The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

I love that trinket! Oh, and that foot that crushes enemies is a guaranteed win if you find another item which gives you invincibility when standing still, so it's pretty damn amazing.

I had Half-eaten Leaf and a handful of familiars in one particular run. That could've been amazing, but sadly it was doing about as much damage as a bluebottle banging into a glass window.

Not having much luck today. I'm using Judas, and perhaps I'm being a little reckless.

With Judas, you really really need your first boss item to be a HP up, or to get a few soul hearts - his HP is so lacking early on.

I'm not the best at keeping hold of soul/black hearts tbh. They make me nervous 'cause I can haemorrhage hearts if I'm cornered.

Must see what Magdalene's capable of some time soon, too.

Maggy's okay - she's the tank character of this game, considering she starts with 4 HP.

Did you play any more of this Stu, or did it fall by the wayside? The DLC should be coming in the next couple of months.

So, I'm playing it. If 14-year-old me had found that Nintendo were allowing a game like this onto one of their consoles, he'd have freaked out! It feels like I should be able to beat it easily but it's so hard. Resources are scarce all the way down the line, and I've no idea what any of the items do. Yeesh.

Absolutely normal Zero! It seems deceptively easy considering it's styled after a top-down Zelda, but it's tricky. The items are definitely a case of trial and error - part of the fun early on is identifying which items are good and which are guff. There are a set of items based on the signs of the Zodiac and I still have difficulty remembering what each of them do. If you need advice, let me know!

I'm about to dive back into this myself, actually - the Afterbirth DLC dropped today, so keen to get back into Isaac!

I underwent puberty in one run and later gained a pair of devil horns. The lack of information is startling. Still, found myself in what I call a 'Zeldaing mood' (which basically means 'was able to dodge projectiles with more than my customary skill level') and got to the penultimate dungeon on that run. Then the baddies took a level in badass and I was swept away.

Since this is now out on 3DS and Wii U, time for it to be dragged kicking and screaming into GG.

ZeroJones wrote:

I underwent puberty in one run and later gained a pair of devil horns. The lack of information is startling. Still, found myself in what I call a 'Zeldaing mood' (which basically means 'was able to dodge projectiles with more than my customary skill level') and got to the penultimate dungeon on that run. Then the baddies took a level in badass and I was swept away.

The game's purposefully vague - I think part of the fun is figuring out what the items actually do. Some of them are simple - damage ups, HP ups etc. - but some of them are genuinely mind-boggling.

Getting to the penultimate stage is good going! Once you learn how the upgraded enemies work, you'll beat it. If you're needing any help, I recommend having a read through my chat with Stu in this thread, as I explain a lot to him there. Best of luck, Zero!

Just beaten Mom for the first time! I stumbled on a lot of high-powered items by the middle of the run - floating, laser tears, two or three thingies circling me, the occasional blue spider emerging from my body... I had no clue what was going on, but a very good feeling. And so it proved! Unlocked... someone, for having 55 coins at one point?

I've read the thread and it seems like there is a fair bit more to do.

Yep, Mom (fortunately? Unfortunately?) is just the tip of the iceberg. Sounds like quite a good set-up you had there! Flight and laser tears is a winner, because you can hover over pits and melee-type enemies can't do a thing to you.

Oh, and I think you unlocked Cain. He's pretty good!

This morning's pre-work run was spent as... someone else (with an eyepatch? I'll learn the names eventually) I got to the new final boss and was within an ace of beating it. Grrr arg.

Really enjoying it - an easy recommendation.

That'd be Cain! Props on getting to Mom's Heart so soon - I really struggled getting through the Womb.

(I'll take "posts that look bloody weird out of context" for £500, cheers)

As soon as we get back round to normal taglines...

I actually lost my 100% save file for Rebirth, so I'm back at the beginning with you Zero! Rattling through the early game myself now.

Tempted to give this a retry but I've got a lot of games on the go at the minute & I'm quite terrible at it.

I have had this game for a while and never really put many hours into it after spending a lot of time on the original. Just recently this has become my, lets just get a run in while I'm free, sort of game which is slowly but surely pulling me back into Isaac.

Some of the bosses have definitely been beefed up, there are tons of items I don't recognise, and the whole game runs much smoother than its flash based predecessor. I've only just beaten Mom's Heart.

I think the performance improvements are the best change going from Flash Isaac to Rebirth. The framerate really did chug in the original.