"Rated M" Month: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Well, Easter has come and gone, and I’m still in “M-Rated" Month… Gotta find some way to combine the two. I might have just the right game to talk about.

Quite possibly THE most famous roguelike
video game of all time.

How do I approach such a massive product… well, might as well start with the beginning. The Binding of Isaac is a game that was developed by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, and released in its first version as a Flash game on September 28th, 2011. The game’s popularity quickly rose, leading to an expansion titled “Wrath of the Lamb”. However, the version most people are familiar with is the remake, developed with help from the game studio Nicalis on a new engine, dubbed “The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth” and released to Steam on November 4th, 2014 (this is the version I’m covering today). Multiple content packs were added afterwards, such as Afterbirth, Afterbirth+ and, last year, Repentance. Since there is a LOT of ground to cover, I'll focus on Rebirth and only mention notable differences with later DLCs whenever necessary.

A brief introduction

Though the game is fairly well-known, in case someone reading this doesn’t know, I’ll explain: In short, The Binding of Isaac is a roguelike, meaning that you explore dungeons that are procedurally generated. A run you go through is defined by its "seed", a sequence of letters and numbers that’s randomized at the start of the game. In the case of The Binding of Isaac, it’s a sequence of eight digits and excludes the characters 5, I, O and U, meaning that there are (32⁸) 1,099,511,627,776 possible dungeons. Any more and I would have needed scientific notation. The odds of playing through the same dungeon layout twice (without tools, hacks, or by generating a precise seed by yourself) are so low, it’s practically impossible.

Quick Review: Super Chibi Knight

Cuteness + nostalgia + an update to a game I played long ago? Where do I sign?

The original was cute, for sure, but the new
one blows it out of the water.

Developed by PestoForce, published by them and Armor Games Studio, and released on June 24th, 2015, Super Chibi Knight is a sequel to a Flash game I used to play on Newgrounds, titled… well… Chibi Knight. Inspired by the system of The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, that game featured a regular RPG overworld view outside of battle, only to switch to a more platform-like view whenever combat happened. And all that, in an adorable style.

This is a much larger effort with a greater story, building upon the basics of the first Flash game to create an improved product. I’ve already stated before that I love to see the devs of games played for free on Newgrounds, Armor Games, or any other Flash gaming website, moving on to new projects as proper indie studios.

Just so darn adorable.

Sandworm, huh? I've seen bigger.

The events of the original “Chibi Knight” are long past, and the great evil Monocchio was defeated. General Tso, a disciple of that demon, seeks to restore the monster to its glory; and to stand unopposed, he blinded the wizards of the world, and then easily defeated the beast masters from the mountains. On Oukoku Island, a little girl’s destiny is about to begin. She wakes up, just a normal day, then goes to the library to learn her world’s story… and sets on a path to right every wrong, solve every villager’s problem, kill every boss threatening the land, and take down Tso.

There's even some good old dungeon-crawling!

Those familiar with the original game will find a first chapter that’s very close in tone and feel. Even then, we have more quests, dungeons and bosses from the beginning, and the game starts out deceptively easy. Things change by the second chapter, where you’re given two paths: You can set sail for an island where the wizards live, and they will teach you the spells necessary to defeat the new evil; or you can climb up the mountains and learn the way of the beast masters, granting you a collection of animals to ride into battle. As emphasized by the scrolls in the library, you cannot do both – therefore, you need to play through the game at least twice to see everything. The difficulty also picks up considerably from the second chapter onwards.

A new environment, a side-quest, an animal
to capture and an underwater breath meter.
So much new stuff!

What a sweet homage to this game's roots!

As a throwback to its roots, the game features references to both Newgrounds and Armor Games. It also offers the option to customize the character with any combo of armor and sword unlocked at any point. This game and the original don’t feature a proper level-up system; instead, the EXP you earn can be used to pay for upgrades to the character’s armor (HP), magic bar, and attack power. Each stat can be upgraded all the way to Level 10. What’s more, the character can find mentors around the map that will also give her new battle techniques.

The best part of this game? Nick Pesto, the main developer of the game, lists his daughter Bella (aged 8 at the time of the game’s release) as co-creator. Father and daughter working together, that’s so sweet.

Lots of bosses, too. Like this one, as
an example.

I greatly enjoyed this one, in part because of nostalgia, but also because of the adorable art style and the fun writing. It feels like a proper improvement over its predecessor, with far more content and a lot more work put on designs, environments, and content (especially regarding the number of quests). One issue I have with the game is that content can be pretty easy to miss, and some quests aren’t fully clear. Some characters will talk to you when you walk up to them, others when you press A near them (controls are A to interact and slash, S to jump, D to use spells or summon animals), so sometimes you’ll lose information by pressing A right after a message popped up.

Right, those really aren’t big issues. The rest of the game is so endearing and fun that said issues can be forgiven. It’s a very charming and kid-friendly title, so I can recommend it for children. It’s worth your time and money, at least I believe so.

Super Chibi Knight is available on Steam for 4.99$.

Quick Review: My Friend Pedro

“Gone bananas.” That’s never been more apt.

In case this guy's athletic achievements were not
ipressive enough, he can wall jump, too.

This game was developed by DeadToast Entertainment, published by Devolver Digital and released to Steam on June 20th, 2019, although it existed since 2014 as a Flash game. This is the tale of a guy who starts seeing a floating, talking banana named Pedro that convinces him to go full vigilante on the criminal underbelly of this city. The unnamed, masked protagonist becomes a superhuman John fuckin’ Wick who can slow time down, shoot two guns at once, and do all sorts of insane feats. All because of a (possibly imaginary?) banana.

Only the first gangsters of hundreds.

This 2.5D platformer has a lot of controls: You aim and shoot with the mouse, move back and forth with A and D, use S to duck. W is used to evade bullets, which is frequently necessary; when your health is low and a bullet could kill you, a QTE-style prompt appears to make you press W to avoid said bullet. You jump with Space (and can wall-jump), interact with items with E, reload the firearms with R, and change weapons with Q. You can also kick with F, which is useful against opponent very close by or to send projectiles at them, like a knife or a gas canister.

Most importantly, you trigger bullet time by pressing a key (I personally set it to my left Caps Lock). Bullet Time slows time, yes, but also slows down the speed at which a score multiplier meter depletes. You can get a higher score by killing multiple goons in a row, and your performance is judged with a letter grade at the end of each level.

That's a lot of guys to kill.

Now, there IS a story to the game. For starters, the protagonist awakens in the cellar of a butcher shop with amnesia, and spies a discussion between Mitch the Butcher, a gangster and arms trafficker hiding behind a good business, and his mooks. After Mitch leaves, we kill the handymen, then must kill everyone on the way to find and murder Mitch. And then Denny, Mitch’s affiliate. Thus begins a roaring rampage of violence fueled by drugs and the elucubrations of a banana.

You have to be an incredible shot if you can
activate levels with your bullets...

There’s a bit of a shift in design; in the first half, you aren’t too hindered by blockades and puzzles in your way, so much of the focus is on going through each level and killing every enemy in the most stylish way possible. Probably confident that you’ve got the hang of the basics by then, the second half involves a lot more puzzles forcing you to figure out how to progress through each section, but you still need to kill everyone. In my experience, bullets also get rarer at that point. You find many different weapons, but only the first ones have infinite ammo (though you still need to reload). For the others, you need to find bullets by killing enemies.

That high-speed road fight is a highlight.

A lot of the focus is on facilitating cinematic combat, hence all the controls and options, so the more puzzle-based platforming later on feels a bit out of left field. That said, the game stays true to its influences throughout and features a story that’s pretty interesting (let’s just say, things get weirder) while still displaying that offbeat comedy. There’s even a sequence on the road, which is the part I enjoyed the most. Getting letter grades above C is very difficult unless you master the controls and can chain kills easily, taking bullet time into account. The environments are not super varied, but the soundtrack is really good.

This game’s fun, look it up if you’re looking for an action-packed experience. My Friend Pedro is available on Steam for 19.99$ USD.

The Henry Stickmin Collection

Merry Christmas!

Mario beating the Heck outta Dracula?
Where do I sign up?

Back in the days of Newgrounds, I played a buttload of Flash games. From fan games of Mario beating up bosses from other games to all the previous installments of the GemCraft series, passing by titles that could be perfectly serviceable indie Steam releases if they had been made for profit. Or, Heck, even if they had been released to Steam for free.

Some websites have moved on to games made on HTML5, while others have made it their duty to catalogue and preserve the Flash games in some way. With the end of Flash at the end of the year – in less than a week – these conservationist sites are much welcome.

This screenshot is taken from a Flash game called
Villainous. I loved it.

It’s not a completely accurate comparison, but much like someone who tries their hand at fanfiction before writing a proper original novel of their own, building a Flash game is a valuable learning experience in game development, and can open the doors to the indie world (or, who knows, all the way to AAA). In fact, there are several games I used to play on Newgrounds that were good on their own, that now have versions on Steam – with price tag, sure, but it’s good to see these creators moving from free games to actually being compensated for their work. It might also have to do with several seeing the writing on the wall for Flash for a few years now, so they remade their game (or created sequels) for a digital gaming distribution platform like Steam.

One of the series that made the jump is Henry Stickmin, whose five games have been entirely remade, with a bonus sixth to make it really worth the price tag. I recall playing “Stealing the Diamond” way back, so I wasn’t entirely stranger to the series. But it was a treat to rediscover it (and play through all the games I had missed) through this collection. Not to mention the moments of hilarity it gave me. For, if there is one thing we needed this year, it was laughter.

Quick Review: No Time To Explain Remastered

Just looking at the store page takes me back to the days of Flash and Newgrounds.

Made by tinyBuild and released to Steam on July 17th, 2015, No Time To Explain Remastered is… well… a remaster made in Unity of the original Flash game No Time To Explain, which was released to Newgrounds on January 6th, 2011. I haven’t played the original, but I guess I’ll trust the devs’ words that the remaster is better than the original. They say it themselves.

Yep - that's me down there, casually
taking down spaceships.

The story? Uh… well, to make it short, you, the player character, were dancing in your living room when a different you from the future breaks the wall and says that you must save the future and there’s, well, no time to explain. He then gets snatched by a giant crab’s claw and carried away, you grab the Jetpack Gun and give chase. Things are pretty straightforward from there – Ha! Wait, no, I mean it becomes a fucking weird knot of alternate timeline and universe shenanigans. The game’s progression itself is straightforward, though.

Are you sure it's not dangerous if I'm shooting
at my feet?

This is a platform game with slight puzzle elements. You move around with WASD, aim the gun with the mouse, and shoot with the Left mouse button. The gun can be used to shoot at stuff, obviously, but it’s so damn powerful that your protagonist, whose jumping talents are lacking to say the least, can shoot at the ground to be blasted to higher places. Hence the name Jetpack Gun. More and more gameplay elements get added over time, such as water that allows your character to jetpack even higher… or torches that set the character on fire in order to destroy obstacles.

Yep - that's me up there, casually visiting
spaceships.

Sometimes the character’s abilities will change. In alternate timelines, you may end up equipped with a shotgun with massive knockback and destruction power, or get flung around with a makeshift ability while you’re in a straightjacket. So props for changing gameplay now and then. One series of levels reminds me of INK, which – fair, that’s about the same level of difficulty in this darn game.

I don’t know what’s up with my selection for quick reviews, this year I’ve stumbled upon several meat grinder-style super-hard games in which you have infinite lives. Those games tend to be fairly short but compensate with a high difficulty. To be fair, I managed to finish the Story Mode of No Time to Explain Remastered, something I can’t say of every game reviewed so far, so I guess the difficulty is okay, albeit on the tough side.

Dead again? That's okay, I have
56884674349 lives left.

Wait, is this me, fighting an evil, fat version
of me, within myself, near my heart, over a
vat of acid?
Man, videogames, amirite?

The graphics remind me of the simple designs that were so common in Flash games of the olden days, though since this is a remade and improved version of one, it makes sense that the design would be such, with updates. The music is pretty great, being energetic and enjoyable. The story is… well, it’s basically parodying everything it can at every chance it gets, so don’t go look in there for stable time loops or any sort of sense. There’s no time to explain… because it’s all inexplicable. Not all the jokes land, but the sheer absurdity of the concept is taken advantage of fully and it’s to the game’s benefit. The controls take some time to get used to, requiring great precision that isn’t always easy to get since you need to coordinate the character’s movement with the keyboard to aiming and shooting the Jetpack Gun with the mouse, which makes a lot of levels a lot harder – but seeing the level design in later worlds, yeah, the controls couldn’t have worked any other way. I almost forgot to mention that the game also offers multiplayer in couch or Steam Remote play, so you may bring a buddy to face these challenges.

Pretty fun game, and I could actually tell tinyBuild liked to work on that and homage their own roots with an update. If you want to face its challenges, you can find it on Steam for 14.99$. If the price tag seems a bit high for what's offered, wait until there's a sale.

Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows

I thought I wanted to play a quick game? This one could be longer than both games I reviewed before it… combined! But it’s a lot simpler to discuss. Sorry, there’s no Halloween review this year, I didn’t plan for anything along those lines. Could’ve done some more FNAF, but… nah, it can wait.

I’ve always loved tower defense games. The combination of puzzle, strategy and space management… ah, I love that. The very third game I reviewed on this blog was a tower defense game for the Nintendo DS, too: Desktop Tower Defense. There have been dozens of versions and variations, often with different mechanics; some with unchangeable paths, others where you can build the path yourself or modify it partway into a level.

Ah yes, Desktop Tower Defense. A game I
haven't touched in roughly five years...

Of all of Game In A Bottle's latest games, only one
isn't GemCraft. Dedication, right there!

Game in a Bottle brings to us Gemcraft, a series of tower defense games that were unique in execution. The towers of this strategy game wore colors, each color had an ability of its own, and you could in theory upgrade towers almost endlessly. Your sole limit was your bank of mana, which was used to build anything - towers, traps, walls, amplifiers and so on - and survive whenever monsters reached your Orb, the source of your power. Monsters reaching the Orb are respawned back at the entrance, shaving an amount of mana off your pool (an amount that gets bigger as you progress through a level’s waves, increasing difficulty), and go through the path again. The waves of monsters usually follow precise paths, but later games feature levels where you need to build a long path with walls in order to slow the monsters down - and, with some leeway, you can create an inescapable death trap where, by demolishing one wall and building another, you can capture most monsters in a loop, while leaving them vulnerable from the blast of your gem-powered towers. The left-side bar shows the progression of waves, while the right side is your gem workshop, allowing construction of gems up to Level 12 (though it’s possible to go far beyond). Some games also experiment with additional abilities such as Spells or gem enhancements. As you gain levels, you get points to use on skills that reduce the cost of towers or gems, improve the abilities of gems or have other kinds of impacts on the field.

The series has had only four main games:

-GemCraft (AKA Chapter One), which was fairly basic and in which you could only build Gems at random among the colors available in a level, adding so much unnecessary fake difficulty to the game;

-GemCraft Chapter Zero (AKA “Gem of Eternity”), which added the extra modes to every level, with now the possibility to replay early levels with some added difficulty and more Experience at the key;

-Gemcraft Labyrinth, a massive game that had 169 levels around a square map, starting at the bottom center and leading to the very center, after going around the map. It’s also where, FINALLY, you could create exactly the Gems you wanted;

-Today’s game, Chasing Shadows, also known as Chapter 2;

-And another game is in development!

Starbomb (Starbomb Album)

(Warning: A LOT of vulgarity on this one. As in, if you are 18 years of age or under, don’t read this.)

If I say Arin Hanson or Dan Avidan right now, you might not know who I’m talking about. If I say Egoraptor or Danny Sexbang, however, chance are you know who they are: The current Game Grumps. They've become quite known for Let's Plays, but also for various side-projects. Dan's main band, Ninja Sex Party, where he makes music with a friend who goes by the moniker Ninja Brian, has gained quite a lot of recognition. You might also know these three guys as a video game-themed band, quite popular on YouTube thanks to the numerous animated videoclips made out of their songs: StarBomb. As usual, it’s April 1^st, and I tend to enjoy doing special things around this time of the year, so I decided to check out their full first album… titled Starbomb.

The whole thing clocks in at a little over 27 minutes, with 13 tracks. Do the math. The longest track on this album is 2 minutes 50 seconds. If you like long jams (like I do), you can skip this one. However, if you like video games, should you check it out? That’s what I’ll be judging today, as I go through the album, track by track.

Here’s the full album, by the way. 

We open with Track 1, “Intro”. How creative. It’s just Egoraptor presenting the new band, with Danny joining in partway through with Ninja Brian. He also goes on to say that the band uses the various video game universes for parody and comedy, and goes on a long-winded explanation of fair use. Probably to protect their asses from the lawsuit-happy Nintendo, especially Nintendo of Japan who clearly has no idea how to deal with American fair use laws and will happily steal the monetization of any video that contains footage of Nintendo games because they can’t get in with the times while every other video game company out there has understood that it’s like free publicity- But I digress.

Give me a moment, I must check the track listing for this on the Apple Store. What’s the red E next to every single song title? …Oh. It stands for Explicit.

Goodie.

Defend Your Castle

This is gonna suck, isn’t it? I can tell when something is gonna suck, and I get the feeling that this is gonna suck. Then again, I’ve been wrong in the past… but this one, I don’t think I could be wrong. This looks sub-par even for an Internet-based game. I really wonder why I paid 500 Wii Points on this and not on something better- Ah yes, wait, I remember. I had bought only for 10 dollars of Wii Points, and I had already spent half of it on songs from the Just Dance 2015 store. Silly me. But hey, at least dancing to Papaoutai was fun, and Gangnam Style was good workout, so… I guess it doesn’t really matter?

Oh well. Defend Your Castle is one of the stranger ideas on the WiiWare section of the Wii Shop Channel. It kinda looks like something put together in a day by a single creator on Newgrounds. With minimal means.

Good thing it starts off pretty simple...

The idea behind the game is that you have a castle, and you have to defend it from incoming invaders (represented by freaking stick figures). At first, all you can do is grab the invaders with your godly powers, raise them high in the air, then letting them fall to their doom. At the end of a level, you can pay points from your score to upgrade your castle, repair its walls, increase its defenses, and all that stuff. As the levels go by, you find that more and more stick figures are coming, and you can’t keep up anymore. At some point, larger beasts come by, and you cannot lift them; instead you must click them three times.

Flash Videos: Kirby Edition

This Friday, the review is about Kirby. Or rather, Kirby in a world of yarn. Yep, Kirby's Epic Yarn!

Thus, I think this calls for a special Fun Stuff article about Kirby. There shouldn't be so much to show about the pink puffball and his world, right? ...right? Well... Actually, if you dig deep enough, you can find some Flash animations and games. If you wanted to see this aspect of your childhood get ravaged, this is the best time!

First, there's the Kirby Collab (Rated T): http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/542162

Kirby's Mishaps (Rated T): http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/432070

Kodo - Into The Kirby (Rated T): http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/502045

Kirby Kollection (Rated T): http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/269860

Kirby's Got Me Dancing (Rated E): http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/551664

Kirby, Cake Adventure (Rated E): http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/480058

Sorry for the toilet humor in he first two. If those videos had been made by me, I wouldn't have put that kind of joke in, but eh.

Enjoy!

"Collabs"

One of the greater aspects of the Flash community is how it can be tied together with so many people. All nerds or geeks, all appreciating one video game franchise or another. And so, geeks who love the same franchise get together and, instead of making one long video with their collective effort, they instead each make a smaller video and group them all together to get what we call "Collabs".

Obviously, "collab" comes from "collaboration", so it's all about gatherins lots of fans from a series and just cracking jokes about it, in Flash animation form.

The most notable example of such is the Sonic collabs, named Sonic Shorts, which went on for SIX videos, with about a hundred miniature videos made about the franchise and grouped in those videos.

Look out, however; some of the comedy "could potentially" be Not Safe For Work. After all, this was made by different artists with different comedy styles and different senses of what comedy is, so some jokes could be "offensive" or just plain bizarre or yucky. But it's mostly the language, and also some of the non-seen scenes. It's not "too" bad.

You can watch all of them in this Youtube selection.

Heck, even KNUCKLES gets one later.

After the popularity of the Sonic collabs, the Mario fandom replied with this. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/429242 A Mario collab!

And a little later, the Kirby collab... http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/542162

Mario's Castle Calamity

Another Web series!

Mario has defeated the Koopaling at the end of the castle. Now, as he did every time, he intends to blow up the castle thansk to that here detonator. However, the castle doesn't want to be destroyed. As a result, all of Mario's attempts are failures.

This series s a rapid-fire comedy, with all the attempts being barely a few seconds long. The series is available on Newgrounds and Youtube, although lots and lots of fan versions were made as well.

If I can make one point of criticism, sometimes the comedy dares going into dirty comedy... but overall, the series is still fun. Of course, it could get tiring after a while... The concept stays the same all the way through. Luckily, the Mario uiverse is complete enough to provide a few hundred possibilities for jokes. And sometimes, just add stuff from other games, and the problem is solved!

The first video can be seen here, the second one can be seen here. The series was so popular that it spawned lots and lots of imitators. Among others, one that has Luigi trying to crash the castle. Two collaborations were made with different animators.

Last but not least, a contest of Mario's Castle Calamity was made with a program called GMOD. The result? A LOOOOOOOOOONG video.

Enjoy this slapstick series!

Four Swords Misadventures

Hey everyone! I've been kinda running out of ideas for the Fun Stuff articles, so instead of discussing entire  parts of the fandom, I might discuss just one work at a time.

Have you ever been to Newgrounds? That website that hosts Flash animations and games, most of which are made by the site's users?

...No? But, why? That's the place where you can see the best Flash animations about video games!

Also, I noticed that I almost never discussed The Legend of Zelda since this blog opened. Time to at least make a notice about it.

Remember when I discussed Super Mario Bros. Z? That Flash series tht had about two freaking hours of footage? Kinda epic, huh? Well, today's series tried to be just as epic. Four Swords Misadventures is based on the Legend of Zelda Game Four Swords Adventures, in which Link falls victim to a spell that separates him into four Links. Therefore, the Flash series stars Link. And Link. And Link. And Link. And Zelda. And Dark Link. And Cuccos. And a colorful cast. Then again, all four main Links are colored differently, so yes, it's a colorful cast.

The series can be found on Newgrounds, but you can also find it on the series creator's Youtube Page. He made a playlist out of the many videos in the series.
The series can be found as a playlist here. I hope you'll enjoy this link about Links!
And of course, we can't really speak of Zelda Flash without showing this one.

I hope you enjoy this series, and see you Friday for another review!