The Madness of Little Emma Reviews

I don't have much to add that others haven't already said. It's got a lot of similarities to Binding of Isaac, but as other reviewers have noted, it doesn't feel like a rehash. There are a handful of new and interesting ideas in the game, and there's more than enough content to entertain you for a dozen or more hours - much more if you want to see what the unlocks are, find new power ups, and see the various endings. There are unfair moments that will frustrate you, and the rare bug (in 150 or so times i've done a playthrough so far, i've had 3 games where a bug prevented me from continuing), but overall the game feels pretty good - even if maybe it's a bit unbalanced at times. It's disappointing that more people haven't snagged this game - i think it's much better than the numbers are indicating (only 94 reviews as of this post). Maybe some folks are turned off by the $8.99 price - i think i got it on sale for just a couple dollars myself. But my opinion on that might be a special case, since i don't buy any games over 10 bucks as a rule (after all, i have about a hundred games i haven't even installed yet - anytime i think i want a game more than $10, i remind myself of that fact!) My strongest endorsement of the game is simply my number of hours in game - 64 at this point, and still going. That being said, i don't feel like the replay value is anywhere near Binding of Isaac - but maybe that doesn't really say much, since i have about a thousand hours in that game across the original + rebirth + afterbirth. If you like difficult platformers that have tons of things to unlock and discover, then this is certainly worth a try. If you do decide to buy this, try to give it a couple of hours before your verdict - my own opinion of the game has only improved with more playthroughs...

TL;DR - Despite some of its flaws, low budget, and how heavy-handedly it draws from its obvious inspirations, Emma is a competently made game with enough fun and unique ideas to make it a worthy addition to the rogue-like-like genre. As someone with over 1000 hours in the Binding of Isaac games, I've been curious to try the Madness of Little Emma for awhile now, since Isaac appears to be its most obvious influence. I'm writing this review of my initial impressions of the game after only having played a few runs, with my latest being a fairly decent one (I made it to "Misery" and managed to clear some sort of Love-themed optional dungeon). I'm not sure how close to the end I made it, but I feel I experienced enough of the game to give me a good idea of what kind of experiences I can expect from it. While the game draws heavily from its Isaac inspiration, the most obvious difference is its side-on perspective and the inclusion of some basic platforming elements. If Isaac is a variation on Zelda-type dungeon crawling, Emma is a variation on Metroid. The movement feels good - due to the game's focus on bullet-hell type enemies (more so than Isaac even), the ability to jump, dodge, and weave between enemy bullets is crucial, and game controls quite well in that regard. While I normally prefer to play platformers with a controller (and the game does kind of support it, but not very well), mouse and keyboard seems to make the most sense for this game. The art style is quite dark, and lacks the silly gross-out humor found in the Binding of Isaac. Most of the early enemies are just some gnarly insects, but some of the later enemies are downright Lovecraftian masses of eyeballs, slime and sinew. Though there is some humor in the game, most of it seems pretty straight-faced and grim, and the music, which is mostly subdued and atmospheric, adds to that aesthetic. The spirit of the gameplay is very much like Isaac. Players play as Emma or one of several unlockable characters and traverse procedurally-generated dungeon maps. Maps are randomly populated with a series of rooms - upon entering a room, the doors lock behind you until all the enemies have been cleared. Also like in Isaac, death is permanent, and each run starts you over from scratch aside from any unlockables you managed to get from your previous run. The enemies themselves seem quite varied in both appearance and attack abilities. Some fire bullets in a wide range of patterns and effects, some chase you down in varying ways (through walls, divebombing from the sky, teleporting across the room, etc), some spawn other enemies, some fire beams, and some are, frankly, just hard to describe - I'm actually tempted to say there might even be more individual enemy variety in this game than in Isaac. In addition to enemies, some rooms have chests of varying quality (brown, gray, gold, and red in rare cases) some of which require a bomb to open. The are also spike traps, and bombable walls, secret rooms, and occasionally colored herbs which grant the player stat buffs (or debuffs) when consumed, sort of like pills in Isaac. Each floor contains one treasure room which randomly draws from a large pool of stat/ability altering items (over 250), one boss room, and sometimes one or more "special rooms" like a sacrifice room (sacrificing health/consumables for herbs [maybe items?]), Arenas (fighting off waves of enemies for loot), Shops (which contain herbs, chests, and a creepy hooded skeleton man who doesn't understand the meaning of "personal space"), and what I call "Hanging Rooms" which feature a girl hanging by a noose who drops an item when you shoot her. Of the items I've found so far, some seem familiar, and some unique. In my last run I found an item which caused friendly ghosts to spawn around me and chase down enemies (like blue flies in Isaac), a helpful robot friend that orbited my body and shot down enemy projectiles with a laser, an item which made my "tears" larger and stronger when I stood still, and an item that made me fart enemy-stunning perfume. It's not yet clear to me whether or not Emma features the same level of item synergy found in Isaac, though I would assume it does to some degree or another. Combat is only superficially similar to that in Isaac. While Emma also fires white tear-like projectiles (or maybe it's spit?), the high movement speed, ability to jump, and the 360 degree aiming makes for a much faster and potentially more hectic experience than in Isaac. After the first few floors, the bullet hell aspects of this game seriously ramp up - whereas Isaac is more focused on predicting enemy shots and carefully placing yourself between them, Emma seems to require more twitch reflexes and simply running the fuck away from situations when they get too hairy. The later levels can become seriously overwhelming in that regard, so much so that I find it difficult to imagine that player should be expected to be able to dodge all of the shots instead of simply taking it on the chin and using your (generous) invincibility frames to better position yourself around some cover. On the one hand, this seems somewhat reasonable despite the game being fairly withholding when it comes to health and especially health upgrades, on the other, one of the things I love so much about Isaac is the predictability of enemy attacks and being able to avoid damage simply by being smart. Bosses are also a big part of the game, and so far I've only found a couple that remind of those from Isaac. One was a segmented snake monster that bounced around the room, the other was a big face that split into multiple smaller faces when enough damage had been dealt to it. So far, other than those two, I haven't seen any others which immediately reminded me of Isaac bosses. That said, I can't say I found most of the bosses I fought to be particularly fun or compelling. One was a giant fly that lazily glided around the room occasionally popping out two smaller flies that would each fire a single projectile (and small flies dropped hearts, which seemed unnecessary given how easy the fight was). In the optional Love-themed dungeon I stumbled across, the boss was a large heart that bounced around the room spewing out bullets in an octagonal pattern, which would split into more large bullet-spewing hearts as it got damaged, repeating this process until 8 or so of these large hearts had been defeated. Of the bosses I encountered, my favorite was called Entozoon, who looked like a giant demented Pez dispenser and flew off-and-on the screen spewing bullets and carpet-bombing the room, requiring some interesting dodging to avoid being hit. While admittedly I haven't even seen half of the bosses in the game yet, I'm a little disappointed in the boss rooms, which so far have been empty rectangular rooms that don't seem to take advantage of one of the game's main mechanics - the platforming. You're mostly just running back and forth across the floor dodging projectiles and hopping over the bosses when they get too close. There's no verticality to fights from what I've seen (though, again, it's possible I just didn't get to see those fights). On the later levels the game somewhat manages to remedy this by spawning bosses in the normal rooms which makes more a much interesting fight. I just wish platforming had been more of a consideration for those early boss fights to keep them from feeling so dull. Overall, aside from my complaint about boss fights, and a few bugs I noticed during the screen transitions, I quite enjoyed my time with this game. Emma manages to wear its inspiration on its sleeve without being overshadowed by it and has its own unique brand of fun charm. Fans of the Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, or even Terraria will probably find more than a little to love here.

UPDATE: Since the recent patches, I now no longer continue to have the problem when trying to open the game. It will now open from Steam and the desktop, so that was fixed pretty quickly. Sure, the game is influenced by other Rogue-like titles such as Isaac, but the one thing that this game doesn't do is hold your hand. A 2D rogue-like platformer that easily can stand as one of the tougher rogue-likes on the market. From the couple of hours I've spent in the game, hardly do I even come CLOSE to seeing any 1 of the 4 endings mentioned. Little Emma requires skill, simply put. You'll get damage ups, but the enemy placement and mini boss rooms range from "easy to dodge" to "this room is the WORST". Some of the late game mobs, including these crying women who start bombarding you with explosions that are hard to track, are just a pain to deal with, if you even make it that far with no damage. Is it a bad game though? Absolutely not because it's still a very interesting rogue-like. The story involves two children, Emma (oldest) and her little brother Timmy, who survive pretty much on their own. One day, Emma wakes up to find Timmy missing as well as blood all over the room. As she looks around, she notices a trap door (similar to Isaac's adventure into the depths below) under a rug. Assuming Timmy has been taken or wandered down there, she soon follows. As far as story, it's not strong. I mean it holds a very similar take of the Isaac story that people have accustomed themselves to, but instead of a hateful mother, you're the loving big sister. Whether Timmy went down there on his own is still unknown. Still having a hard time beating it once, I know nothing about the endings. Controls are pretty standard and easy to understand at least for mouse and keyboard. The room you spawn in shows you your controls. A to move left, D to right, W to jump (as well as space), and D to go down platforms you can jump through. You can also use the arrow keys for these commands as well. You can also rebind keys if you have a more comfortable control scheme. To use activation items, you press E. Activation items, unlike space bar items in Isaac, require money to use instead of having to clear rooms. It is here to prevent any of the items from seeming too overpowered, such as an item that freezes everything in the room or turns back time by a couple of actions. You aim with your mouse, left click to shoot balls of spit and right click to drop bombs. It'll be best to have a mouse that you can change sensitivity on because there are moments where it's hard to connect your hits. While the keyboard controls are fine, the controller support is less desirable, even though it's still supported. Every time I've tried to play with the controller, I just put it back down because it feels weird. You also don't have as much freedom with aiming than you do with a mouse. You also can't rebind controller buttons, so right now whatever your buttons are mapped to, that's what you'll have to deal with. The worst offender of this release is the current technical issues. Some issues, like what I'm having, is I can't open the game from Steam or desktop. I simply have to go into my steamapps, common, find Little Emma, and open up the "Win" batch file. That then opens up a command window and does it's thing before the game opens. Slightly sloppy and a small hassle to play a game. You also need Java installed for some reason. These issues don't prevent me from still enjoying the game, but I can understand why people buying and installing would be confused as to why their game doesn't open. In the end, Emma is still an enjoyable experience if you're looking for a rogue-like that is a little more tougher and requires more skill than RNG. RNG still matters, of course, but it's almost treated like it's a second thought instead of a primary mechanic. This game will not hold your hand, it will not pay you kindly with optimistic words of victory. It will wreck you and frustrate you, but not because it's unfair; because you require the skill to overcome the obstacles that lie ahead. If the previous negative remarks about this game get fixed, it'll only continue to show how valuable this game is to the rogue-like genre.

Really good music and I like the unique Binding of Isaac adaptation. However, the movement alone is enough to deter me away from playing this game. It is beyond clunky. I really had high hopes because I love Binding of Isaac and this is similar, except in platformer format, but the movement need to be smoother for me to pick it up again.

If I were grading on concept alone this is probably an "A" for me. That concept being that of a roguelight twin stick platformer featuring a seedy cartoon atmosphere and tons and tons of unlockables. Obviously heavily influenced by the Binding of Isaac everywhere from concept to theme to mechanics all the way down the line. No suprise to find it's still a winning formula her even while I wish it was more original in some aspects it's still a fun ride. I would say the underlying platforming/shooter mechanics are solid but not spectacular. To elaborate on that point a bit I just feel that the running around shooting etc. feels functional here as opposed to spectacularly fluid or satisfying. Luckily the vast number of unlockables and different playstyles and upgrades makes the experience a plus 1 and the fact that I got this for just under 2 bucks makes me smile and shake my head at some of my other purchases. 6/10

This is how it should be done. Instead of shoving your money up the arse of some early access scum buy this game. I bought in on release day, played through it, had a good time. But that was not it, the Dev Dude keeps updating it as frequently as I get disappointed by early access games. And that's about once a week. I could see how the game improved with every patch, and now its better than ever before. So that guy published a finished, perfectly fine game and now he even keeps updating it with new totally free content. Its sad that there only so few people who are playing it. If you love rogue like as much as I do, then this is a must buy. Give the Dev Dude you god damn money!

Take the theme and collectibles of Binding of Isaac, mix it with the 2d platformer aspect of Spelunky or Rogue Legacy; and you’ve pretty much got The Madness of Little Emma. It’s difficult – some rooms and bosses can get downright bullet-hell-esque with the amount of fire they’re throwing at you, and even some fairly early enemies can be extremely vicious – especially ones that make quick leaps at you, potentally trapping you in a corner. The items you pick up tend towards passive bonuses, allowing for vicious stacking combos (if you get lucky, anyway – there’s plenty of dud items, although I have yet to find anything actively negative like accidentally picking up Soy Milk or Cursed Eye in Isaac.) The music is good, and the pixel graphics work pretty well. Importantly, as of this writing (September 29th), the game is 80% off – a mere $1.79. At that price, I’d say that it’s a great pickup for anyone who enjoys rogue-like/light/platformers/any of the games that I mentioned in my first sentence.

This is a perfect example of everything an imitator game should be. It's obviously "The Binding of Isaac as a platformer", but it successfully captures the mood, feel, fun and design philosophy of Isaac. The madness mechanics and the item pool do a good job capturing the feel of Isaac without feeling like a rehash. There's great music, great enemy and boss design, varied items, and tons of secret levels. And oh yeah, it's fun and really does feel like you're playing a new version of Isaac. Cons: Game balance isn't perfect for some items, characters, champion enemies and bosses. Neither is Isaac's, but this game definitely occasionally has me going "that room wasn't fair" while Isaac didn't. Also, it's hard to tell what some items do.

The Madness of Little Emma is one of the few rogue-likes that caught my attention and didn't let go. It certainly has lots of things in common with other rogue-like games, but it feels completely different. Mainly due to the fact that this is a platformer with rather satisfying movement physics. The game has a good learning curve: it doesnt tell you anything about its mechanics, you have to play, observe and note the changes. First couple of hours i had difficulty getting past 1st stage, 60 hours later the main reason for not reaching the 5th or 6th ending is that i made some mistake early on. Surely TMoLE has some rough edges, for example the cursor is somewhat bleak and sometimes i lose it in the background. But the developer is constantly working on the game, fixing bugs and adding new free content. In conclusion: a great game for its price, challenging but rewarding.

I love games like The Madness of Little Emma where you play a run at a time and try to get farther and farther, defeat difficult bosses, unlock powerful and fun items, and discover secret areas and challenges. This game fits that mold fairly well, but I can't recommend picking up this game for a number of reasons. 1. Unbalanced Items: The majority of items you will come across are pretty useless and sometimes (I'm not sure what determines this) picking up items increases your Madness stat by 1, a stat which makes the game harder. I'm not sure how exactly the difficulty increase works; I'm not sure if it scales with your Madness level or just increases the difficulty once you hit a certain threshold, but this mechanic encourages the player to pass up on most items due not only to their unhelpful effects, but due to the negative consequences of picking up a large number of items over time. That being said, there are a select few items that are really, really good. If you manage to find a combination of two or three items that work super well together, they can carry you for an entire run. 2. Stats rely on RNG: This is a pretty common aspect of similar games, but it doesn’t work very well in The Madness of Little Emma. Your main source of stat boosts (which you won't get very far without many of) are random Herbs scattered throughout the game. Sometimes they drop from enemies, sometimes you get them for clearing a challenge/arena room, sometimes you get them from treasure chests. Regardless of how you get them, there is a major flaw to this mechanic: the most common Herb type (green) has a chance to lower your stats. With how rare all Herbs are and with how quickly the difficulty of this game picks up, you need as many stat upgrades as you can possibly find, so not taking green Herbs isn't a reliable option. You get one guaranteed purple Herb (increases a random stat) per boss fight, but sometimes that's all you'll get on the first floor, which to me is an instant restart. And it's even worse when that stat upgrade happens to be Luck instead of Damage or Fire Rate. Some items will grant stats too, but, as mentioned above, a lot of items you'll come across are simply not worth taking. 3. Run Ending Rooms: When you get farther in (floors 6+ usually), you can run into rooms that will completely ruin you if you don't have an incredibly overpowered item loadout. Most normal enemies aren't a problem, but get a room of the wrong champion enemies and there's little you can do. The worst champion effects are explosive shots, slowing aura (which sometimes comes with another champion effect), and double damage shots, and these can be especially bad if you get a room with a lot of champion enemies, which honestly isn't too uncommon. 4. Unavoidable Damage: When you start playing this game you won’t run into a ton of this, but the farther you get in the game the higher the chance you’ll come across rooms where there’s so much going on there’s legitimately nothing you can do to maneuver out of the way of enemy attacks. Even if you’re completely overpowered (minus one combination of 2 items that actually completely breaks the game in your favor), run ending rooms are still likely to beat you up a little bit. The game tends to be pretty generous with dropping hearts for the player to pick up, but then you could enter another room where you’re guaranteed to take damage and it won’t have really helped much. These are my main gripes with this game, but it’s enough to make the game almost entirely unfun. Other than what I’ve listed, I have had the game crash on me once, but I did have it open for about 7 hours straight before that happened so that could easily have had something to do with it. In any case, there is definitely some fun to be had here, and I actually really love the Arena mode a whole lot, but the main game itself becomes incredibly painful to play. The difference between The Madness of Little Emma and many other roguelikes is that skill and knowledge of items/enemy patterns can only get you so far; you have to be incredibly lucky to have a shot at making real progress in this game. Because of this dependence on luck, you can try to get a good run started for hours and still not get anywhere, and then suddenly have two perfect items fall into your lap one after the other that will grant you a win. If you’re interested in trying out this game, it has been pretty heavily discounted in the past and I would assume it’s likely to be on sale again at some point. If you’re still on the fence about picking it up, with the Steam refund you’ve got a two hour window of opportunity to try it out for yourself a bit and see if you’ll end up enjoying it more than I did, so I do encourage anyone interested to at least try the game before writing it off. Furthermore, there is a demo for this game available on Steam to try out without any worries of refunding. I would definitely recommend starting with the demo version.