The Binding of Isaac: Repentance+ review

Telling you that The Binding of Isaac: Repentance+ is great should come as no surprise. As Repentance+ exits its PC beta and releases on all platforms, it presents the most comprehensive packaging of the modern classic thus far. Bundling all prior DLC along with the introduction of online co-op, cross saves, crossplay, multiple balance adjustments, and QoL improvements— it’s hard not to recommend.

A known quantity though it is, Repentance+ has a number of notable updates that made diving back into the basement and confronting Mom once more an absolute delight. First and foremost, the cross save feature will allow existing players to carry their Steam progress over to any of the console platforms. I (alongside countless others) began my TBOI journey on PC years ago, and the thought of starting from scratch on PS5 had dissuaded me from double dipping. This DLC update completely removes that hurdle, and while the feature wasn’t live over the review period, it’s set to provide the perfect incentive for new and returning players alike. 

Crossplay will be equally important, allowing players on all platforms to play together, ensuring you’ll be able to consistently create groups of up to four players through match-ups or private lobbies with friends. Keep in mind though that Crossplay is also set to arrive in the Day One patch, so make sure to update your game!

Over the course of the review period, I was able to jump into a few runs with some of the developers at Nicalis and experiment with the online multiplayer. As chaotic as solo runs in TBOI are, multiplayer runs are on another level—and it was wonderful. A deeper layer of strategy emerges from the get-go with the ability to each play different characters (so long as you’ve unlocked them previously). On top of that, you’ll need to decide who picks up which item and thus buildcraft for each other as you progress through the run. The usual fundamentals of “pick up everything you see” are thrown out of the window, and for someone with hundreds of hours in the base game, that refreshment of my mindset was an unexpected but welcome surprise.

You can spend currency to revive downed friends (or automatically revive if a boss is defeated). Those friends will float around as mini ghosts in the interim — capable of firing small tears and also reaching otherwise inaccessible areas of certain rooms. That delightful contribution to the gameplan naturally builds throughout a run, as sometimes keeping a friend around in ghost form is actually more beneficial to grab out of reach items. This circumvents an issue I’ve had with a number of multiplayer experiences where, if you’re killed, you’re reduced to a mere spectator role and the inclination to keep playing diminishes rapidly.

To nitpick the multiplayer experience, it can be quite difficult to track exactly what’s going on due to the sheer number of visual effects and projectiles as four players fire away at enemies and bosses. The size and geometry of the rooms can also sometimes cause frustration, prompting you to take damage more often than you would if you were on your own. That being said, jumping on mic with the devs proved to me that this can easily turn TBOI into a hilarious (often infuriating) party game of sorts for you and your friends.

A successful run ends with a deathmatch between players. This acted as a wonderful little destresser and as a good full stop to round out a session. Based on general consensus from the Repentance+ Beta on Steam, the main cause for concern around this DLC update was the lag/stuttering, input delay, and desync. At least from my own personal experience playing on PS5 Pro from the UK with devs hosting the session in the US, I had no desync or input delay issues whatsoever. There were a handful of minor stutters which undoubtedly led to some unwarranted damage being taken, but they were not overly egregious. 

I hope that by launch (or shortly thereafter) that those tiny hitches can be patched, as the gameplay experience otherwise was pretty flawless. I cannot attest to performance on other platforms, but I heard from the devs that Switch 2 was encountering slightly more consistent issues pre-release—so take that into account.

Long-time players of TBOI will know the struggles of Alt-Tabbing out of the game to check a wiki page every time you run across an item. Not knowing what each item does is certainly part of the fun in the initial hours of your playthrough, but misremembering and picking up a detrimental item for your current run is crippling (or even run ending) and constantly breaks up the gameplay flow. In comes what I consider to actually be the dark horse addition with this DLC: item descriptions.

This option allows you to display the exact effects of consumables, trinkets, items, and more before you pick them up, so long as you’ve picked them up once before. You can also check your acquired/equipped items from the pause screen, and check a full glossary of sorts on the main menu. On the dozens of runs I’ve journeyed through during the review period, this was a godsend in saving me the frustration of grabbing something that completely screwed me over; even more so considering it’s been a few years since I’ve played.

Repentance+ definitely lacks some of the excitement compared to prior DLC's that contributed dozens of new items, bosses, enemies, and environments. One core aspect of this DLC that didn't blow me away was the balance adjustments. Several items have received buffs or tweaks to their effects, but I found the majority of these almost impossible to tangibly notice (even after looking up the changes). A few definitely had improved impacts on my gameplay and all are welcome, but for most players this will be an imperceptible element of the update due to how incremental they are and how much experience you’ll have needed beforehand to know the difference.