but without that last minute “Hold up!” from an angel right before the knife pierces the breast. But you all know that story.

So Isaac, naked and alone and afraid, drops down into his basement to escape from Mom and the love of God that really just wants to see her chop him up into all these itty bitty pieces.

Thus we have the premise of the game. Isaac needs to escape Mom and the only way to do that is go deeper and deeper underground. It’s a unique story, but not really going to change the way you think about yourself or the world.

The game is a dual stick shooter kind of thing. Left hand moves, right hand attacks. You can move in any direction and can fire in any of the usual four (up, right, down, left) but either using the face buttons, right stick, or keyboard. You cannot fire diagonally. Oh and your weapons are tears. That’s important to know.

The “dungeons” have a very Legend Of Zelda look that I, as a person of age, really appreciate. Rooms, at least in the earlier versions of the game, are single screen with possible exists on the walls and also Dennis. Do not try to get ye flask. You cannot get ye flask.

The dungeons/floors are randomly generated each time you start the game so your run through the game will be different every time. This is also a rogue like game. So you die, that’s it. No revives, no continues. You go back to the beginning and try again next time, Pal.

As you go through the dungeon crying enemies like slugs, spiders, zombies, flies, deadly sins, and etc. to death you’ll find various power ups in the form of collectables. Not all of these are buffs, some are debuffs. I don’t think I need to explain that.

Your attack power, range, speed, tear size, and all that can be increased/decreased based on the items you find and pick up. These items can also do other things like add status effects to your shots, cause you to attract items, give you more subweapons, “Options” like in the Gradius games, or even the random attack of gas.

There are also sub weapons that recharge as you progress through the games. These can be things like invincibility, summoning bombs, shields, maps, all that stuff. These take energy and energy is replenished by clearing rooms, it can be purchased from shops, or you can pick up batteries to use to recharge these sub weapons.

On top of that there are also consumable items in the forms of tarot cards and pills. The cards always do the same thing every time, but you can’t always tell what dark you’ve picked up till you use it. They can teleport you to random places, give you bonuses, or take things away. Get used to that. But until what we’re going to talk about next, the card will always do what it does. Tower is always Tower. Death is always Death.

Pills work the same way, but they’re always different, meaning that if you get a capsule that’s red and white in one playthrough, it’s not going to always have the same effect in your next playthrough.

You need keys to open locked door or bombs to blow up secret walls or block that bar your progress.

There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to the combat. And if you take into consideration all the DLCs for the games, there’s even more.

There also also shops, casinos, challenge rooms, and so much more to explore and encounter in the game.

Each floor has a boss which, usually, aren’t really all that difficult in my experience. Sometimes it’s more dangerous getting to the boss than it actually is fighting the bosses. Bosses never really change, but the paths getting to them might. You know how that goes.

Beat a boss, you get a goody, you can drop to the next floor or check out the Satan Room, as I call it. The Satan Room lets you exchange health for powerups so take those as you find them.

Oh and, before I forget, there are different playable characters. Some are available by default and others have to be unlocked by doing certain things in your runs. These characters all play the same but have different stats. Stats, essentially, boil down to health, attack, speed, and range.

Graphically the game lives in the 16 bit world, but it’s that part of the world that’s got a lot of bodily fluids. It’s a squishy game and the kind of squishy you’d want to wipe your feet and wash your hands after playing.

Each couple of floors of the dungeon the design changes to be darker and danker, as you’d expect it to.

Enemy designs are good and the player designs are also good. Nothing groundbreaking or spectacular but everything works, and it works well.

I could essentially copy/paste that previous segment about the graphics for the audio. The music is good but nothing you’re likely to blast through your earbuds while you’re doing air punches while hoping no one is filming you. None of it is bad, none of it is amazing, but it just works.

That all said, I know it sounds like I’m not particularly blown away by the game. And I’m not. But you know what, it’s totally fine. The graphics and music are solid, the story is unique but shallow, the game play is where this game really shines and, I think, that’s the point. You’ve got a Zelda looking, twin stick, action rogue like. What’s not to love about that?