I think the game is supremely enjoyable, but it’s not for everybody. Afterbirth is largely the same-just more of it. If you’ve never played The Binding of Isaac, I like to think that my Rebirth review sums up the game pretty well. There’s a Bestiary now, which is nice, but also seems wholly unnecessary. I don’t love having the Binding of Isaac wiki up every time I play the game so I make sure I’m not screwing myself by taking, say, Soy Milk instead of Chocolate Milk. The game really needs some kind of item index that explains what any given item does-maybe once you’ve found it once or something. I will say that remembering what every item does is borderline impossible.

It also looks fine on the TV, but maybe because of how I played Rebirth, I find that Afterbirth is an excellent portable game. The game looks amazing in Handheld & Tabletop modes, although due to the game’s dark color palette, you’ll want to bump up the brightness setting and maybe turn off local light sources. Again, though, hitting that perfect run and becoming an unstoppable murder machine is still one of the best feelings in gaming. Even the early floors throw more enemies at you in any one room than in Rebirth. Better control is welcome, of course, in part because Afterbirth is arguably a harder game than Rebirth. The couple I did were very fun-unfortunately, Daily Challenges don’t seem to count towards unlocks or achievements.Īfterbirth never hard-locks, there’s never any slowdown, and having an actual second stick instead of face buttons or that New 3DS nubbin is a game-changer. There are also Daily Challenges, which appear to take a pre-determined run and see how far you can get. There’s a new game type, Greed Mode (which is a difficulty setting, oddly), which is essentially the Isaac version of Hoard Mode.* It’s an interesting sideshow. There are even new versions of old stuff, like golden hearts & bombs, achievements and challenges. Even if you’ve already bought Rebirth on New 3DS, if you enjoy that game, plunk down the scrilla for this upgrade.Īfterbirth isn’t fundamentally different from Rebirth-it adds at least one new character, some new enemies, new room types (trap rooms are particularly devious), a few new bosses, and most importantly, a whole lot more items to experiment with. How does Afterbirth on Switch stack up to Rebirth on New 3DS? Guys, it’s not even a contest. I bought it physically because you get a little retro instruction booklet and stickers (that I’ll never use!). The newest expansion of The Binding of Isaac, called Afterbirth, was just released for the Switch in both physical and digital forms.

Binding of isaac game