The Binding of Isaac: Repentance Review (DLC, 2021)
The Binding of Isaac: Repentance is the new DLC for the popular rogue-like adventure game. This is the ever-growing story of Isaac, a young boy whose mother is radicalized by televangelists on TV. She becomes convinced that she has to sacrifice her son to please God. Isaac flees to the basement, where he enters a seemingly unending maze of monsters, traps, and other dangers. He’s armed with his tears and various powers he picks up along the way.
The first thing to know is Repentance makes The Binding of Isaac play so smooth. I actually had to relearn how to actually play the game because lag, broken item interactions, and general programming errors caused by picking up too many items in a run are all gone. The game is responsive in ways it’s never been before. That means little cheats experienced players like me relied on to cheese our way past certain bosses no longer work. The only way to shortcut past a particular kind of boss is the right item, and yes, you can still activate the Bible to beat Mom and the Womb.
The DLC introduces two brand new characters to the game: Bethany and Jacob & Esau. Bethany is equipped with soul charges that let her use her Book of Virtue at the cost of half a heart of damage. Jacob & Esau are two characters controlled together, sharing the same pool of items but fighting and moving with different stats. Jacob can also drop Esau so he can move on his own. Every character in The Binding of Isaac greatly changes how you have to play the game and Bethany and Jacob & Esau are no exception.
Did I say two characters? I meant twice as many characters plus four (Bethany and Jacob & Esau get alternate versions, too). Repentance adds in new variants of all the players. These Tainted characters are unlocked by completing various tasks in the game and change how each character plays. The Tainted characters gain a strong new ability at the cost of a great weakness.
Tainted Isaac will always have a choice of two pedestals when picking an item, but can only have eight passive items at a time. Tainted Azazel’s beam goes all the way across the screen with knockback, but he can no longer fly. Tainted Lost starts with a Holy Card (which blocks one attack) and increases the spawn rate of additional Holy Cards.
Repentance also changes the way co-op works. Since Afterbirth, you’ve been able to do local co-op. This involved your second player taking control of one of the babies in the game, able to shoot and move but not pick up objects. Now, up to four players can each control an actual character with health and power ups as you journey through the basement together. Online co-op is possible on PC using Steam Remote Play, though it’s a workaround, not a built in feature. Either way, it’s a much more fulfilling multiplayer experience in the game.
I could spend days writing about all the new features in the game. This DLC is packed. There are over
5000 new room layouts
130 new items
100 new enemies
25 new bosses
10 new challenges
The new enemies, in particular, really change how the game plays. There are flies and spiders that zap your energy on rechargeable items now. New variants of more explosive characters release swarms of additional enemies to fight. You can’t take anything for granted anymore, no matter how cute and little it might be.
There is also a new path to the end of the game with two new final bosses. All of this creates massive replay value among the three gameplay modes. It’s going to take a very long time to experience everything and I’m excited to do it.
The Binding of Isaac: Repentance DLC is available on PC. PS4, PS5, and Switch releases will come out later this year.
