The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter / Roguelike

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ is a 2-Stick Shooter Roguelike that puts players in the role of a tortured child fighting off hordes of insects and anthropomorphic poop by firing streams of tears at them.

If you haven’t played a version of this game yet, that last paragraph might seem odd to you. Suffice it to say, this game goes out of its way to be as disgusting, violent, religiously inflammatory, and all-around politically-incorrect as possible. That “M” rating is not a light suggestion, this is very much not a game meant for children.

This is at times at odds with the game’s visual style, which is simple and has a lot of smiling cutesy characters… even when those characters are anthropomorphic poop monsters. Cut-scenes throughout the game have an simplistic animated version of Isaac in various humiliating or torturous situations, and the game as a whole takes great glee in juxtaposing childish innocence with the macabre and grotesque. It’s not for everyone, but many will be amused by the presentation. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the game’s soundtrack, which is excellent.

The gameplay of this game starts with a two-stick shooter, and then limits you to firing only in one of four directions, and then limits you further by making your fired tears only go so far before falling to the ground. As such, fighting enemies is a matter of avoiding them while lining yourself up for shots.

The other main element of the game is its Roguelike nature, with each play-through having a randomized layout, random enemies, and random power-ups, and this game has an absolute wealth of varying enemies and power-ups to encounter. The Nintendo Switch version, Afterbirth+, contains all of the earlier DLC the game received, bringing the game up to 600 power-ups, 180 enemy types, 90 bosses… yeah, there’s a lot of variety here, which is one of the game’s strongest qualities – pretty much every run, there’s a chance that you’ll see something completely new, and at the very least you’re sure to get a combination of power-ups that’s completely unique, that you’ve never used before.

However, this randomness is also one of the game’s biggest problems, meaning that one run can give you a perfect complement of power-ups that will let you blast through to the end, while another can be ridiculously stingy, give you power-ups that are completely useless to you, hide power-ups behind barriers you don’t have the tools to get past… yeah, whether you have fun on any given run on the game seems largely up to chance.

Even worse, some of the power-ups you can get have some serious downsides, and since you’re discovering them as you go through, you won’t know these downsides until you snag the power-up… and then, in many cases, you’ll be stuck with it, with no way to get rid of the damn thing. At some point in a run, you will encounter a new power-up, and find yourself wondering if you should even bother with it, since there’s a possibility that it will only make things worse for you. I totally get the game’s themes of “life isn’t fair”, but this sort of thing simply makes the game less fun.

Which is a shame, because barring the disempowering power-ups and the frustration that randomness injects into the game, Binding of Isaac is fun. The shooter gameplay here is excellent, and the feeling of getting an awesome new power-up is exquisite. It’s just the sort of fun that you have to tolerate a lot of frustration to enjoy. If you have the patience for it, Binding of Isaac is an excellent Two-Stick Shooter well worth playing.

tl;dr – Binding of Isaac is a Two-Stick Shooter Roguelike that places you in the role of a young child fighting grotesque monsters with his tears. It’s a lot of fun, but the roguelike elements can make any given playthrough very hit-and-miss, which can be frustrating. It’s still well worth playing, though.

Grade: A-

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