Enter The Vestige
The Binding of Isaac: Revelations is a three-part mod for the rogue-like videogame, The Binding of Isaac and its subsequent DLCs. The mod adds a variety of content, such as new monsters, items, characters, and most notably, new custom floors. This mod is inspired by Divine Comedy.
The first chapter of the mod to be released, titled "Enter the Glacier", focused around its first new custom floor, Glacier. The floor carries themes of snowy enemies, bone-chilling rooms, and slippery ice mechanics to challenge the player.
Chapter Two, titled "Enter the Tomb", added the second new custom floor, Tomb. Tomb's mechanics involve booby trapped rooms, enticing puzzles, and sandy foes. Just make sure the monsters you kill actually stay dead...
The third Chapter of the mod, while yet to be released, has been titled "Enter the Vestige". It will focus on the third and final floor, Vestige, to finish off the mod trilogy. It is set to be compatible with Repentance.
The Vanity update
, released on November 4, 2022, brings Chapters 1 and 2 to Repentance, alongside a myriad of quality-of-life updates. At the time of this update, the release date of Chapter 3 is TBD.
Tropes applying to this mod:
- Affably Evil: Ragtime, a miniboss encountered in Tombs, only seems interested in fighting Isaac, and making sure the both of them have the time of their lives.
- Ancient Tomb: Chapter 2, The Tombs.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Choosing between vanilla, Revelations, and Repentance chapters is done by dumping the player into a crawl space with chutes for each option after jumping down the trapdoor that normally appears at the end of each floor. As an added bonus, this allows characters with flight to back out if they accidentally jump down, typically if the trapdoor spawns on top of them.
- The Vanity update mostly revamps this. While the aforementioned crawlspace is still present in the starting room of Basement I, the usual doorway to Antibirth's alt path has been renovated to be a "hub" of sorts that allows Isaac to choose between Antibirth's alt path (Downpour, Mines, Mausoleum) or Revelation's (Glacier, Tomb, and Vestige).
- If you stay in Maxwell's boss room without pushing down the second platform, he will toss a note that bounces off the first platform and land on the second, showing how you're supposed to get up there.
- Choosing between vanilla, Revelations, and Repentance chapters is done by dumping the player into a crawl space with chutes for each option after jumping down the trapdoor that normally appears at the end of each floor. As an added bonus, this allows characters with flight to back out if they accidentally jump down, typically if the trapdoor spawns on top of them.
- Attack Reflector: The first Mirror Shard obtained in a run orbits the player and reflects projectiles, encouraging them to push ahead in fighting enemies and thus representing the aggressive strategies of the Glacier's enemies.
- Breath Weapon: Burning Bush replaces tears with a Fire-Breathing Weapon.
- Cats Are Mean: Catastrophe, one of the bosses in the Tombs, is a group of four evil mummy cats.
- Chess Motif: One of the rooms of Chapter 3, The Vestige.
- Choose a Handicap: Shrine rooms spawn in the Revelations floors, which contain two shrines which you must pick one in order to open the door, applying a handicap for the rest of the floor in exchange for an upside.
- Circles of Hell: The current chapters are themed after some of the circles from The Divine Comedy:
- Chapter 1, the Glacier, is Treachery. A special room can be accessed featuring a colossal Satan trapped in ice, like he is depicted in Inferno.
- Chapter 2, the Tomb, is Heresy. Another special room (similar to the one in Glacier) features burning coffins, one of the standout features of Heresy in Inferno.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Happens to Maxwell at the end of his fight as we watch him get shredded after he falls into one of his trapdoors.
- Developer's Foresight:
- In the crawl space that lets you choose between the vanilla and Revelations routes, one may notice a third chute that is always sealed off. This is in fact future-proofing for Repentance as evidenced by it changing to represent the floors for its route, ensuring a transfer to the expansion will be seamless right out of the box and will allow players to juggle all three routes if they so wish, rather than having to take one or the other.
- The mod is compatible with the External Item Descriptions mod, and it will even work on the pact statues to further explain how they affect the chapter. That being said, there's still a few items that need no explanation, particularly the Burning Bush.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The alternate route for Revelations is more difficult than the vanilla route, but offers access to some truly impressive items from its collection, improved shops that guarantee useful items (even if Greed replaces them), and access to the Mirror Shards.
- Dungeon Bypass: At the beginning of each run, you have the option to skip the first floor and go straight to Glacier I. However, leaving the starting room seals the entrance off and forces you to kill the floor's boss if you want to enter.
- Fallen Angel: Sarah, one of the new characters. She's an angel with her wings torn off that can only collect black hearts. She can give these black hearts to angels in angel rooms in exchange for rewards, including eventually restoring her wings.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: While Isaac already had the Tech items and Jacob's Ladder for lightning, Revelations adds in Burning Bush for fire and Ice Tray for ice.
- Harmless Freezing: The Glacier contains certain rooms with blowing snow, which will freeze Isaac's head solid if he stays outside of warmth for too long. This renders him unable to shoot, but doesn't deal any damage.
- Leitmotif: The Seven Deadly Sins are given new themes in this mod themed around computing of all things, mostly consisting of the same leitmotif heavily adjusted to fit each one.
- A Lizard Named "Liz": One of the bosses in the glacier is a wendigo named Wendy.
- Mechanically Unusual Class: Both of the new characters:
- Sarah cannot gain soul hearts, instead converting them directly into black hearts. This is less useful than it sounds, since taking damage will cause all of her black hearts to become demons that attempt to kill her until she kills every enemy in the room. She also cannot spawn Devil rooms and will always generate an Angel room after clearing the boss, which contains no items but lets her trade black hearts away in exchange for rewards.
- Dante and Charon form a very unique dual character. They spawn on opposite sides of the map. Each time one clears a room, all doors lock and they're forced to use their Phylactery item, which will switch control to the other character. The two also do not share items, meaning each will get independently strong. If the two meet, they join into one character for the rest of the floor, and Phylactery instead controls the direction Charon is facing and lets Dante pass items to him. To make matters even weirder, they both have a special attack method, where Dante will occasionally hit enemies with a book for extra damage and Charon sweeps up tears which become more powerful as he aims in one direction.
- Mirror Boss: Pun aside, the first fight with Narcissus has you battle a mirror version of Isaac that shoots shards instead of tears during the first phase. The second phase of both battles has him use twisted versions of Isaac's items.
- Palette Swap: All of the Sins have unique costumes on the Revelations floors. This isn't to say they should still be taken lightly, however, as the Glacier makes them more aggressive while the Tomb gives them new tricks based on the chapter's gimmicks.
- Schmuck Bait: Do not attempt to avoid taking a pact by bombing or teleporting your way out of the pact rooms. Both options will activate at once instead of one or the other.
- Shout-Out:
- The Vanity Update's trailer starts with a live-action segment of Cain shoving discs containing the data of the Afterbirth+ version and Repentance into the Bag of Crafting. He then shoves it into his head to start up the resulting Vanity Update CD like a consumable.
- One of Maxwell's attacks has him jump between two orange and blue trapdoors while he shoots at you.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Chapter 1, The Glacier.
- Vaudeville Hook: When Ragtime dies, he gets yanked off the stage by a cane.
