Two years ago, Edmund McMillen's hit game, The Binding of Isaac, introduced a frightening world where a child navigates through hordes of monstrous creatures. Just recently, the game saw a sort of sequel-remake, now with pixel-based graphics and a slew of new content.
While the simple stylization of the game's monsters leaves this open to interpretation, it's generally assumed that they're all monstrously altered children, possibly even Isaac's siblings or reflections of Isaac himself.
Here's a look at some of the most notable monsters:
Monstro: We're looking at a gigantic, malformed baby head that bounces around crying in a perpetual rage. The most basic boss is just a really huge, gluttonous head with bad teeth and a cleft lip, which attacks by crying and puking blood.
Larry Junior: Like Monstro, Larry junior is simple enough to be kind of a poster child for the game's monsters. He's your classic segmented, serpentine boss monster, ala Moldorm from the Zelda series.
Read also: The Vital Grasslands of Eastern Africa
Gemini: A little fetus attached to a bigger fetus by their shared umbilical cord. Does that make them siblings, or is one the child of the other? They obviously love each other very much, but like every other monster, it's you or them I guess.
Steven: A variation on the Gemini boss, Steven is also a cameo from one of Edmund's other games, but I like its jarringly different art style better in the context of this one, inexplicable and otherworldly compared to the other bosses.
Blighted Ovum: There are several "post-mortem" versions of various bosses, and Blighted Ovum is the vengeful cadaver version of Gemini; the older brother already a corpse, the younger brother a drifting ghost.
Pinworm: A giant pinworm with what may be a child's face is by far one of the worst monsters I can think of if you're like me and easily nauseated by other people's hygiene.
The Haunt: A new boss added to Rebirth, the Haunt isn't as strange as most of its brethren...kind of just like any other big, round ghost, really. Like a Boo Buddy!
Read also: Iconic Elvis Songs
Dingle: Hilariously, one of the new features in Rebirth is just the addition of a whole lot more shit. Especially in the form of more shit monsters and a whole new shit boss. The deliriously happy-looking and repulsively named Dingle can summon lesser shitmonsters by whistling (a brown note?), and very alarmingly uses blood as its go-to projectile weapon.
The Duke of Flies: A fan favorite, the Duke is just a swollen, eyeless corpse who drifts around without a care in the world - and doesn't even have much health. He might not even be all that dangerous if not for the flies constantly swarming out of his dessicated, hollow body. Who even cut him open and stitched him up?
Famine: The horseman boss of the first chapter, Famine adorably rides one of those stick-horse "toys" with an actual, rotting horse head impaled on it.
Gurdy: Another fan favorite, Gurdy is a nasty little girl who pops in and out of her own tumorous outer body, popping flies and giant boil-creatures out of her various tubes and pores. She seems to have a grand old time of it, too, with a big grin on her face whenever she tunnels back out of her own blighted flesh to barf in your general direction.
Gurdy Jr.: Gurdy Jr. was added in the Wrath of the Lamb expansion, and unlike Gurdy, Junior can actually move around. Amazingly fast, too, for a baby imprisoned in its own externalized polyp.
Read also: A Guide to Little African Licorice Drops Ingredients
Blastocyst: Good old Blastocyst, just an embryo in a giant lump of jelly. Like Isaac, its primary method of attack is to cry at you, possibly out of envy towards children who've already been born.
Chub: You can't easily tell from her art, but Chub is a gigantic, bloated maggot. Apparently this isn't the kind of maggot that matures into a fly, since she's constantly giving birth to less-giant maggots.
Mega Maw: This new boss is a giant version of the "maw" enemy (shown above), though I have to say, the tiny version is a hell of a lot more frightening looking. That expressionless face with its hollow, gaping mouth and bleeding eye sockets is a lot worse than Mega Maw's scowl. Still, a bleeding giant head is a bleeding giant head.
Hollow: Another of the "post-mortem" monsters, Hollow is the dead version of Larry Jr, and if split apart by your attacks, its sections will sprout their own new heads.
Peep: I like how peep here is only semi-human in his anatomy, somewhere between a child and a big fat grub. Unsettlingly, his first method of attack is to just keep pissing himself, until later in the fight when his eyeballs pop out and fly around the room.
Post-mortem Chub: Post-mortem Chub lends more credit to the idea that she had quasi-human anatomy; why else would a maggot have had a skeleton to reanimate?
The Carrion Queen: A new boss in Rebirth, this nightmarish being is either a multi-headed monster with a huge face for a torso, or simply keeps its lower body buried, exposing only a gigantic head laden with parasitic siblings. Really picture that. Really think about a giant baby tunneling out of the floor with more babies hanging off of it like giant warts, bleeding profusely from their gouged-out eye sockets.
Pestilence: The second horseman boss, Pestilence naturally attacks with flies, which is more or less what "pestilence" most properly means.
Mega Fatty: Dead version of Mega Fatty is far, far more terrifying for simply lacking a head.
Dead Monstro: Dead Monstro is almost entirely bone, with just a scrap of flesh left on its face.
Dead Dark One: Dead Dark One, missing a horn and wrapped in bandages.
Gish: The sentient blob of tar went up against a slew of monsters not at all unlike those encountered in Isaac to rescue his goth, human girlfriend, and now, for whatever reason, he's taken to slinking around basements and murdering children. What happened, Gish? Is this how you dealt with getting dumped?
Dead Peep: I'm not really sure if Dead Peep is creepier than regular Peep. On one hand, it has a grosser face, it bleeds instead of just urinating and its eyeballs are always flying around, but with regular Peep, you've got that contrast between its disgusting behavior and comical appearance. Plus, the flying eyeball thing gets to be a surprise!
The Wretched: One of my favorites from my 2012 article, this monster consists of both a hovering, bleeding, giant heart and a hovering, bleeding giant "mask" that appears to be more of a huge fleshy head, frozen in anguish.
Daddy Longlegs II: A variant on Daddy Longlegs with only one eye and three appendages, this is actually another creature from one of Edmund's other games.
Loki: Little to say about this one, really; Loki is a devilish child with a triple 6 on his forehead.
Mom: You eventually battle what is either your own mother or a corrupted manifestation of her, her appendages and even eyes bursting into the room from the walls and ceiling to murder her own son.
Mr. Fred: One of the bosses unique to the interior of your mother, Mr. Fred looks a lot like a monstrous embryo, but that circle of teeth is distinctly less human. That might explain how he's seemingly able to just tunnel freely throughout your mom's body.
Teratoma: Possibly my favorite boss, Teratoma has everything I like about Fistula - an ominous, indifferent clot of drifting tissue - but with lovely hairs, teeth and blackened flesh. Plus, it's filled with spiders.
Mama Gurdy: In Rebirth, it turns out that the gurdy we all knew and loved wasn't even her final form. In your Mom's body, you'll find yourself in a whole boss chamber that seems to be a Gurdy tumor-body, Mama Gurdy's massive arms and head emerging to battle.
Death: The fourth horseman is, of course, mostly skeleton, and armed with orbiting scythes! I love the art of him riding his horse more like a surfboard, too.
Dead Loki: Dead Loki is a lot more fun than regular Loki. Who doesn't love a flying baby that can split itself in half? Or any baby that can split itself in half, so you don't have to do it for them?
IT LIVES: I'm kind of skipping a boss here, since you originally fight your mother's heart at this point, but in subsequent battles, the heart will transform into a heart-fetus creature ominously named IT LIVES. There's really no telling the story here. Your mom has a baby for a heart? A baby became her heart? Is it you?
The Devil: It's hard to take the classical depiction of the devil very seriously. Goats are like the silliest animal that exists.
The Lamb: Lambs are definitely less hilarious and slightly spookier than goats, and I love this thing's face. This is another of those Isaac monsters where you can kill either just its head or just its body before the other, but the fight still won't end.
Mega Satan: Mega Satan is more minotaur-like than anything else, really; he doesn't even quite fit the game's style.
Krampus: The last bonus horseman isn't even the Apocalypse kind, but the Sleepy Hollow kind, which is perfectly okay. I really do enjoy the increasing popularity of Krampus these days. Krampus is an unlockable bonus boss you can fight throughout the game, sometimes replacing the "Devil Rooms" you normally use to acquire items.
Like Chub, C.H.A.D. is a boss that can appear in the Caves and the Flooded Caves. C.H.A.D. As he gets damaged, C.H.A.D. would shrink to a smaller version of himself in Super Meat Boy.
The Binding of Isaac may very well have the most repulsive and nightmarish menagerie of monsters a video game has ever presented.
Stats in The Binding Of Isaac:
- Health: The number of heart containers Isaac has.
- Speed: The speed which Isaac moves at.
- Rate Of Fire: The rate at which Isaac fires tears.
- Damage: Increases the damage Isaac's tears inflict.
- Range: Affects how far your tears will travel.
Items in The Binding Of Isaac:
- Activated Items: Must be activated with Q to apply their effect and can only be used once.
- Collectibles: Some need to be activated (with space) to apply their effect. Most collectibles do not need to be activated and place a permanent effect on Isaac.
- Trinkets: Place a passive effect on Isaac, although only one can be carried at a time.
Rooms in The Binding Of Isaac:
- Regular Rooms: The most commonly encountered type of room, usually containing monsters.
- Treasure Room: A room that contains a free item on a pedestal inside.
- Shop: Contains a few pickups and one item costing 15 cents, or 7 cents if on sale.
- Library: Contains two books, chosen at random, and can contain any book in the entire game except The Bible.
- Curse Room: Costs 1/2 heart to enter the room and 1/2 heart to leave, resulting in a total of 1 heart loss.
- Challenge Room: Requires you to be at full health to enter.
- Boss Challenge Rooms: Unlike regular Challenge Rooms, Boss Challenge Rooms require you to be at 1 heart of health or below.
- Secret Room: A room that is present on every floor.
- Boss Room: A room that always contains a boss inside.
Characters in The Binding Of Isaac:
- Isaac: The main character of the game and the most well-rounded.
- Magdalene: The "tank" character of the game.
- Cain: Probably the best character before you get D6 Isaac.
- Judas: The character with the highest damage but the lowest health in the game.
- Eve: Also a risky character.
- ???: The most unique character in the game in the sense that he has no Heart Containers and only 3 Soul Hearts.
- Samson: Has the lowest fire rate in the game and max shot speed.
Tainted Lost: With only a single Holy Card for defense, defensive items become just as important as offensive ones, as taking more than a single hit in the entire run may prove fatal.
Here's a table summarizing the characters and their starting items:
| Character | Starting Item |
|---|---|
| Isaac | D6 |
| Magdalene | Yum Heart |
| Cain | Lucky Foot |
| Judas | Book Of Belial |
| Eve | Dead Bird |
| ??? | The Poop |
| Samson | Bloody Lust |
Some items in the game include:
Popular articles:
tags: #Chad
