[–] ArsCortica 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Has anyone already played it? From what I heard the xpack basically does nothing but show the middlefinger to players at all times, with most new additional rooms and enemies being unfairly hard even by the already often hefty standards of the base game. Considering the dickery Edmun already displayed in the past with Afterbirth itself, I'm worried there's more to this than just assblasted casuals.
[–] Contrabardus 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
This happens every time Isaac releases anything new. The Reddit sub jumps all over the Steam Reviews about how awful it is that they did anything.
That's not saying that their complaints don't have some merit. There are a few balance issues, but again, this happened the last few times they released something new too. It was all patched and tweaked.
I have it, it's fun. I finished several runs and have seen a lot of the new stuff. Nowhere near all of it, but I've encountered most of the new enemies. The portals dump three spawns each, and I've never seen more than three to a room, and mostly it's only one or two. By the time they start dumping anything difficult, you should have some decent gear.
It's always completely possible to win. I've played a lot of Afterbirth + since they released it and have yet to encounter anything impossible to manage. It's just a matter of learning how to prioritize and deal with the new stuff. The enemy spawning portals in particular take some getting used to. They randomly drop enemies, but can only produce three each.
Isaac is a game where you really have to get a good roll on your level generation or just rerolling is best. If you find one you like, you just pause the game, copy down the seed, and you can play the same one as much as you like. You only have to input the seed once, after you do, continuing will bring you back to the beginning of that seed until you back out and turn it off.
If you don't input a seed, every time you continue you reroll and get a new set of levels.
Sometimes you roll a little too good and end up with God Tier powers by the endgame. For example, I got an item that gives a chance to drop random items, mostly consumables, money, and health, whenever I placed a bomb, it also has a super rare chance to drop the occasional upgrade as well.
That was pretty cool, but it didn't pay out very well. That is until I got another item that dumped a bunch of bombs in the room every time I took damage on the next floor down, and an item that made bombs heal me in the shop. Suddenly I'm swimming in health and items, and the bombs also did a decent job of killing enemies, sometimes clearing out entire rooms. Beating that run was a little too easy as nine out of ten times that I took damage I would end up with a room full of gibs and more health lying around than I lost.
Whether a floor is decent or not largely has to do with what gear you find and how many consumables you're getting. Particularly bombs and keys.
Isaac is a game that is intended to be replayed many times. There are tons of unlocks that are gained by doing specific things. Plus challenges and bosses that only spawn sometimes.
They've already patched it once to improve things, and will continue to do so for a while until things mesh well together. Just like every other expansion of Isaac.
That said, it's entirely playable and a lot of fun as is. Like I said, I've done a bunch of runthroughs already and managed to 'beat' it several times. Afterbirth + is just fine, and given a little tweaking will be just as good as any of the other expansions. The Steam reviews are just Reddit fanboys being bitches
[–] [deleted] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
[–] Boomslice ago
The first couple iterations were pretty decent if you like this kind of game. It was one of the first good 'rogue-like' games, but the last couple expansions don't feel like much was done and were more of a money grab taking advantage of the game's popularity. They also have a lot better games to compete with in the genre now, so that's likely why it's failing.
[–] TheonGreyjoy 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
Pretty much my feelings. I like the game and all, but the last two expansions weren't that good. I'm just excited for mods on steam workshop (Yea, I know I could have installed them without it, but I'm interested in what the community will splice together) instead of the content Ed provided.