The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls Requiem Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls Requiem, published by Funforge. The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls Requiem is based on the video game of the same and has players completing to slay monsters.

The world of video-game-to-board-game adaptations seems to grow every day. What used to be a market of cheap, tired designs aimed at grabbing a known audience has turned into a unique design space.

Trendsetters like Frostpunk, Slay the Spire, and Bloodborne have really shown how the video games of inspiration can be translated to the tabletop with distinct theses from their digital counterparts. But can The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls live up to that high watermark?

In The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls, 1-4 players will be challenging one another to collect, well, four souls. In gameplay terms, this (usually) means killing four monsters. In order to aid players in their victory, the game is full of loot and treasures, all aimed at helping players improve their odds of victory in one way or another. Some items will provide you rerolls for your combat rolls, others will give the player more life or the ability to heal, etc… Each victory will also award you with more money to spend on more items, leading to a juicy snowball effect of power.

Where this game really shines is with the high variance introduced by both the sheer number of cards, as well as the many different variants included in the deck. There are different characters that let players start with asymmetric player powers. There are Room Cards that apply a random effect to the combat encounters. There are Bonus Souls that players can compete for, all with wildly different requirements.

Spend wisely, fight ferociously, and have luck on your side to collect your four souls to win The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls.

The gameplay rundown should not come as a surprise to those who have played the video game. The Binding of Isaac formula remains strong with its transition to the tabletop. Relying on the luck of the