Hello, this is The Gemsbok, and today's topic is The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, a
game developed by Edmund McMillen and Nicalis, and originally released in 2014.
Since its original release as a subversive flash game back in 2011, The
Binding of Isaac has ascended from a cult classic to a mainstream success. In
the time since that release, all of the elements which made it subversive—from
its dark themes to its Biblical allusions—have been covered and analyzed
by critics from numerous angles. Theories about the meaning of the game's obscure,
sparse narrative have ranged from wild ad hoc hypotheses about Isaac's family
history to carefully built cases tracing themes across several earlier games made
by designer Edmund McMillen. Regardless, it has seemingly all been said. I do see
that sort of analysis as highly valuable, and I find myself largely in agreement
with commenters who interpret The Binding of Isaac as a portrait of a
particular type of upbringing—with all of the entailed positive (that is,
creative and skeptical) and negative (that is, repressed and threatened) effects.
Acknowledging that as trodden ground, however, I would like to discuss an
aspect of the game which is often gestured toward, but seldom discussed at
length: how the roguelike gameplay lends itself to the game's homage and spiritual
succession of the earliest Legend of Zelda games.
The longest-standing fans of The Legend of Zelda,
those who have been playing since the first entry in the series, often find
themselves in a strange love-hate relationship with some of the newer
entries in the series. While a game like Skyward Sword looks and sounds
satisfyingly like a Zelda game, it caters in every possible way to new, young
players—from unending tutorial segments to an overbearing companion to minimal
difficulty—entirely at the expense of experienced players. For such very-
long-term fans of The Legend of Zelda series, up until the release of Breath of
the Wild in 2018, it seemed for decades that the core elements of the earliest
titles (such as a sense of meaningful exploration, an emphasis on gameplay over
story, and a significant level of difficulty) had been eschewed entirely in
favor of linearity and accessibility. The openness and self-direction of playing
The Legend of Zelda had been replaced by the interlocking puzzle dungeons and
precise player guidance of A Link to the Past. Most of the 3D entries in the
series play like variations on the Link to the Past formula, from Ocarina of Time
to The Wind Waker to Skyward Sword. It's not a perfect split; early Zelda dungeons
interlock to some degree, and A Link to the Past has a few higher-difficulty
segments. But the change in emphasis from exploration-and-combat-focused gameplay
to story-and-puzzle-focused gameplay is nonetheless stark and noticeable. None of
this is to say that the pre- Breath of the Wild modern Zelda titles are all
necessarily bad games. Far from it, many of them are excellent: Majora's Mask is a
bold and interesting title; Twilight Princess has many memorable and
wonderful segments; and I'm personally deeply fond of the characters, visual
design, pacing, and gameplay mechanics of The Minish Cap.
Zelda titles may have often included more tedium and less challenge than they
should, but they have always been well- polished and enjoyable games. Rather than
simply bashing the direction of the series from 1991 to 2017, this section's
aim is just to say that fans of the aforementioned
early core elements have typically had to look elsewhere to get their fix. A
year after Skyward Sword released, and, unbeknownst to him, five years before
Breath of the Wild, game critic Tevis Thompson—after systematically
criticizing the state of modern Legend of Zelda games as of 2012—alleged that
Demon's Souls came nearer to a presentation of the original Zelda
formula in three dimensions than the series itself ever had. More recently, I
should point out, he has had occasion to extend (with several caveats) significant
praise to Breath of the Wild for the direction it's taking 3D Zelda. Meanwhile,
back in two dimensions, in a similarly bold claim to Thompson's 2012 claim
concerning Zelda and Demon's Souls, I would argue that The Binding of Isaac is a
worthy candidate for consideration as a modern spiritual successor to the
original Legend of Zelda. The Binding of Isaac has always been a game with
blatant references to, and inspirations from, the earliest zelda games. Here's a
quick list of some such elements: Isaac's animation when picking up an item is
reminiscent of Link doing the same; the title of the younger game is
deliberately structured to resemble the title of the older game; many of the
items, enemies, and hazards in Isaac are also specific allusions to Zelda items,
enemies, and hazards; there is an obvious visual similarity between a so-called
crawlspace in Rebirth and an item room in The Legend of Zelda; fans of Isaac who
played its original incarnation will also recognize the bar at the top of the
Zelda screen as being almost identical to the information display in flash
Isaac; and everything about moving through the world in Isaac (the cardinal-
direction-only attacks, the scrolling room transitions, the locked rooms, the
enemy and obstacle setups, etc.) is also evident in any gameplay footage of The
Legend of Zelda. But those overt references are not
what makes the game a worthy descendant of Zelda. What makes the game a worthy
descendant is the implementation of its gameplay and mechanics. How does one
implement the sense of discovery and surprise from The Legend of Zelda in the
modern world of instant access to game information? How does one force the
player to learn the mechanics and gain skill, as opposed to having them memorize
the sequence of tasks in the game? The principal answer to both questions was
randomization, a key attribute of Isaac's other biggest influences: a 2008 game
called Spelunky—which, like Isaac, has since had an acclaimed and excellent HD
remake that is definitely worth playing— and a 1980 game called Rogue.
By randomizing everything, from the items to the consumable drops to the enemies
to the rooms to the bosses to much more, McMillen's design made it almost
statistically impossible for two non- seeded runs to be identical. Add to this
elements like the predictable-but-not- infallibly-so secret rooms, the totally-
unpredictable crawl spaces, and the discernable-but-subtle tinted rocks; the
result is a game that encourages literally leaving no stone unturned, and
which rewards attentive play and situational awareness. Crucially, the
result is also a game where the map may hold unspeakable challenges at
inopportune times, or may provide an unexpected bounty when it is needed most.
These are situations which make for a tense and interesting game to play, and
these are the attributes of the exploration in The Legend of Zelda which
made that game such a massive success in its day.
Such forays into the unknown have only been aided by the addition of further
floor variants, floors, room types, rooms, items, transformations, mechanics, enemies,
and bosses which have been provided by the game's expansions over the years. But
how do you simulate the stakes of a besieged world like the original Hyrule?
How do you make it seem as inhospitable and threatening? Well, part of the answer
to these questions comes from the aesthetic and thematic choices in the
design of the game. A frightened child, fleeing his homicidal mother through an
arguably even more homicidal gauntlet of monstrosities, set to an undulating
ambient soundtrack with industrial samples, is a scenario most would call
tense. But these aural assets are only how the game evokes tension. The way that
the game instills tension in the player is, again, through its gameplay. With the
help of the Nicalis team—and before that, Florian Himsl—Edmund McMillen made his
game difficult, and he brought in permadeath. These attributes, again present in
Spelunky and Rogue, round out the key elements of the conspicuously named
roguelike genre so much in vogue at present. Aside from providing an obvious
satisfaction at finally improving and defeating all of
the challenges set before you, these attributes make each run (or at least
runs without good early item drops) tangibly nerve-racking when one's health
pool runs low. The world threatens you with failure, and this is psychologically
effective. This is why a successful run as The Lost feels so triumphant, because
of the constant proximity to failure. And the balance tweaks to that character
which have occurred of the intervening years have maintained this propensity
for triumphant emotion while removing much tedium. Perhaps the single most
important design decision, however, was the way that Isaac's attacking
capabilities were handled. In the essay about Zelda mentioned earlier, Tevis
Thompson laments at one point the gratuitousness of most Legend of Zelda
titles' item bloat. That is, he thinks there are too many items that are
redundant with each other, or which fail to affect the Link's core moveset.
When such a complaint can be valid about a game with fewer than 30 items at
its most excessive, how can it possibly be the case that the literal hundreds of
items in Rebirth do not introduce the same problems? The answer, once more, comes
down to implementation. For all of its incredible variation, Isaac has
essentially two offensive abilities (or three if you count bombs). He has his
tears, and he acquires an active item. The genius of the huge number of items in
The Binding of Isaac is that they meaningfully develop,
alter, or build upon this core gameplay, rather than adding new tools at every turn.
McMillen is no stranger to this game design philosophy, and his prior success,
a game he made with Tommy Refenes called Super Meat Boy, employs an even more pure
example, wherein the core gameplay is completely unchanged from the start of
the game to above 100% completion (with the exception of optional character
unlocks). Isaac and Isaac's tears grow stronger, or gain additional utility, or
offer defensive capabilities, or change shape, but there are just a select few
rare items that can actually change the tool that is being used. This is why
Isaac players so prize the inclusion of interesting synergies between passive
items. Rather than feeling like a Zelda series staple of checklist items allowing
the completion of simple puzzle tasks, the items acquired in Isaac improve and
upgrade the existing arsenal, which nevertheless relies on players skill for success.
The point of this video is not to claim that The Binding of Isaac is by any
means a perfect example of the early Zelda formula. After all, the epic scale
of the Zelda games—communicated as much by their plot, however sparing, as by
their overworld navigation—is not remotely communicated by the
claustrophobic atmosphere of The Binding of Isaac, which operates more like a
series of Zelda dungeons than a Zelda game in its entirety. It may incorporate
early Zelda's thematic emphasis on exploration, but in Isaac that
exploration is always taking place within a sharply bounded and limited
interior space, which is more in keeping with Isaac's tone. And speaking of that
tone, the darker themes of the game, however crassly presented at times, make
Isaac into something more cerebral than Zelda ever was. As I said before,
long-term Zelda fans have had cause to rejoice in recent years, with the release
of Breath of the Wild finally ending the lengthy string of iterations on the
formula of re-re-imagining Link to the Past in 3D, at last bringing some of the
energy and design philosophies of the very first Legend of Zelda title into
the third dimension. But as far as 2D games go,
those same fans may still be left wanting. As for me, with one more
expansion still hovering on the horizon, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth will
doubtless provide me with many more hours of excitement, challenge, and
curiosity—befitting of its regal forebears.
[Zelda chest opening music]