Luckily, not everything new in Repentance is confined to the late game. Things are made even more unfair in Repentance, but the fun comes in finding your own perfect builds to counter the game's steep challenge. There is so dang much that even after hundreds of hours of play, you're likely to find new combinations and interactions, unlock new items, and find new ways to slam your head down in frustration after dying during a particularly late-game boss. That's always been the joy of The Binding of Isaac, though.
there is a ton of new stuff in Repentance. This changes The Binding of Isaac in a huge way, and the screen becomes extremely chaotic.įinally, there's just more of everything: over 100 new items and enemies, new bosses, new environments, new challenges, achievements. Instead of additional players joining as the co op "babies" from previous versions, Repentance allows up to four people to join in as actual characters. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance also completely reworks co op mode. There are also two brand new characters and a "tainted" variation of every character in the game, many of which offer completely new playstyles and wildly powerful abilities.Įssentially, Repentance brings the game's playable character count up to nearly three dozen. The big draw here is the endgame content: there is a new "official" final area, including new bosses and endings.
This DLC is, at its heart, taking a recent fan mod and sprucing it up for an official release. Which brings us to The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. There's a ton of backstory and lore going on here, and lots of little hints at the true nature of what's happening. One day, when she tries to kill you, you flee into your basement. On top of all that, there's a bonkers story that straddles the line between "This has to be a joke" and "Is it?" You are a child named Isaac (or one of his other Biblically named friends), and your mother is slowly driven insane. On other runs, a few mistimed movements mean your health will be taken down by a single foe. You'll put together combinations that make you practically impossible to kill, and you'll shred through even the most difficult of bosses. You must scale yourself in order to stand a chance, and some of the combos you find throughout your runs are ridiculous. As you delve further and further, enemies and bosses get insanely difficult. Things start to pick up with the roguelike elements. It's a simple concept that anyone who has played video games can learn in a hurry. You move between rooms, collecting items and fighting enemies, eventually reaching a boss and descending to a new floor. Also, glancing at a few screenshots might remind you of exploring dungeons in the original Legend of Zelda. The Binding of Isaac is a top-down roguelike that has some elements of old-school action and bullet hell games. If you're totally uninitiated, let's catch you up real quick. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance DLC Review
On top of that, there's some even more hardcore endgame content, including a series of new, game-breaking characters to unlock. What it does do, however, is add huge amounts of content to the already massive base game (and other DLCS) that is The Binding of Isaac. Repentance doesn't add anything particularly game-altering to the formula it's not going to win you over if you don't like this style of roguelike.
Ten years later, and The Binding of Isaac: Repentance is yet another full game-sized DLC that provides dozens more hours of this deceptively difficult bullet hell game.