Any reason / way to play vanilla original Binding of Isaac?

[Szabolcs]

So me and my wife love to play BoI and will probably soon unlock the last ending in Repentance.

But she often says she kind of misses the feel of our early runs with easier floors, discoveries and most importantly, less convoluted ways to progress. So I was wondering if playing original BoI would be like this, but still sort of different from the current game to feel fresh.

For those who played that, how different does it feel? And does it even run of modern PC's if downloaded from Steam? (since it's Flash based, who knows)

[ploeppsel605]

That depends do you mean the original isaac or the original rebirth. The original isaac can still be bought on steam (everything looks slightly different and enemies projectiles travel faster). You can downgrade to the original rebirth but your afterbirth/+/repentence progress will be lost if I'm correct

[lieutenantkirtar]

Just tested it and it still works on windows 10. In general non web based flash games still work.

It seems to run worse than I remember and worse than rebirth. Random stutters, not sure if this is a problem with my hardware or a problem with the game itself.

[JellyPuff]

It does work, but it's also locked at 30FPS, due to Flash's limitations. I don't have any stutters myself, just the general choppyness of a lower framerate.

Even though, nostalgia hits immediately, when i boot it up, it does feel dated. After all, the limitations of Flash were the main driver for Eddie to remake the game. It's way harder as well. Also, getting to The Chest is entirely up to RNG, since the Polaroid is not a guaranteed drop, which is the main reason, why i never bothered to 100% it (i also keep forgetting to backup the savefile, when re-installing Windows). The OST is still fire, though.

[Nazemec]

Originally posted by lieutenantkirtar:

It seems to run worse than I remember and worse than rebirth. Random stutters, not sure if this is a problem with my hardware or a problem with the game itself.

Sort of a recurring issue with Flash technology, as far as I know. Part of the reason why Rebirth doesn't use it.

[Szabolcs]

Thanks for the answers. Maybe later, now we found some fun with doing normal runs with other characters whom we ignored up until now.

She was pretty frustrated with Repentance how there is tons of new content, but they don't really unlock anything except if you do these very specific tasks, all during the same run.

[Nazemec]

Originally posted by Szabolcs:

She was pretty frustrated with Repentance how there is tons of new content, but they don't really unlock anything except if you do these very specific tasks, all during the same run.

Just to be sure...

Can you press E in the character selection screen?
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't look it up. Go reach your last ending for the first time. You might want to explore the last floor a bit, though.

If you do know, well, I don't think we have the same sense of quantity then...

[spaneika]

play the original just for the music alone ;)

[Blumberquack]

Originally posted by Szabolcs:

So me and my wife love to play BoI and will probably soon unlock the last ending in Repentance.

But she often says she kind of misses the feel of our early runs with easier floors, discoveries and most importantly, less convoluted ways to progress. So I was wondering if playing original BoI would be like this, but still sort of different from the current game to feel fresh.

For those who played that, how different does it feel? And does it even run of modern PC's if downloaded from Steam? (since it's Flash based, who knows)

Should run on PCs fine. It does feel a lot more dated (a bit chunkier, slower) but it's perfectly playable. Be sure to get Wrath of the Lamb too. It also has the Eternal update (which uh, yeah, don't play if you're not too great at the game lol, some of the eternal enemies are nuts)

[Danizk0]

Flash is almost a completely different game and it's just as good as Repentance in its own way. Try it.

[Szabolcs]

Originally posted by Nazemec:

Originally posted by Szabolcs:

She was pretty frustrated with Repentance how there is tons of new content, but they don't really unlock anything except if you do these very specific tasks, all during the same run.

Just to be sure...

Can you press E in the character selection screen?
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't look it up. Go reach your last ending for the first time. You might want to explore the last floor a bit, though. :dip:

If you do know, well, I don't think we have the same sense of quantity then... :dip:

I'm not there yet because Knife piece 2 is still a ***** (I'd rather beat Delirium) but I know what it is.

Ok, let's just say Repentance gives you all kinds of bottlenecks. First, just to unlock the new floors, you need 3 Hush kills (not THAT big a deal, but still).

Then, you get to a stage where you can't really progress with anything unless you do 3 specific extra things all in the same run (Knife piece 1, 2 and the bosses).

And when you are done with that, all these extra floors are basically non-existent again, they have zero reason to be visited when going for the final ending. This is just not structured well.

Just as a comparison, in Afterbirth+ you had to progress through multiple Isaac and Satan kills to unlock one extra boss in each area, AND you could also progress with Hush, Delirium and The Lamb, giving you multiple options depending on how your run was going.

[kone]

The best feeling to me about Flash game was the sense of scale. Everything including the controls were so simple and then things got wild with alt floors, more chapters and endings, characters and items. Appreciating little things like the environments and new theming though the unlocks. All bundled up into a nice cohesive package and pushing Flash to its limit. It was perfect for its time.

Originally posted by Szabolcs:

Ok, let's just say Repentance gives you all kinds of bottlenecks. First, just to unlock the new floors, you need 3 Hush kills (not THAT big a deal, but still).

Then, you get to a stage where you can't really progress with anything unless you do 3 specific extra things all in the same run (Knife piece 1, 2 and the bosses).

And when you are done with that, all these extra floors are basically non-existent again, they have zero reason to be visited when going for the final ending. This is just not structured well.

Just as a comparison, in Afterbirth+ you had to progress through multiple Isaac and Satan kills to unlock one extra boss in each area, AND you could also progress with Hush, Delirium and The Lamb, giving you multiple options depending on how your run was going.

Yeah, I don't really go for the Repentance endings when I play for fun nowadays. I'd always wished for something after The Chest/Dark Room that wasn't The Void because it's still lacking, luck dependant and unfun. I'm still happy to have experienced Home though. It was cathartic.

But through it all I didn't end up noticing the convoluted requirements for Repentance's new endings because of how the series has come. Repentance feels like it's a celebration for the people who've been obsessed playing the Flash game forever ago.

[username]

Absolutely not

[Phyre]

Originally posted by spaneika:

play the original just for the music alone ;)

I totally enjoy playing the original over rebirth-repentance. For me it's much more enjoyable experience overall. There's not nearly as much to unlock, but playing on hard mode on the original is much more of a challenge compared to playing same characters on rebirth. I play on a Windows 10 modern pc without any issues. It doesn't look as smooth due it being a flash game, but it's still really fun to play. And yes, the music is some of best game music for any game out there.

[[STA] Cheeto]

For my nostalgia kick I tried playing this 'new' version of binding of isaac. There is too much going on in this game now. there are like 100 (sorry, 188) trinkets? And this game doesn't tell you what something does, which was interesting when there were 30 trinkets, but now you *have* to guide dang it or you're hamstringing yourself too much. I just didn't enjoy it. I'd recommend the old version just for a version of the game where you don't need a guide book open next to you to enjoy it.

[Danizk0]

Plenty of people used item guides during Flash times, you just already know what vanilla items do