The Binding Of Isaac (Afterbirth Plus)

[Penfold]

Yeah, you're trapped now.

Except for

Spoiler alert

Lost

[close]

runs. They are the worst.

[Junglist]

Holy shit lol (boss/sunergy spoilers):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d98FdE9qbME

[Shay Chaise]

I'm still loving this game a lot. I had a pretty big run the other day. Reached and beat The Lamb for the first time, then did three victory laps and beat the Hush for the first time! I also unlocked Dad's Key so I'm properly gearing up to get to Mega Satan one of these days. I am shit with almost every character though, I've done almost all this with Azazel and Samson. I still need to unlock the D6, I really really want to do that but I keep getting fucked as Blue Baby, even when I get the Satanic Bible early on. I seem to either get health or DPS runs and I need something a bit more balanced (or just OP as fuck!) to get there. It's an incredible game though and quickly catching up Zelda as my most played Switch title.

[Shay Chaise]

I just got Golden God! That probably means I'm about 5% complete, is that right? Azazel plus Ludovico Technique in the Basement and just erased everything. A shame I got no Angel rooms or I'd have gone for Mega Satan.

[Junglist]

There's a way to force Angel 'rooms' if you have enough health or means to regen it.

[Shay Chaise]

Cheers. I'd heard about that but forgotten. I'll give it a go when I get a suitable run going. Last night I got my first decent Eden run. Started with Epic Fetus and picked up Ludovico again. Basically move the cursor and waste everything. I got battered in the Chest though before I could find Blue Baby. Was an unusual run though, two control sticks working independently, it reminded me of Brothers!

[canted_angle_again]

I love the way this game can make you feel ridiculously OP and then you walk into a room and just get wasted. I still feel like I'm on the tip of the ice berg and I've been playing it for about 4 hours a day for over a month.

[Shay Chaise]

I completely know what you mean. I just spent an hour on another Eden run, didn't have much but got Blank Card and kept my health topped up and found all the secrets and so on, it was handy. Then I got to Satan and died in about ten seconds. I can't imagine how anyone can do some of the stuff you need to unlock the later items.

[Junglist]

I completely know what you mean. I just spent an hour on another Eden run, didn't have much but got Blank Card and kept my health topped up and found all the secrets and so on, it was handy. Then I got to Satan and died in about ten seconds. I can't imagine how anyone can do some of the stuff you need to unlock the later items.

Its a lot easier on PC with instant reloads, so if you get a dreadful starting item, just restart until you get something amazing.

[Shay Chaise]

They do need to patch in a restart option, presumably it'll come at some point. I got to Satan with Lazarus before and then my cat came in rubbing herself against my bare leg, miaowing. It's so annoying and off putting I can't tell you. I died in about five seconds, lost twelve fucking hearts or something, then stood up and was about to launch the pad at the telly (I don't do this kind of thing) and then realised that I had been reborn with one more heart. Cat goes under my feet and almost trips me up DEAD FUCKKK OFFFFF

I killed myself in real life on the spot.

[Shay Chaise]

Yaaasssss. Just twatted Mega Satan for the first time! I was Eden, started with crystal ball and lemon tears, got Holy Shot straight away, kept getting DMG UP and HP UP and ended up with rainbow everything. I almost fucked it with anti gravity tears just before Mega Satan, my final pickup, but because my shot speed was so high, it just became a proper arcade button bash, firing single shots as fast as I could. That was absolutely awesome, one of the best achievements I've ever had in gaming, my heart was absolutely pounding. What am I now, about seven percent complete?

Also finally unlocked Apollyon, of course.

[Junglist]

Heh glad you're absolutely loving it man!

Also, Apollyon is the second best character in the game imo. Void is insanely good.

[Shay Chaise]

This game.

Having beaten every boss now besides whatever the boss of Greedier mode is, I have a few targets with this now on the way to Platinum God.

For a start, I'm trying to unlock all the Greed Machine stuff but it is FUCKING annoying when you get a jam. I've probably wasted 400 coins over the past week, which is brutal. I had 96 once and it jammed after two coins. I'm on about 400 coins and looking to unlock Holy Mantle as a starting item for The Lost. I've still got about 450 to go. This is going to take months, I suspect.

Besides that'll, I've been trying to unlock Rerun by completing three Victory Laps. Twice in the last couple of days I've got to the third one, when you turn into The Lost, and twice died to stupid stupid shit, which is excruciating. I also found that you can glitch the unlocks by quitting the game during the Lost lap and then continuing, which allows you to get the boss completion marks. Obviously, I haven't got a single one yet but that's my plan when I next get an OP build.

By far my favourite pickup is Laser Ring tears, followed by Jacob's Ladder, and I seem to almost never ever get them, and yet I've got Sacred Heart three times in the past week! Something for the memoirs, anyway.

I'm thoroughly hooked on this and have played it so much more than every other game in the past few months. It's so endlessly rewarding and full of opportunity and surprise, I can't seem to play much else. Everything else is 'only' fun while this feels like progress. Anyone know what I mean?

Madhair60, did you get Platinum God?

[madhair60]

Not yet. In my opinion every expansion has added bloat and spoiled the game balance, though the + features in the newest one do a little to redress that. I'm on-off working on the Challenges at the moment. Beaten the game on hard with almost everyone now, I think I have a couple of Void clears left but he's fairly easy. If you can get to him you can usually beat him.

[Shay Chaise]

I totally forgot about the challenges, I've only done half a dozen of the easier ones. That's likely to be my sticking point in the end, in fact. As you say, with Delirium and Hush, if you're there, you're likely to have a build to do the job.

I also just found out about the jam percentage per character in Greedier mode. I have Isaac up to about 13% so it's no wonder I kept throwing away coins with him. Just discovered that Lilith is pretty unstoppable in Greed, though, and just put 100 coins in this morning. If I can get another couple of hundred and then do similar with another character, I'll surely unlock Holy Mantle in the next few days. Unlocking extra starting items will also help with completion marks for all the other characters.

I kind of wish I'd played it as it's gone along but on the other hand, the balance issues obviously don't affect me because this is my first real run at the game.

[Shay Chaise]

Hohoho, I just saw what D20 can do in Greed Mode. Got it with a 0% jam character I hadn't used before for Greed and banged about ninety more in. I beat Ultra Greed in about ten seconds, that was a lot of fun. I can now see how I'm going to break Greed Mode to unlock everything. Strangely satisfying in fact, because I feel I've put a shift in and I'm ready to get what I want.

[Shay Chaise]

OK, done. Three broken runs today and I blew up the Greed Machine. The Lost is now holding Holy Mantle, unlocked The Keeper, some other stuff. Going back to the regular game feels so slow! I do actually enjoy Greed Mode a lot, love the very quick builds you get, some unusual stuff within about five or ten minutes.

Again, the Challenges are what will keep me from getting Platinum God, I reckon. RNG and persistence will get me the Lost completion marks, I'm sure but stuff like the Family Man challenge is so so hard. Maybe I'll have to trust in RNG for that, Cambion Conception (or whatever it's called) would help.

Madman, what challenges have you got left?

[madhair60]

Shitloads. I'll post the list later.

I cleared Family Man last night, it's not as bad as it seems because the damage output is surprisingly high. I also trivialised it by getting Dull Razor and The Virus which meant I could more or less poison anything for free.

[Shay Chaise]

I was probably one second away from doing Family Man and then my wife started talking to me about what she was watching, which is fair enough. I knew I'd fuck it up though if she carried on and I started shaking my head and going 'ungh' to say stop, stop, please, just watch that and leave me alone for one more minute. Fucking blew it because I started to get annoyed and lost my concentration thinking about how I was going to fuck it up. Pretty frustrating but amazing too from the perspective of understanding the subconscious.

I'm actually quite tempted to uninstall this because I barely play anything else now and it's ruined not only my enjoyment of most Switch games but the entire consoles PS4 and XB1.

[Kelvin]

I see this has finally got a release date on the UK Switch eshop. It's out exactly two weeks from today, on 07/09/17.

[madhair60]

I was probably one second away from doing Family Man and then my wife started talking to me about what she was watching, which is fair enough. I knew I'd fuck it up though if she carried on and I started shaking my head and going 'ungh' to say stop, stop, please, just watch that and leave me alone for one more minute. Fucking blew it because I started to get annoyed and lost my concentration thinking about how I was going to fuck it up. Pretty frustrating but amazing too from the perspective of understanding the subconscious.

I'm actually quite tempted to uninstall this because I barely play anything else now and it's ruined not only my enjoyment of most Switch games but the entire consoles PS4 and XB1.

I forgot to post the list and now can't be arsed, but I've done like the first 19. Doing Purist now. I've done a few others like Speed and Pong.

[Shay Chaise]

Just done Family Man, probably my twentieth attempt. I thought I'd fucked it. Saved a Resistance rune for about three floors for the Isaac fight, managed to lose all but half a heart and only had him down to three quarters health. I somehow got him down to the last ten percent or so and then triggered the rune and tanked him. Can't believe I finally did it.

Suicide King was also really rough but I did it despite dying at the Isaac fight, and just before I launched the Switch at the window, I revived as Lazarus or whoever and got the last couple of hits in on the twat. Only Bloodborne has ever made my heart pump like this game.

[kittens]

I forgot to post the list and now can't be arsed, but I've done like the first 19. Doing Purist now. I've done a few others like Speed and Pong.

haha madhair mate i'm better than you at this game

[madhair60]

haha madhair mate i'm better than you at this game

Almost certainly.

I hadn't done Speed, which I've now done along with XXXXXXXXXL. Neither were too bad.

[Shay Chaise]

Is this the actual best game ever?

[Shay Chaise]

I did a Lost run before, did Boss Rush, The Lamb, two Victory Laps and then did Isaac and Blue Baby. Probably one of the most fun runs I've ever had. I got two Dead Cats as well so it artificially extended the run for a long time. Absolutely brilliant. Ended up late on with this Mom's Knife Catherine Wheel of death doing 150 damage per tick, melting heads. I was hoping for Dad's Key to ruin Mega Satan too but next time.

[gabrielconroy]

I don't play computer games much these days, at all, but I still play this regularly. I'm not particularly far in to Afterbirth+, seeing as I've only just unlocked Family Man and have failed twice to get far with it.

I just watched a video of NorthernLion playing it through (and completing it seemingly first time) and he's better at dodging and using bombs and stuff than me. He also seems to know what a lot of the pickups do and what the synergies are off the top of his head, whereas I'll typically look stuff up on Platinum God and then forget.

Anyway, I can see that I'll have a better bet getting another decent familiar or two, and/or something like Magic Fingers.

But yes, this might be the actual best game ever. Definitely right up there, anyway.

[madhair60]

Is this the actual best game ever?

It is yeah. Not a lot left to do now, just got to tick off Delirium with a couple more characters (and he's pish, if you're good enough to get to him you're good enough to beat him), then it's just the challenges left to do.

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

This is now available on the Uk Switch e-shop. Thirty six blooming quid.

[Kelvin]

It's not clear to me what I'm supposed to be doing yet. If I start a new run, how many levels do I have to complete to finish that run? Are there save points, or do you start from the very beginning every time you die?

Do you get a higher chance of better drops once you complete it or something? The game explains absolutely fuck all, it seems. Half the time I'm picking up items I can't seem to use, or seeing objects I have no way of reaching. Do subsequent runs add abilities to your repertoire? I'm totally confused at the moment.