Before I do my Game of the Year list this week (maybe even tomorrow), I would like to review one of the games that will be on that least. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a new version of the popular The Binding of Isaac, created mostly by Edmund McMillen, who is also responsible for the indie hit Super Meat Boy, is an action RPG shooter with rogue-like elements. The game has the player controlling Isaac (or later other similar characters) on his journey through dark underground locations on an escape from his mom who wants to kill him.
The game takes some inspirations from the original Zelda with its dungeon layouts (especially the original Isaac game) so the dungeons are divided into rectangular rooms in which you have to defeat all enemies in order to proceed to the next room. The goal is to find a boss room and kill the boss to advance to the next "floor". But here's a catch! Unlike Zelda, these dungeons are randomly generated so the layout of the dungeons is never the same and there's a lot of different room layouts too. On your way you'll collect many different items that are also random. Many will somehow give you an upgrade in one way or another, while some will make your life even harder (especially the pills which have different effects for different colors every time). And trust me, there's A LOT of different items and all of them affect the look of the character too. The player must fight through 6-9 floors to complete the game and every time you die, you're dead for good, so you have to start over in a brand new dungeon with all your upgrades gone.
The story is a darker alternate version of the story of Abraham and Isaac from the Bible. Isaac's escape his mom who wants to make him into a sacrifise and he finds himself in a basement full of monsters. I guess some religious people would find this game offensive since it's full of different religious symbols, but I personally am a Christian and don't find it offensive at all. It's just my interpretation, but the game shows how evil things can corrupt a person, which can be seen by how some nastier items change your character into something ugly.
The graphics have been switched from a flash-game style (well, the original was made in Flash) to a pixelated 16-bit-ish artstyle and it made the game look so much better. The environments looks nice and have some cool details like reflections on walls in rooms filled with water etc. Some of the really ugly, creepy monsters look even better in this style and it also fits to the old-school difficullty of the game. This is definietly not a game meant for kids as there's quite a lot of blood and stuff.
The audio quality is greatly improved. The soundtrack is completely different and while it is great I did like the original better, maybe because Danny Baranovsky's work is just so good.
The gameplay at its core remains almost unchanged. The player controls Isaac's movements with WASD and Isaac's head (direction in which you shoot) with arrows. This mechanic is very useful since if you could only shoot in the direction in which you're moving would make the game harder but in an unfair way. You can move freely, however shooting is limited to four directions. Q is used to use pills and card items, E is used to plant bombs and space uses items. The previously mentioned upgrades can drastically change the gameplay. While some are just simple boosts that will make you move faster, improve the speed, range, fire rate and damage of your tears (shots), give you an extra heart container etc., others can for example change the way your tears behave. Everything from an ability to shoot through walls to the one I hate the most: orbiting tears. The item play a huge role in the game and there's hundreds of them. Besides all these items there are also coins, bombs and keys and their uses are rather self-explanatory.
However, items aren't the only things that come in big numbers. Just like with everything else, the big amount of different enemies have been increaed for this game. There's tons of different monsters, with different behaviors and strenghts. There's also a ton of bosses which aside from the final bosses are also chosen randomally.
The game works pretty well with a stable framerate, few glitches and bugs, none of which are major and it controls very well. It is challenging and yes, some runs can feel unfair depending on what items you'll find. Some will make you very powerful quickly, some will barely have any effect. However, this game has an ability to make you wanna play over and over again even if you keep on losing. There's a lot to to unlock and tons of achievements to get. Completing this game to 100% may actually take a few hundred hours and that actually also means finding new items etc. The fact it's all randomly generated makes every run unique so it doesn't get too boring or repetive.
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