RELATED: Best Mods For The Binding Of Isaac
While The Binding of Isaac features a good balance between gameplay, luck, and powerups, there are a few things that can ruin a playthrough, regardless of how good one is at the game. Let’s take a look at the list of things that can destroy a perfect playthrough for anyone.
13 Rushing
The first and most critical aspect of playing The Binding of Isaac is understanding the value of time. Rushing might work in many other games, but it can be lethal in a game where the gameplay area is limited to a room. Understandably, the tears of Isaac can sometimes feel too slow, but pacing through the rooms means missing out on opportunities.
Moreover, some enemies require precise timing to hit them while dodging the attacks, and rushing through the rooms will only result in lost health. The best way to ensure a perfect playthrough is to take your time and slowly take everyone down. Use the bombs to discover hidden rooms, find secrets and try to keep the health full.
12 Dead Cat
This powerup is an absolute waste of time and can ruin anyone’s day. In terms of stats, Dead Cat gives the players nine extra lives to live, which is a nod to the popular myth that cats have nine lives. While it seems a super interesting and must-have item on the surface, it technically isn’t.
Dead Cat gives the players so many lives at the expense of reducing their health to just one heart. It boils down to finishing each room with that limited health, which becomes super irritating during boss fights and can cost the entire playthrough. The best thing to do is completely ignore this item.
11 Bad Pills
Like many other things, Pills can be super helpful to use in The Binding of Isaac. However, just like many other things in the game, there’s a tradeoff. Players will not know what pill they have unless they use it.
RELATED: The Binding Of Isaac: How To Unlock Every Character
Possibly, the specific drug can enhance tears, or it can reduce them. Hence it will always be a gamble unless the players have an item called Ph.D., which converts bad pills into good pills and gives the players ability to find out what every medicine does.
10 Lack Of Money
Lack of money can cause players to rage quit, and it has happened before. The reason why money is super important is that it can buy important useful items. Wasting the coins on random machines just in hopes of getting a good thing can ruin the whole playthrough fairly quickly. The best way to ensure a good run is to save cash unless it is necessary.
9 No Bombs
Similar to money, wasting bombs is a one-way ticket to failure. While bombs may feel pointless and too convoluting during the fast-paced evade and shoot gameplay, they play a big role in finding secrets.
Just wasting the bombs on regular enemies can be super counterproductive, especially knowing that these things can blast the walls open. The only excuse for wasting bombs is when the players get the item called Pyro, which grants 99 Bombs.
8 NPCs
Another scheme to get players into gambling their perfect run in hopes of better items. NPCs like Key Masters and others are genuinely cool additions but are pointless if one is in between a good run. These characters can grant players good items but can also be a reason for wasting valuable resources.
RELATED: Binding of Isaac: Broken Items In Repentance
The best way of getting the most out of NPCs is when the player is good on Keys, Bombs, Health, Coins, etc. Hence wasting a few resources wouldn’t be a big deal. However, if the player has less than 5 of any resources, it’s better to save them for other things.
7 Kamikaze!
Kamikaze! is a pointless piece of item for one main reason. It is the ability to become the bomb to destroy the enemies. As killer as it sounds, it is pretty deadly. This item creates an explosion around Isaac, damaging nearby enemies, exploding obstacles, and hurting him in the process.
If a player is unaware of how this item works, it can truly ruin low-health playthroughs in just a matter of trying.
6 Plan C
This plan C isn’t like the one in GTA 5, where Franklin saves everyone, and there’s a happy ending. While the primary use case of this item is to eliminate all enemies in a room in an instant, it also kills Isaac in the process.
Within three seconds of using this item, the player will perish, rendering the whole playthrough pointless. To the people thinking, why is this even an item? Check out the next one.
5 Cursed Eye
As if the normal tears aren’t slow enough, Cursed Eye can make them even slower. It removes the continuous projectile tears and replaces them with charged burst fire tears. While charged attacks do work with powers such as laser barrage, it’s fairly useless with tears. Moreover, this item can teleport players to a random room if they get hit while charging, nullifying the room progress.
4 Ipecac
Ipecac is good when used with other items, but otherwise, it’s an utter waste. This little item can make players go from shooting projectile tears into slowly tossing an explosive green ball. If the players encounter a room with multiple fast-moving enemies, this item can utterly destroy what could’ve been a good run.
3 The Wiz
So most of the time, players will start with normal tears, and they are nice and easy to shoot. After all, they go straight and hit the target. The Wiz ruins that. It changes the normal shots into diagonally shooting tears. This would mean that players will have to adapt and evade straight projectiles while hitting the enemies sideways.
2 Tiny Planet
If diagonally shooting was a mess, then Tiny Planet takes it to a whole new level. This item can do nothing but make players suffer. Tiny Planet ruins the playthrough by changing the perfectly good straight-shooting tears into floating orbiting tears. Not only is this time extremely hard to use, but it can also completely ruin a good run.
1 Shard of Glass
Shard of glass turns Isaac’s normal tears into blood tears. But that isn’t it. Taking this item means that Isaac will continually bleed after getting hit. This bleeding will ultimately damage him, and the only way to stop it is to take a heart.
The Binding of Isaac was released on September 28, 2011, and is available on PC.
MORE: Console Games That Are Too Long
