Going through my back catalogue today while i was looking for something to chill out to, I decided to reinstall Binding Of Isaac, Iv'e spent hundreds of hours in the game, which is strange since it's a game that doesn't have a lot of "content" in the traditional sense, but instead takes the game and reinvents it constantly by making the game not only harder, but giving you new and unique ways to enhance your character, Isaac, today we're going to take a look at some of the games story, mechanics and why it can keep you invested for hundreds of hours at a time.
Story and Setting.
The Binding Of Isaac is loosely based on the bible tale of the same name in which Isaac and his mother live together in a happy household, Isaac draws pictures and his mother watches TV, as time goes by however Isaac's mother begins to watch an evangelical broadcast and begins to here the "voice from above" tell her that Isaac is evil and corrupted by sin and that he must be saved by her and that his toys and sins must be taken away, the voice speaks to her again and tells her that Isaac is being corrupted by the very world and that he must be freed from it.
Locking Isaac in his room with no toys and nothing but abuse, Isaac begins to suffer from the neglect before the voice tells his mother that to truly free Isaac he must be sacrificed, once again Isaac's mother listens to the voice before grabbing a butchers knife and heading toward Isaac's room, Isaac peers at her through the crack in his door, Isaac escapes through a trap door in the floor as his mother breaks into his room which begins the game.
Game Play
The Binding Of Isaac is largely a top down dungeon crawler but it also serves as an RPG as you can unlock different characters throughout the game from completing certain challenges, they're vast and the characters are unique and varied, on each floor of the map you'll face increasingly more difficult enemies while also getting a chance to equip new items that can drastically change how your character is played, there are hundreds of these items, some extremely powerful, some dumb and some okay, they are all unlocked by achievements in the game or through completing levels in a certain way.
The basic gameplay is Isaac who uses his tears to defeat enemies, this obviously changes with the items you pick up or by playing different characters, there are also the shops which you can buy items with coins, coins are found in the different sections of the map but reset after you die unless you save them in a piggy bank, the game is weird and has numerous mechanics, the arcade you can gamble to find Keys, Bombs or Heart refills, there are also special rooms that can be used to challenge waves of monsters for items and even ones that could teleport you ahead in the game.
At the end of a level you will face a boss, these range from easy to mind bendingly hard depending on what difficulty you're playing on or how many you've unlocked, upon reaching the 4th level you will face mom before "finishing" the game for the first time, when you reset you'll be given two extra levels that ends with another confrontation with mom, this time a lot angrier and a lot harder to beat, the uniqueness of the bosses and the items you can equip are what makes you want to keep playing a true progression through play game by the end you'll have some of the most insane items unlocked which radically alter gameplay or even make it as easy as pushing one button(yes really).
One other thing that's important to note is that all characters have different achievements, which means getting to 100% or the "Platinum God" achievement will take hundreds of hours and sometimes revolves around RNG seeing as the item rooms are completely random and will change with every game you play.
Unexpected Replay Value.
When I first got Binding Of Isaac I wasn't aware of what the game actually entailed, so I thought i'd "save" and come back at a later date only to find my progress was gone and i was back at level one with 3 hearts of health and Isaacs standard tears, once I played a few hours I began to understand the depth of the game which is actually pretty involved when you consider it's actually a pretty small indie title that was amazingly handled that kept people coming back for more, the constant progression and achievement system, a myriad of bosses and enemy types and the procedurally generated maps that keep the game fresh and the maps unique and replayable.
Like I said above i've probably spent around 200-300 hours in Binding Of Isaac in it's many forms and expansions and i'm still not bored of it, I haven't gone as far as trying to 100% it but i'm getting close and before you can 100% there's usually a new expansion out or an amazing mod from the dedicated community there's so much involved in such a tiny game that it's impossible to get bored, the game is also riddled with challenge modes and in the Afterbirth expansion the greed mode that cuts out the usual map design and instead lets you face wave after wave of enemies to acquire new items and upgrades before facing the end boss.
Critical Review and Reception.
Binding Of Isaac is one of those rare games where I happily throw money at for whatever gets released, they have an amazing track record of creating and improving Binding Of Isaac and making it actually undervalued for how much it costs, one of those rare games i'd wish I could of paid more for the game to support the developers in creating more amazing content, and I started out pirating the game,so you could say i was entirely impressed with the game and what it entailed.
The soundtrack is another great aspect that I didn't talk about, and the Wrath of the lamb DLC added even cooler retro tracks with modern production into the game, however it may not be for everyone, Binding Of Isaac can be quite challenging in some aspects and does require a bit of time to get off the ground, something you may learn to relish after you get in deep and you're getting your ass kicked on map one, but ultimately Binding of Isaac is what Indie games are made for, amazing ideas fused with ingenious design and exciting game play to help a small studio out, in the cases of Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, i'd say they've done and amazing job and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys dungeon platformers, rougelike RPG's or just people who are achievement whores like myself.