Post by Silent Sputnik on Jul 8, 2015 12:40:45 GMT -5
A couple months ago, I played through the original Legend of Zelda game for the first time on emulator. It's clearly an insanely good game for its time. The overworld was massive and fun to explore. The secrets that were hidden all over the place were fantastic to find. My only gripe was with the locations of the final 2 dungeons, which were nigh impossible to find on your own without a FAQ. I really appreciated that you could go into dungeons in the wrong order, only realizing that you've went into an advanced dungeon when you wanted to find a basic one by virtue of getting your ass kicked.
The best part of the game by far was the dungeons. They offered excellent top-down combat which was consistently very satisfying and challenging. The 8 or so items which you could acquire were awesome to use as well.
Enter the Binding of Isaac (WotL expansion). Basically a modern reboot of the classic LoZ game and without a shadow of a doubt a hundred times superior to it. It's a series of increasingly difficult randomized dungeons stacked on top of each other. Each layer has unique weapons, enemies, and secrets to discover. For the average player, it would take quite a few attempts to finally reach and defeat the final boss. To do so would only take 30 minutes to an hour on a successful run, leading some to believe that the game is extremely short. This is so untrue that it's hilarious. There are potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay left after you beat that particular level. For one thing, every single Isaac run gives you different randomized items from a pool of hundreds. Every run has your character looking and behaving differently. Not only that, but it quickly becomes apparent that that first 'final' boss isn't so final after all. Many more layers of the dungeon await after that encounter, being unlocked after successfully 'completing' the game a number of times, promising immense challenges to experienced players. Each completion unlocks something new that might show up in a future run. Additionally, completing one of hundreds of hidden achievements in the game will add new enemies, bosses, items, and secrets to future runs, making playing the 'same' game dozens or hundreds of times give the player a real sense of progression and discovery, quite ironically. There are also specific challenge runs which start the player with certain combinations of items to complete the game with. If each run of Isaac lasted much more than an hour, it would make dying in this permadeath game incredibly frustrating. So I'm glad of its length.
All of these factors combine into one seriously addictive experience.
And then there's Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, the sequel to the original BoI. I've only started with this game, but its engine is vastly improved and the frame rate is rock solid. I was contemplating at one point whether my favourite game was Dark Souls or Binding of Isaac (RotL), and really couldn't decide. But my first impressions of Rebirth are that it will almost definitely be my favourite game of all time, and one that I will endlessly recommend to my friends and champion on the internets. Highly recommended. Hell, both games are worth it just for their soundtracks.
The best part of the game by far was the dungeons. They offered excellent top-down combat which was consistently very satisfying and challenging. The 8 or so items which you could acquire were awesome to use as well.
Enter the Binding of Isaac (WotL expansion). Basically a modern reboot of the classic LoZ game and without a shadow of a doubt a hundred times superior to it. It's a series of increasingly difficult randomized dungeons stacked on top of each other. Each layer has unique weapons, enemies, and secrets to discover. For the average player, it would take quite a few attempts to finally reach and defeat the final boss. To do so would only take 30 minutes to an hour on a successful run, leading some to believe that the game is extremely short. This is so untrue that it's hilarious. There are potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay left after you beat that particular level. For one thing, every single Isaac run gives you different randomized items from a pool of hundreds. Every run has your character looking and behaving differently. Not only that, but it quickly becomes apparent that that first 'final' boss isn't so final after all. Many more layers of the dungeon await after that encounter, being unlocked after successfully 'completing' the game a number of times, promising immense challenges to experienced players. Each completion unlocks something new that might show up in a future run. Additionally, completing one of hundreds of hidden achievements in the game will add new enemies, bosses, items, and secrets to future runs, making playing the 'same' game dozens or hundreds of times give the player a real sense of progression and discovery, quite ironically. There are also specific challenge runs which start the player with certain combinations of items to complete the game with. If each run of Isaac lasted much more than an hour, it would make dying in this permadeath game incredibly frustrating. So I'm glad of its length.
All of these factors combine into one seriously addictive experience.
And then there's Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, the sequel to the original BoI. I've only started with this game, but its engine is vastly improved and the frame rate is rock solid. I was contemplating at one point whether my favourite game was Dark Souls or Binding of Isaac (RotL), and really couldn't decide. But my first impressions of Rebirth are that it will almost definitely be my favourite game of all time, and one that I will endlessly recommend to my friends and champion on the internets. Highly recommended. Hell, both games are worth it just for their soundtracks.