The Binding of Isaac + All DLC

So I tried to pick this back up recently and had the same issues I had before. It's painfully unforgiving. I used JoyToKey, configured for my Xbox360 controller, so it wasn't the controls that made it hard. I even gave this another stab, but felt the same jab of unforgiving gameplay.

It's similar to FTL in it's "you get one chance, and you died, so start from the beginning" mentality, which is horribly frustrating. If I didn't save scum my way through FTL, I would have never seen more than the first phase of the last boss.


Things I liked:
* the power ups were unique and interesting
* keys/bombs/money/health are limited, so you have to spend carefully on possibly good items
* you can jump into the game really quick and just go

Things I didn't like:
* not knowing what the heck an item did. I spent at least as much time on the wiki as I did playing the game
* the graphics of the game are honestly a bit gross
* you can very quickly go from doing amazing to completely dead

After dying repeatedly, even with awesome upgrades, it was time to just mark the game as "will not finish".

An example of one playthrough
* level 1 - got double tears shooting,some bombs, beat boss
* level 2- added tears power, got more money, and bombs, beat boss
* level 3 - got very powerful tears, tons of money, even more bombs, beat boss
* level 4 - got dead cat (you are reduced to 1 heart, but get 9 lives), got stuck behind required room with 6 enemies that do a full heart for damage at range -- lost all 9 lives and died
* flips table

One of my last playthroughs:
* level 1 - split tears, beat boss
* level 2 - faster tears, more powerful, beat boss
* level 3 - beat boss, fought demon, even more powerful tears
* level 4 - slaughtered every room, accidentally found envy boss, died as he humped me into a wall because I wasn't fast enough


Would I recommend this game? I'm not sure. I'm glad I played it, I might talk about it with friends if they bring it up, but overall it was honestly extremely frustrating.

Will I try it again later on? Maybe, but probably not. It really sucks to end on a losing note, but when I have such a crazy long backlog of games, it's really not worth wasting my time on something this frustrating. I think I'll stop while my table is still right-side up.