This is an adorably strange little game. It’s more than a
little gross and more than a little sacrilegious and more than a little
juvenile and more than very entertaining. The first one, The Binding of Isaac,
came out in 2011 via Steam on PC. This one is not so much a sequel, as much as
well, a rebirth. The plot hasn’t changed, nor has the gameplay, but neither of
these things has really needed to change. They were great in the original, and
just as entertaining in the Rebirth. There are a few more characters,
controller support, plenty of new items in Rebirth, and they included
controller support, all of which make the game more fun to play. The new one
was also not created using the Flash engine, and has the ability to stop and
save mid-game…which is nice.
The plot of the game is largely inspired by the biblical
story of the same name. Isaac and his mother live a normal quiet life in
suburbia; Isaac playing with toys and drawing pictures while his mother
neglects him and instead chooses to watch Christian broadcasts on TV. Cue a
disembodied ‘voice from above’. Isaac’s mother is told that her son has been
corrupted with sin and needs saving. Clearly, this is a voice worth trusting,
so she took all his toys and games away from him, and even give him a circumcision.
The voice booms from above again saying that he must be cut off from all the
evil of the world and confess his sins, so she locks him in his room. Finally
the voice speaks once more to demand a sacrifice in order to prove her love for
it. Isaac overhears this last message and frantically tries to hide, eventually
finding a trap door in the floor. He hastily posts the picture he was drawing
(the sinful little brat) onto his wall and jumps into the trapdoor, not knowing
what he’s jumping into; just knowing that he has to escape his mother’s wrath.
To forward thinking, intelligent some people, this sounds bat sh*t
insane, and will lead to a game which is just that. This picture becomes the
title screen. In the story Biblical version, God asks Abraham to kill is
son, Isaac, to show his devotion.
Gameplay-wise Rebirth is a top-down 2D rogue-like dungeon
crawler. You (as player) control Isaac or one of ten other unlockable
characters navigating through the basement of your quiet suburban house into
the dungeons below. Each floor is a randomly generated dungeon in which you
must fight monsters ranging from spiders and flies to floating hearts and the
Seven Deadly Sins (yup, those bastards) in each room before proceeding to the
next. While playing, you can collect three different kinds of hearts to
replenish your health, keys to unlock rooms or chests, pocket change to buy a
vast array of goodies, and bombs to cause a little explosion that can open
‘secret’ rooms or hurt anyone close to them, including you. Each floor contains
an absurd boss, who you must defeat and pillage the body of to continue to the
next floor. The first time through, there are six levels which culminate in
fighting Mom. The next few times through, you climb into her womb after
defeating her and on level eight, you fight her heart. You’ll eventually be
able to unlock level nine and fight Satan himself; there may also be something
after Satan, who knows?
This game was welcomed with a warm reception almost
everywhere, from Steam to Windows to PS4 and PS Vita. I say almost everywhere,
because Nintendo was originally going to release it on the 3DS, but eventually
backed out, citing ‘questionable religious content’. I’m going to note just how
entertaining it is that Playstation saw no problem releasing this on both of its
systems, while Nintendo drew backlash and outrage from numerous gaming
websites, and led the creator, Edmund McMillen to praise Steam and the freedom
it gave to publishers in regards to content.
You’ll also find or buy plenty of items and pills and tarot
cards to aid Isaac (wigged or not) in his quest of escaping his murderous
mother. ‘How does this newly circumcised, lonely, terrified child fight?’ you
may be asking; aside from tossing bombs and using a few items, he cries. That’s
right, he cries at scores and scores of his worst nightmares and denizens of
hell using the cleansing, cathartic powers of an innocent child’s tears. Some
of these items enhance or alter his tears, making them bloody, poisonous,
bigger, fear-inducing, or any other number of upgrades. There are also a couple
items that change his tears into spit or laser beams or ‘jets of brimstone’, as
the game calls big lasers that have to be charged up. The pills and tarot cards
are one-off items and can either do great or terrible or mundane things. The
pills are a crapshoot, never giving you the name of them until after you use
them and changing the color schemes with each run. The tarot cards on the other
hand, do the same thing each time you get them and are usually helpful;
teleporting you to a secret room or giving you hearts and other collectibles or
allowing you to fly for a room, or turning you into a pretty, glowing unicorn
who is invincible for a short time and assaults enemies with the power of being
fabulous.
Now, the important stuff; is the game fun? What’s the
soundtrack like? Will you tell me about replayability? What other games could
this be compared to? How long a game is this? Why would you play such a
sacrilegious game? Are you a terrorist?
You’re damn right the game is fun, I got into the first one
and found it adorably disturbing. This one is all that and more, it’s easy to
play and hard to master, it’ll make you laugh if you don’t take things too
seriously. The soundtrack is overall pretty good. While I tend to have Netflix
on in the background while playing (and it’s caused more than a few deaths), on
the few times I have listened to the soundtrack, I’ve enjoyed it, and the sound
effects do add quite a bit to the game. On occasion, mom’s hand drops down from
above to snatch you from the room you’re in, making you restart that room. When
that happens, she utters a scream a second before you see the hand, so you can
GTFO if you try.
By itself, one run of
this game can take a half hour, tops. Part of the fun comes from replaying it
as the newly unlocked wigs…err characters. This game also features a boss rush
mode, where you have to fight each boss the game has to offer and survive.
There is also a challenge mode where you’re up against the first six levels of
the game under different conditions. ‘When Life Hands You Lemons’ is a
challenge based solely on peeing on things; you’re given a Lemon Party pill,
which drops bright yellow creep that damages enemies, a reusable item called
Lemon Mishap, which allows you a much smaller version of the pill and can be
used very often. This is also in reference to a joke website called
lemonparty.org, but please do not go there. You will not like what you see. I
promise you. I would play such a sacrilegious game because it’s really fun.
It’s also more than a little satirical, and if you can’t laugh at things such
as religion, what can you laugh at? I’m not a terrorist; I’m just a dude who
appreciates a well-made indie game. Are you?
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