Isaac is groundbreaking for me. Whenever one of my less-experienced friends stream their runs and show me combos even I've never experienced before, I smile inside. Or when they show me new mods, I'll elaborate more later, but this game would be nothing without the community, modders or not.

Ed McM bringing on the team that made the Antibirth mod to expand the game, is the only evidence one needs to realize how much love the community has for Isaac. (Ironic, given the primary biblical story referenced, and then some. Isaac needs to love himself more <3). I mean, there's a subreddit r/♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for god's sake, you'd argue that specific case is hatred, but to me, hate is a slight alteration for expressing love. Believe me when I tell you, no other game has gotten me to break a controller other than Isaac, and I still call it one of my favorite games.

For indie standards and the monumental task Ed brought upon him and his team, making such a complex and synergistic game, I guarantee few other games have done it as comprehensively as Isaac has. The sheer number of possible mixtures, it sounds like a programming nightmare, and I'm sure they have their hands full with Mewgenics. Playing this game in its base Rebirth form, its Afterbirth+ form after that, ending with Repentance and the few massive patches that've followed suit, witnessing its evolution has been a journey and one I'll always remember. I remember playing this in middle school on my brother's PS4, back when Azazel was the only character I could consistently play, and back when the Lost had the most specific unlock process in the world. If that unlock process ended with anyone other than Azazel, I'd never have done it.

I've only completed one file, and frankly, that was more than enough for me. The overall time played is more like 800-900 hours as the large majority was played on my Switch, where I had everything pre-repentance done and it was largely 8-10 characters I hadn't finished back then. Once I finally got a pc in late 2022, I used debug mode to remake my file from my switch, recreating it to a tee. Then overtime and in particular the span of one month I had off, I banged out the rest of the characters and ending it with the challenge that prevented the 1001% from back then, Ultra Hard. (actually, I had to do the 30 dailies, and I had to disable debug every time I had to do one, so I saved it for last forgetting about it. I had technically finished the game other than that nearly 3 weeks before Dead God appeared.

It's far from a perfect game, but as an indie game, you shouldn't expect the world from the devs anyways. It's no fun trying to find where games stumble. Praising what they do right first and foremost is how the general population should function. I love the sheer volume of content that came from Repentance, it was daunting at first, but it was so worth the time. Finishing Tainted Lost and Tainted Cain (post-patch) were my biggest accomplishments. If you're reading this, we've probably experienced similar pains and accomplishments, so I won't drag this on any longer. That, or you have interest in playing it, so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ buy it! Ed McMillen is a chill dude, give him and his team money! His merch is dope.

(P.S. close friend showed me a soundtrack mod that changes the base compositions with that of other games, or even bands like Radiohead.)