Thursday, November 6, 2014

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth; Sequel and Remake

Before reading, note that The binding of Isaac, as well as it's reboot Rebirth, is a game based on one of the developer's traumatic experience within his cathloc family. This game was made to be dark! Those who are easily offended by graphic imagery or parody of christian characters,  this game is not for those people. Also, I personally couldn't get into the first game because of how random the game can be sometimes. The original game has the same issue of Dark Souls, where you cannot play the game blind. On to the review....

The game starts as Isaac and her mother are having a normal day, as his mother watches christian television. One day, she believes that god called upon her and tells her that her son has fallen to evil. Isaac's mother then locks him into his room and removes him from his items ...and clothes. Ew. Then "God" ask for Isaac's mother to sacrifice him to prove to hhim her faith. It's implied that Isaac's mother has gone insane after Isaac's father's "death" as she wanted a daughter instead of a son. The problem with light, is not that it's holy, but it also blinds with pride.

The game has gone though it's changes and balances, which can be both good and bad to classic Isaac fans. For one, they decided to change the graphics to more of a Pixel Game-boy Advance graphics over it's hand-drawn animation. However, they including improvements which includes controller support, which is actually very smooth and works well for those who are playing the port on the PlayStation Network.  That's right, the game is also ported to both the PlayStation 4 and the PS-Vita, so Rebirth is now multi-platform. However, it would have benefited if the game was also on the 3DS and Wii U, but Nintendo's limits prevent good games from being ported sometimes. Mortal Kombat, anyone?

Another change that will disappoint the fans is that the original music artist didn't compose the music within Rebirth. While the new music is fitting, the original music from Danny, the original game's inde music developer, had charm on it's own merits. The problem is that the fans will have to adjust to the change, therefor, it might turn the original fans off while getting new fans because of the changes. Personally, the changes actually brings me to the game, thanks to the smoother controls.

One of the biggest changes is the difficulty has been adjusted greatly, as bosses have gotten a boost but the opening part of the game has a better starting curve. There is also new items, sixteen ending over the original 12 plus endings, and co-op that actually adds challenge as it subtracts health as your partner dies with only one heart. There are bigger and new rooms for the players to explore and more hidden rooms as well. However, the game is still not optimized very well as it still runs on windows mode. While it dose stretch to any size, the zoom dose seem like a lazy way to optimize the game.

However, if anyone has skipped the first game, this game is for them. While there has been some changes within the game, they are not too jarring for anyone to dislike the game. And while it is around fifteen dollars, it feels like it benefits the game as it pays for the improvements made twords the game in higher quality! In the end, I personally reccomend the game, as it improves the original formula to new highs. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to pray to the random number so I can get the right items in the end of my run!

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