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I completely agree with everything you said! Personally, I haven't gotten to the challenges yet. So, I can't give my own opinion on that matter yet. But, I'm really excited to try them whenever I get the chance. I appreciate you stating your opinion on the thread!

Introduction

This review was made when version 0.1.4 was out

(This is the first review I have seriously made for a game. So, please be considerate when reading)

(TLDR list for those who don’t want to read the entire review) I mean let me just start off by saying... Wow. This is incredible. I have always enjoyed PvZ as a kid, literally every single iteration of it. But, at a certain point in the franchise, it became very stale and very boring. So as anyone does I continued my life doing different things. At some point I ended up falling in love with Binding of Isaac, the idea of the game was outstanding and I’ve never played a rogue-like in my life. So, this whole concept was COMPLETELY refreshing. So, as soon as I heard that someone mixed my childhood game with my current favorite game I had no choice but to check it out. To my surprise, it was even better than I was hoping for.

What even is this fan game?

(If you understand what PvZ is just skip this paragraph) For those who don’t even know what I’m talking about, PvZ (Plants Versus Zombies) is a game where there are 5 lanes and your “currency” was “Sun”. This is both generated naturally and generated through plants, and this currency was how you paid for your plants. Certain plants cost you varying amounts of “Sun”, this is how you killed the zombies. Each plant was completely unique to the last; some shooting fire, ice, wind, producing sun, shooting in different lanes, the list goes on. Throughout the round, a “Wave” would occur where more zombies spawn than normal and it’s basically a true test to see if your setup can handle it. If a zombie got to the end then there was a single lawnmower waiting for it. At this point, that lawnmower would completely wipe the entire lane leaving you with a defenseless (but clear) lane. If another zombie gets to the lane where no lawnmower stands… Then that’s it… Game over. It’s a simple but, yet strategic concept.

But, the twist that you probably could guess by now. Is that the entire game is revolved around the Binding of Isaac. The “plants” are passive items, where the “zombies” are regular Isaac enemies (although there are some unique exceptions to that, it doesn’t really matter though). But, here comes the really unique parts of the game…

Money

You can collect money in various ways. 

• Golden Poops
  • Randomly will spawn and can yield a good handful of coins
• Golden Champions
  • One of the varying champions that will yield you once again just another handful of coins
• Little Chubbies (Your “Lawnmowers)
  • Every time you end the round, depending on the round you are on the floor will yield you 1/5/10 coins for every chubby you have. First-round gaining you 1 coin/per, second-round gaining you 5 coins/per, and third-round gaining you 10/coins per. (I at least think this is true…)

The coins will only be useful during the end of what I’m going to call the floor. The fourth of every floor is a boss level. After you finish this level you will be greeted with your shop, I think it’s something like 3-5 items (But, please take this with a grain of salt I’m not too sure about this) Where you’ll have some item’s that cost 33 cents. And some items that cost 99 cents. These are your passive items, each one does something that’s pretty much very similar to the base Isaac game. I don’t have a list for what every item does, or else I would probably just list it out for you. But, some of these items are very crucial to your victory. One of the passives that come to the top of my mind is an item like the D6, which re-rolls your shop once. Keep in mind there are a bunch of items that you can get in your shop. (Although it's a tad limited given that the game IS in version 0.1.4). Another thing that I should mention is that every time you lose one of your little chubbies you will not gain them back after the round is over. HOWEVER, you are allowed to buy one of your chubbies back for 99 cents (Which personally, I’m not a big fan of but, we’ll get to the things I don’t like towards the end of the review).

Gaining more Buddies

This is going to be a very very short paragraph. But, at the end of every round. You’re given the choice between 2 buddies and 1 random buddy. If you haven’t ever used or gained a certain buddy you won’t have any idea what it will do until you click on it. At this point, you can hover over your buddy to get a detailed explanation of what the buddy does. If you end up encountering the buddy in another run, you can see what its attributes are before even choosing it. The only exception to this rule is the random buddy. You have no clue what the buddy is until you click on it. You’ll have no choice but to take it once you’ve made your choice. 

My Personal Dislikes (And some things that might be bugs)

Well, I think we all knew this was gonna happen… Nothing is perfect. But, that’s alright! Because some of the things I might say you might disagree with, or it could just easily be fixed. But, as long as we’re all in agreement that this is all in good intent. Allow me to kindly complain.

Bosses:

So, I’ve actually seen a couple of videos where people will find the bosses to be a bit finicky. Sometimes you won’t get your buddy card until one of the enemies is waaaay down your line already, and sometimes there’s literally nothing you can do about it, and sometimes it can even cost you the game. Which granted is just a little annoying and makes the beginning of a boss battle feel like a gamble. 

Buying little chubbies:

So I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be a 50/50 with some people. But, I feel like the price for little chubbies is just way too high. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you if it’s worth it or not given that I haven’t even bothered to purchase it. Only because I kind of realize if they make it to the end of your lane and you're defenseless. There’s a pretty good chance they’ll make it to the end of the line again and kill you, and it will only allow you to replace ONE of your chubbies. So if you truly make the choice to buy it. You’re giving up basically the option to buy any shop items at all. 

Difficulty:

So, if I’m going, to be honest. I think I’m only saying this because I absolutely blow ass at this game. So, your opinion about this could be a looooot different than mine. But, personally. The game is really fucking hard for me. I honestly haven’t even made it to the boss round of the 3rd floor yet. Once again, this could just be me. But, perhaps make the game a tad easier? Or even just create different difficulties in the future. 

Synergies

Personally, I would absolutely LOVE to see more synergies in the game as far as buddies or passive/active items. Just as of right now there does seem to be a bit of a lack in that matter. But, once again. It is in a very early release stage. 

In Summary

This game is absolutely outstanding. I cannot wait for the developer to push out new updates and truly polish the game. For a fan game, I literally cannot be more impressed with the quality that was produced. I didn’t make my own section for this because I couldn’t really find a reason to do so but, the music is outstanding. I’m not sure who was the producer for the songs but amazing job! Also, DoctorHummer, thank you so much for developing this. Please continue your outstanding work, this game is an absolutely refreshing blast of enjoyment to play. 

For the people who didn’t want to read the whole paper. Here’s my TLDR list.

• Create more buddy, and passive/active item synergies
• The beginning of boss battle can be a bit buggy and feels like a gamble
• The game feels a bit hard (Perhaps in the future set difficulties could help for bad players like me)
• Little chubbies in the shop are a little expensive
• The game feels very natural if you’ve played PvZ and Binding of Isaac
• Music is phenomenal 
• There’s a good amount of replayability considering you’ll most likely get different buddies and items each run.