Recent reviews by Scyrel

For those who played the original Binding of Isaac, and by played I mean gave time to it and loved it for what it is, just don't think. Buy this game now. It's much better, bigger, satisfying. And it can be modded with the original soundtracks.

For those who haven't played the original, here's the thing. The Binding of Isaac is a roguelike, with all the meaning of the word. Randomly generated runs, check. Permadeath, check. It will challenge your reflexes, it will challenge your ability of making correct decisions. Sometimes it will make you so powerful you really feel invincible. Other times it will just laugh at you, watching you struggle. But the thing with this game is that victory is never granted. You may have a great item combo, wrecking everything in your path, but if you're too reckless and overconfident, you'll end up throwing your great run. This game challenges yourself.

Then we recieved The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Rebirth is a remake of the original Binding, but with more items, more enemies, more bosses, more playable characters, more literally everything. Edmund really put so much work on this one, along with Nicalis, and once more he didn't fail us. He made an already perfect game into a perfecter one (yes, that's now a word).

First, there's the gameplay. RPG-shooter roguelike, executed wonderfully. It is just marvelous. Especialy with a controller. You might find it hard to adjust to at first, but when you do, you'll enjoy every single bit of it. As you get more experienced to what you can do, things will be more within your grasp than before. Let's say, sprinting bosses or bullet hell battles, they might seem difficult at first. But this game is made so as you get more experience and know the handling of the controls, you will be able to overcome them. Maybe not easily, but you will.

The new OSTs. Well, personaly I do prefer the vanillia ones by Danny Baranowsky, but the ones Ridiculon made for Rebirth are great as well. You can place the vanillia OSTs in the game files to have them playing istead of the new ones anytime, though.

The new graphics. At first, when we had just previews of the remake, I thought the new bit graphics wouldn't be as good as the old ones. Then, time passed, and Rebirth came out. I was in front of my PC that exact moment the "Pre-load" button converted into "Play", and of course I clicked it immediately. My mind wasn't on the graphics at that point, being so excited, but of course I would notice them. I expected something not-good-as-the-original graphics. Then I started my first run and, hell, I was amazed by how well created the new graphics were. It has a old-school kind of feeling, which really is great to the eye. So, right then, while I was playing, I made my mind: new graphics>old graphics. Now I can't even get used to the way the original Binding looked.
There is a setting to turn the graphics to less pixelated, but I can't play with that on, seems so blurry to me. I'm now used to the pixel, bit graphics and I absolutely love them.

And now, the lore. At first you'll think "Wait, does this game even have lore, apart from the intro?". The answer is "Yes, it does", and a deep one too. The lore in the Binding is executed really, really well that it becomes one of the major pros of the game. It might take you a long time (depending on how much you play each day) to find most pieces of the story, and in the end you might need to search YouTube and Reddit for the most stable theories out there. But when you do, you won't be disappointed. In fact, you'll figure out that you've been playing a game that isn't just about a naked crybaby trying to fight through his mother's horrible basement. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't analyze the lore here, but get ready for one of the most well-built and structured lores in history.

So, long story short. Here we go.
Pros

• Much, much, much more content
  
• Great gameplay, bonus from the full compatibility with controllers. Guide on how to connect Sixaxis controllers with Windows
  
• Great OSTs, but replaceable with the old ones. How to mod the vanillia soundtracks in
  
• Great artwork, better than the old
  
• Great lore, but it might really need some research on the internet to understand
  
• Great item synergies
  
• Local co-op, with many co-op babies
  
• Seeds to play the same run as your friend(s)
  
• Built in a new engine, as Flash had many limitations and bugs
  
• 3 save slots (yeah, it's really something)
  
• Able to resume your run if you exit the game without ending it first

Cons

• Sleep deprieving
  
• Addicting
  
• Ridiculously amazing that it will make you compare it to other roguelikes, the result being them losing the comparison
  
• Really, how the hell can't Edmund even disappoint us with his work?

Now with a new DLC/expansion coming, that will add dozens of new things in the game. Really, I don't know what I expect from my life anymore.

Just stop right here. Scroll right up. Buy this right now. You will not be disappointed.