SICKBAGS ON STANDBY

Some brief 6-minute thoughts on Tarnished ???, the latest character added to the Binding of Isaac’s Epiphany mod, and his unlocks.

CONTENT WARNING: The usual bloody, gutsy, gory themes that come with the Isaac territory. Also, implied vomiting.

Binding of Isaac modders made a Tainted ??? that doesn’t suck ass. But he is still full of shit.

Tarnished ??? dropped with Epiphany’s seventh major update nearly a week ago. Codenamed ‘Farrago,’ you unlock him by using Tainted ???’s Hold in Basement I without any poop spells.

This replaces Hold with a new pocket active, Shred; “and nothing of value was lost:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVXJmfd3cmg

Do a full Chest run and beat ???, and his Tarnished form is yours. (Or, y’know, if you don’t want to play T. ??? again, you can be like me and bypass character unlocks.)

As is tradition in the Isaac fandom, TR. ??? was teased through an ARG back in September, starting with this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41s6f6k__pg

These ARGs aren’t huge, sprawling mysteries like the OG Keeper ARG. But they do what they’re supposed to – get the hype train going:

https://brologue.net/2024/05/01/just-my-two-cents/#its-a-trash-trash-trash-trash-isaac

If T. ??? specialises with poop spells, then TR. ??? specialises in creep. His supply of colostomy bags essentially give him a built-in Lil’ Spewer (though the creep you create, to my knowledge, can’t be made bigger via the Lost Cork trinket, which kinda sucks):

https://tboiepiphany.wiki.gg/wiki/Tarnished_%3F%3F%3F#Gameplay

There’s ten types of creeps you can combine using Mix, obtainable from colostomy bags. These replace bombs in a TR. ??? run, in the same way that poop spells replace T. ???’s bombs. Holding down the bomb button for long enough will spend five bars of meter and cause TR. ??? to explode in place.

That’s the overview of TR. ???. If you feel like my prose is soulless, and more-or-less repeating what’s stated on the Epiphany wiki, then, well, you have me there. I like that TR. ??? doesn’t suck complete ass, but playing him still isn’t an absolute thrill.

See, TR. ???’s gimmick suffers from the same issues as the other two Blue Babies. I’ll list off some other vanilla and modded gimmicks, and see if it doesn’t become clear:

  • Eve and Samson can still exploit their gimmick deep into the run – taking damage to increase damage. It’s risky, sometimes, but usually in roguelikes you take risks if you know you have the skills to reap its reward;
  • The Lost cannot escape dying in two hits for most of the run, UNLESS you run into Book of Shadows or other means of gaining temporary invincibility.
  • Bethany can never pick up Soul Hearts, and starts with Book of Virtues – you can’t afford to take damage if you want an early Angel Room;
  • To stop Keeper from becoming too fragile, you’re kinda forced to keep Wooden Nickel;
  • As TR. Maggy, you need to play aggressive, and without certain items/trinkets, you always have to micromanage the bleed meter with her Cardiac Arrest;
  • The same above applies to TR. Isaac’s limited item slots and Blight; your build will be constantly changing throughout the run.

The above gimmicks warp the entirety of the run around themselves (though I will accept that Eve’s/Samson’s don’t warp as much); TR. ???’s gimmick, however, mostly impacts the beginning and middle of your run, and as soon as you find one or two good items, its contribution falls off a cliff.

You could say the same about Isaac himself, except there’s one major difference – as your understanding of the game’s mechanics deepens, you learn more about where and when the D6 can be exploited.

For example – if you have a Judgment card, you can spawn the Beggar in a Secret room, get him to pay out, and suddenly, you’ve got a means to reroll into one of the game’s best item pools:

https://isaacguru.com/pool/secret

You really can’t say the same about the Poop. Or Hold. Or Mix. It’s a handicap that doesn’t offer an interesting risk/reward. This is in stark contrast to last wave’s TR. Lost, whose only available means to survive more than one hit is locked to Divine Remnants, a pocket active that’s also your only means of guaranteeing that useless items will reroll into better ones. That’s interesting.

Maybe that’s the Epiphany team’s intention, and if so, fair play. They’ve hit Blue Baby’s shitty vibes right on the head. All the same, I feel that TR. ??? isn’t one of Epiphany’s better-designed characters.


And that’s where this post would’ve ended, if I didn’t immediately wake up today and think, “SHIT, THE UNLOCKS.”

OK, sure, regular ??? unlocks the D6 and Forget Me Now, but the rest of his unlocks are kinda naff; the same can be said of T. ??? and the reverse Emperor card and The Swarm.

You can see the theme emerging here: TR. ???’s unlocks are also very hit or miss. Rotten Core makes you immune to maggot-like enemies, causes all maggots to give you a temporary tears up when you touch them. The Legend of Bumbo gets a look-in with Cardboard Cutout – a familiar that throws random projectiles at enemies (how Faust-esque…):

https://tboiepiphany.wiki.gg/wiki/Cardboard_Cutout

The inverse Card Against Humanity is a one-time Flush!, washing away all non-boss enemies, but also turns every rock into a Dip familiar.

The IED trinket is a literal butt bomb – any explosion in the room, not just your own bombs, will make your Isaac shit themselves:

I guess it’s better than having no trinket. And that’s about as good as TR. ???’s unlocks get. Soiled shopkeepers sometimes replace one that might have a nickel when you blow them up, and I can’t be doing with that; Anal Fissure spews creep in a random spot, so a lot of the time it does next to nothing (maybe not the case in Greed mode, but I try to not think about Greed unless I’m playing co-op).

And what happens when you unlock Mix to use with other characters? You… uhh… You get a Lemon Mishap that sometimes work. And by sometimes, I mean that enemies sometimes randomly drop a colostomy bag that you can use:

Frankly, this is a Quality 0 item in a Quality 1’s clothing.

Ironically, perhaps the best new item to be added in this update is a challenge unlock – Burning Passion gives you immunity to fireplaces, their projectiles, AND heals you if you step into one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjPCzH4k8L8

Don’t get me wrong, the work the Epiphany team do in making this mod as damn close to an official release as possible is inspiring. It just means that, if the Tainted characters didn’t tickle your fancy, their Tarnished versions aren’t likely to win you over.

If this is how they top T. ???, I shudder to imagine how they’ll top T. Lazarus, or T. Forgotten…


TTLY…

[Jan 1] Nick Brawl 2 – Esponja Diabólico (Now With Added Lemon) https://brologue.net/2024/01/01/f-is-for-friends-who-do-stuff-together/


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BOI Epiphany’s Wave 7 is Full of Shit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.