Following the roguelike dungeon-crawling of the original, Bum-Bo changes things up with a new aesthetic and more poo.
I’m a big fan of roguelike games. They’re a genre I’ve come to appreciate more as I’ve grown older and become shorter on time. They’re great for short bursts of entertainment when you’re waiting on appointments, need something to do while catching up on series or really great measures of progressive skill and mechanical enhancement for players who’re dedicated to the game. While it may not be my personal favourite, The Binding of Isaac has earned a name for itself as being one of the great modern rogue-like games with a seemingly endless stream of unlocks to keep the gameplay fresh while never making it a walk in the park. After years of constant updates, fans of Isaac will be pleased to hear that the game’s prequel, The Legend of Bum-Bo, is out on Steam right now.
Edmund McMillen, who designed by The Legend of Isaac and tough-as-nails platformer Super Meat Boy, has released the cardboard cut-out deckbuilding rogue-like unto the world after a brief stint in early access. The game certainly looks like a prequel to The Binding of Isaac with its tell-tale aesthetic of “Crass and gruesome, yet weirdly cute” but plays nothing like the original game. Rather than exploring a range of Zelda-like dungeons, finding loot and power-ups as you progress, it seems like players will build a deck of abilities and use them in “match four” games which…I don’t know if I fully understand it but I’m gonna do my best to grasp the concept as soon as I can.
If you’re a fan of roguelikes and have been missing out on some quality high risk, high reward gameplay I would recommend checking out Bum-Bo. I should hopefully have more concrete thoughts on the game soon but when it comes to rogue-likes, McMillen is a name you can trust.
Last Updated: November 13, 2019
Yozzie
November 13, 2019 at 13:47
Looks like poop. And the original games are poop because they are to flippen hard for my casual ass to play.
Hammersteyn
November 13, 2019 at 14:08
I finished it once or twice, but only because I picked up a magic combination of power ups that basically turned me into a super saiyan poop slinger
Pariah
November 13, 2019 at 13:48
The reason I stopped playing BoI was all the flipping unlocks. Unlock after unlock after unlock. It was insane. 50 hours in and had like 10% of the unlocks, and that was before all the expansions.
The world record speedrun for all unlocks is like 42 hours I think, by BrainTM.
Hammersteyn
November 13, 2019 at 14:08
Yeah, it’s very irritating
Pariah
November 13, 2019 at 13:47
The cardboard aesthetic is ok but that match-4 gameplay is a massive no from me. It’s cleverly done though and requires strategy and thought for optimal plays so it has all the trappings of a fun game, but I just can’t be interested in that gameplay, nor the actual poop-ness of the whole thing.