Hello and welcome back to my blog!
I got hooked on The Binding of Isaac quicker than I expected. These rogue-lites tend to do it. I thought the game was much simpler and shorter than it is. There are so many items in the game, I heard it has like 700 items + hundreds of pills, cards and trinkets.
To make more sense of all these items, I installed the External Item Description mod, which lets me see the description of every item in the game, and the community recommends this mod, so you can make informed decisions. There are a lot of items with negative effects, and picking them up blindly will make your run suffer. That's when this mod helps a lot. It is interesting to see that something like this has never been part of the game despite having these many items.
I am making much more progress with this mod, which lets me have much more synergy between my items. As I told you in the last post, I unlocked Eve, and she has two nice items to help you out.
Dead Bird - She spawns a bird after taking damage, which stays active in the room and attacks enemies (great with Greed mode, more on it later)
Whore of Babylon - When she has just one or less red heart, she gains a lot of damage boost speed. (Risky but can clear rooms easily)
I played some normal runs with her, it went well, but her health is a little low, and I couldn't reach the final boss with that. But then I tried the Greed mode, where you get waves of enemies in the same room, and her Dead Bird ability is so good for that.
I was trying to unlock a new character at the same time, Cain. He can be unlocked if you hold 55 coins with you. In the normal run, I would just spend all my coins easily on items and shop, but in this greed mode, it became a little easier to hold that many coins, especially when you get good items at the start of the run.
Once I got some extra red hearts and enough coins to unlock Cain, I went on a spending spree in the shop and got some cool items. One of them gave me the ability to shoot random tears, then another helped me double the number of tears. I got an item which could block enemy projectiles, and that was really good with the amount of speed and range I had.
I reached the final boss of this greed mode called Ultra Greed.
I was a bit hesitant at first, it had a lot of health despite all the things I had, but it still didn't take me long to beat it. Such an OP build I had.
It dropped a big golden chest and a 'greed' machine in the middle. I went straight for it, thinking it would have some cool item or a lot of coins, so I will donate it to the machine and unlock some permanent upgrades but I didn't know that this will end my run. Ouch, I didn't even visit the other rooms on the sides to see what they had. Damn, I think it is safe to say that I was too greedy lol.
This was one of the endings of the game. A short cutscene played where Isaac is sitting next to a pile of poop. Is this meant to be a lesson on greed? I have no idea; someone should explain the lore on this ending.
But I enjoyed this Greed mode a lot. Once you have a good build which works, games like this give you a lot of dopamine hits, and I enjoyed it a lot.
I used the new Character Cain to see how it feels in the normal mode. He has decent damage and health, and starts with one key that helps in the early game. Also, he has improved luck and I think it is one of the most important stats in the game, especially in the early floors.
I kept seeing more angel rooms in the next run. They have some of the best items in the game, I feel.
I feel like Cain would be the first character for me to take me to the end of the normal run. I am enjoying the game a lot more with the item description mod, and I have more control over my destiny now. It makes the gameplay much more fun. Very addictive gameplay!
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Screenshots are from the game, The Binding of Issac.