Eternal is simply unplayable.

[Viking Mana]

The Eternal patch, and the addition of the ridiculous Hard Mode, is the worst decision that could possibly have been made. it's not fun. It's not enjoyable in the least. It's simply a terrible mode full of terrible game design and terrible gameplay decisions. The enemies are ridiculous and half the rooms become unbeatable. Why anyone would think this was a good idea is frankly beyond me.

[Justice]

You can disable this free Eternal Edition DLC in game properties in your library.
I agree Eternal edition hard mode is not really that ballanced and it's very difficult. Would not recommend for not professional players

[Viking Mana]

What exactly constitutes a professional Binding of Isaac player?

Regardless, I am an achievement hunter and have sunk more than 70 hours into this, so I'll have to finish it up.

But the update is certainly just about as terrible as it is unnecessary.

[Justice]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

What exactly constitutes a professional Binding of Isaac player?

I meant for who is already good at this game. Pro player.

[Viking Mana]

Originally posted by Justice:

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

What exactly constitutes a professional Binding of Isaac player?

I meant for who is already good at this game. Pro player.

Oh, right. I thought you meant an actual professional player. The only one I could think of there was Northernlion.

[Razorkiller]

You'll get used to it? I mean I used to dislike Hard Mode till I can get the idea going for. Also, Eternal Hearts are a must have. You need to collect Eternal hearts (white heart parts) to gain more health upgrades, just don't collect them till fully cleared rooms and then jump down to the next floor. You basically need 7 Eternal heart upgrades to get flight and more damage. It helps a lot.

Otherwise it's always RNG. Sometimes your run is gonna be good and sometimes bad. Thankfully this game doesn't run on timer so make your time worth on all floors.

[Viking Mana]

I would assume that most players are aware, by the point they head into hard mode, that eternal hearts can be extremely valuable unless you're going for a no red hearts build, like permanent WoB or something to that effect. Do you get used to it? I suppose you do. I mean, I got used to it by the end, and when I disabled the DLC's to do the last no-hit runs I needed for completion, sure, the base game felt ridiculously tame by comparison.

But you can get used to anything. You can get used to sleeping in a bed of gravel - does getting used to it mean that it's a fun experience though? Definitely not, in my opinion. Obviously this going to be subjective, and I'm sure there are a few people out there who do enjoy the Eternal update and the content it adds, but I sure don't. Making everything homing, spammy and making everything drop creep definitely wasn't fun, and no attention was paid to actually balancing any of this. It just makes certain enemies ridiculous to deal for the sake of it, inluded going so far as to creating situations where you literally cannot win no matter how skilled you are.

To give you an example of this, I entered a random room on Womb 2 and found 4 eternal Larry Sr. (I think that's what the diagonal Larry's are called, right?) who immediately swarmed my position, seeing as they're homing, pushed me into a corner and basically created an impenetrable wall around me. Seeing as I did not have a mega-powerful attack capable of clearing them instantly, all I could do was hold down an arrow key and take and hope that I somehow had the DPS to destroy them before they obliterated me. As it turns out, I did not.

Did I get used to that kind of raw BS? Absolutely. Because it happens all the time in hardmode. You simply just lose runs because you got an impossible room. But that doesn't make it excusable, let alone fun or interesting to sit through. And that's my point. Hardmode is just not a fun experience. Binding of Isaac Classic Hardmode is just not a good game. Cheap deaths aren't fun in a game that's supposed to be mostly skill-based.

[Razorkiller]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

I would assume that most players are aware, by the point they head into hard mode, that eternal hearts can be extremely valuable unless you're going for a no red hearts build, like permanent WoB or something to that effect. Do you get used to it? I suppose you do. I mean, I got used to it by the end, and when I disabled the DLC's to do the last no-hit runs I needed for completion, sure, the base game felt ridiculously tame by comparison.

But you can get used to anything. You can get used to sleeping in a bed of gravel - does getting used to it mean that it's a fun experience though? Definitely not, in my opinion. Obviously this going to be subjective, and I'm sure there are a few people out there who do enjoy the Eternal update and the content it adds, but I sure don't. Making everything homing, spammy and making everything drop creep definitely wasn't fun, and no attention was paid to actually balancing any of this. It just makes certain enemies ridiculous to deal for the sake of it, inluded going so far as to creating situations where you literally cannot win no matter how skilled you are.

To give you an example of this, I entered a random room on Womb 2 and found 4 eternal Larry Sr. (I think that's what the diagonal Larry's are called, right?) who immediately swarmed my position, seeing as they're homing, pushed me into a corner and basically created an impenetrable wall around me. Seeing as I did not have a mega-powerful attack capable of clearing them instantly, all I could do was hold down an arrow key and take and hope that I somehow had the DPS to destroy them before they obliterated me. As it turns out, I did not.

Did I get used to that kind of raw BS? Absolutely. Because it happens all the time in hardmode. You simply just lose runs because you got an impossible room. But that doesn't make it excusable, let alone fun or interesting to sit through. And that's my point. Hardmode is just not a fun experience. Binding of Isaac Classic Hardmode is just not a good game. Cheap deaths aren't fun in a game that's supposed to be mostly skill-based.

You mean The Hollow? They're still similar to Larry Jr. no matter what you do in Hard Mode against them. They'll grow body parts back and their heads will try to crawl up to you. They're simply the Evny play but with a catch.

By the way, in Rebirth there are more balanced rooms. But there are also challenges and small amount of rooms that make it unfair as well, similar to its previous predecessor. Even if this game doesn't "suit" you and you said you want to 100% then still gotta live with it. The Eternal bosses designs are still creatively made than what we have nowadays in Rebirth. Of course not saying both are worse in some way. All in one have different uses of creativity. That's all.

And yes, bugs will exist too. Angel rooms and Devil rooms will not spawn doors even if you heard the infamous tune for them. Might have to re-enter them to fix it chance of despawning on chances like these. Blown up rocks will not sometimes make gap bridges for you and will stay as an invisible decor that you cannot see and cannot cross over. Same applies with your Spacebar items being glitched on the floor with an item within and becoming decor. Never doing their purpose that is.

I still admire this game for its more traditional hard play. Meanwhile Rebirth is way easier to control and maneuver.
If you don't like RNG that will punish you for not having keys, bombs or anything good for two floors average. It's kinda on you. You will still get rewarded (or not) for your efforts. It's a gamble game, not a cakewalk. So deal with it.

[Viking Mana]

We clearly disagree, both when it comes to what constitutes fair challenges, creative boss design and what's fun in general. And maybe I did mean the Hollow, I'm not sure. Regardless, there are plenty of room that are straight up umbeatable unless you happen to have the 1 item that might be able to counter the enemy spam, or you have flight to counter enemies with creep in rooms that weren't designed for them.

I mean, that's another thing - it's not really creative or fun to add an eternal enemy with creep in a room that wasn't meant to feature creep to begin with. Losing the ability to navigate without taking damage once again reduces the game to simply being cheap rather than providing anything that could be considered an actual challenge. Forcing you to take damage ain't fun.

The Eternal Update, which is all that I'm criticizing in this thread, does not represent "traditional hard play" or anything of the sort. Rather, it represents a very modern, post-Dark Souls approach to difficulty. One that isn't fair and simply relies on taking cheap shots or presenting you with overwhelming odds against you in order to appear difficult.

I have 100%'ed this game as of last week, and I can say with confidence that the last couple dozen hours or so of the experience, when I had to tangle with the Eternal update, wasn't fun. I frankly didn't enjoy any of it.

I have 100%'ed Rebirth two years ago, and Binding of Isaac: Rebirth remains, to this day, one of my favorite games ever, and possibly my second-favorite indie game of all time. I'm ecstatic that the game might see some more love, I just hope they don't go down the Eternal route and change up the base game to make it cheaper or more difficult, as they arguably did when they introduced slim rooms and such, although these were still clearly balanced in such a way that they were beatable, unlike the utter randomness of having an eternal enemy show up in a room that wasn't designed with its mechanics in mind.

[Razorkiller]

Just use a bomb to blast the doors open and go to other direction to recover, huehuehue.

Also, this is a very old game and you're giving it a critique of "Dark Souls-like"? Hahahahaha, no.

The game is still fine as it is, ignores the bugs and glitches that either favor you in this game or don't. Aged just fine. The DLC itself is clumsy but not over the top being terrible. Still adds more content and stays true to its origin.

And I'm gonna stop talking back because you gave this game a bad review and I didn't even dare to read it fully because I already realized you had an erectile dysfunction over a game that's made out of a Flash game. Literally a game that has limits and you still don't get the idea. Just because you're upset over.

Git gud boyo, ciao.

[Viking Mana]

Okay, I'm not one to attribute malice to misunderstandings, so I'm going to assume that you either didn't read what I wrote, or that you didn't actually understand what I said.

Originally posted by Left 4 Covid-19:

Also, this is a very old game and you're giving it a critique of "Dark Souls-like"? Hahahahaha, no.

No.. I didn't do that anywhere. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but the Eternal update was released for Halloween 2015. It isn't a "very old game" and I'm not calling it a Souls-like. What I am saying is that following the explosion in popularity of the Souls-franchise around 2012-2013, a lot of developers started changing up their approach to difficulty, copying the inflated difficulty of the Souls-games by putting the player up against overwhelming odds.

So, yeah.. Either you aren't reading what I'm saying, you aren't understanding what I'm saying, or you're deliberately misconstruing it. Neither proves me wrong though.

Originally posted by Left 4 Covid-19:

The game is still fine as it is, ignores the bugs and glitches that either favor you in this game or don't. Aged just fine. The DLC itself is clumsy but not over the top being terrible. Still adds more content and stays true to its origin.

I mean, that's obviously subjective. I would argue that the game hasn't really aged very well, and that Rebirth is an improvement in every conceivable way. The DLC I would argue is definitely over-the-top and utterly irrelevant by the time it was released. There was no reason to tamper with a classic piece of gaming history.

Originally posted by Left 4 Covid-19:

And I'm gonna stop talking back because you gave this game a bad review and I didn't even dare to read it fully because I already realized you had an erectile dysfunction over a game that's made out of a Flash game. Literally a game that has limits and you still don't get the idea. Just because you're upset over.

???

If you had actually read my review, you'd know that I praise this game for what it is, and the only reason I don't recommend it is because Rebirth exists, and is a superior game. It's not a "bad review" at all.

I'm also not sure how the "It's a flash game with limits"-defence works. So you're not allowed to criticize a game's flaws if they're due to restrictions imposed by its engine or software? And what idea is it that I'm not getting? You also forgot to add an object to the last sentence - what is it that I'm upset over, exactly?

I mean, to be honest, you seem a lot more upset about what I think about the Eternal update than I am upset about anything related to this game. ^^'

[Justice]

I would pick Original the binding of Isaac over Rebirth any day for several reason:
1) Smooth , nice looking flash style graphics
2) Better music and sound effects
3) Ballance is actually better in this one (Eternal mode aside). in Rebirth there is too much power creep, cheese and overpowered items. Less skill oriented and more on items carry you. Thus many blame RNG instead of themselves when things go wrong.

[Viking Mana]

Originally posted by Justice:

I would pick Original the binding of Isaac over Rebirth any day for several reason:
1) Smooth , nice looking flash style graphics
2) Better music and sound effects
3) Ballance is actually better in this one (Eternal mode aside). in Rebirth there is too much power creep, cheese and overpowered items. Less skill oriented and more on items carry you. Thus many blame RNG instead of themselves when things go wrong.

Points 1 and 2 are rather subjective, so I really have no choice but to give you those, but as for point 3, I strongly disagree. In my opinion, Classic relies far more heavily on you acquiring an early Guppy transformation. It's not exactly difficult to get overpowered. It's a fairly reliable and legitimate strategy to simply keep rerolling until you achieve Guppy before even leaving the Basement/Cellar levels.

[Justice]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

but as for point 3, I strongly disagree. In my opinion, Classic relies far more heavily on you acquiring an early Guppy transformation. It's not exactly difficult to get overpowered. It's a fairly reliable and legitimate strategy to simply keep rerolling until you achieve Guppy before even leaving the Basement/Cellar levels.

Relying on guppy transformation to beat the game is a choise of desperation. Sure Guppy is the most powerful thing in Original, but if this is only way for someone to beat the game... it shows game might be too difficult for them.
And what about other playable characters? They don't have D6.

[Viking Mana]

Originally posted by Justice:

Relying on guppy transformation to beat the game is a choise of desperation. Sure Guppy is the most powerful thing in Original, but if this is only way for someone to beat the game... it shows game might be too difficult for them.

... Uh, okay.

But that's not actually what we're discussing, is it?

Your point was that Classic is better because it's harder to get overpowered, making it more of a game of skill - my counterpoint to that is that it's actually significantly easier to get overpowered if you just try to. So whether or not it's "an act of desperation" or whatever melodramatic framing you'd like to go for is entirely irrelevant. It's an option, whether you use it or not. And it's far more reliable than it is in Rebirth. Even if you aren't actively trying to roll Guppy, it's still far more common to get it purely by chance than it is in Rebirth, even before unlocked the D6 or when using a character that doesn't have it.

With fewer rooms, enemies and bosses, it's also significantly easier to memorize particular encounters, at which point your game of skill really becomes one of nothing but routine and muscle memory.

You can prefer Classic if you want, but I disagree that it's better balanced.

[Retrolicious]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

What exactly constitutes a professional Binding of Isaac player?

Regardless, I am an achievement hunter and have sunk more than 70 hours into this, so I'll have to finish it up.

But the update is certainly just about as terrible as it is unnecessary.

70H is ridicule low time for a rogue-lite. I'm not an achievement hunter, but if you want to 100% every game in your library in short time, this simply impossible without cheating.

I got like 90% of BoI after years and still didn't get everything ( i didnt try hard though ) and currently i put i think 300H into this game.

TL;DR
Play as long as this is fun challenge for you. Stop, if you get too much frustration - achievements are skinner box manipulation - so unhealthy to hunt achivs in long run :p

PS: Getting platin & eternal boy or Womb boy o cave boy is indeed terrible hard lol ...

PS2: You might prefer this game instead:
https://www.gog.com/game/blasphemous_digital_deluxe_edition
It got gorgeous pixel art and is more gorey than BoI :D