Going for 100%, should I buy the DLC right away or later?

[tirol_terminator]

Hey everyone, as stated above is it adviseable to buy the DLCs after completing the main game, or should I get the right away?

If read another threat where some people were advising to not buy the DLCs becuase of main game trophys getting more difficult whereas others told the person it would be easier to start off with all the DLCs right away.

 

Does anyone have solid advice or what do you think is the better move to make?

 

Cheers

[Xylobe]

I had recommended holding off on the DLCs in an earlier thread - maybe the same one you were reading? - but that was before Repentance was released on console. If you're only interested in getting the platinum as easily as possible, the two best options would be to stick with vanilla Rebirth or to use the co-op exploit introduced in Repentance. If you want the 100%, or just want to have the most fun with the game, I'd recommend starting with Repentance-- it changes a lot of things that you'll need to un-learn if you started with Rebirth or an earlier DLC.

 

To try and briefly go over how the platinum requirements change with DLCs installed:

• The Lost becomes easier to unlock and to play as
• The Godhead item, needed for the "Real Platinum God" trophy, requires more (and harder) steps to unlock
• Rebalanced item pools and new mechanics make it much easier to find and pick up specific items, making completing the collection for "Platinum God" and "Real Platinum God" easier
• The "Challenges" trophy requires you to complete every challenge run-- Rebirth starts with 20, but each DLC adds more for a total of 45 in Repentance, and most DLC challenges are harder than the original Rebirth ones (though if you're so inclined, I'm pretty sure the co-op exploit can be used for these as well)

 

Hopefully that all makes sense!

[tirol_terminator]

Hey, first of all thx for the detailed answer.

 

Since I am pretty new to the game the mentioned steps do not make 100% sense to me. I'm pretty sure I will get there...

Currently I only play the vanilla game, so reading your message it would be best to go for the plat with vanilla game and then continue with Repentance before I jump on Afterbirth / +

 

Did I get this right?

 

Cheers

[BalefulFrog]

I wrote a short section on this at the bottom of the Tips & Strategies part of the Repentance guide. The DLCs can only be installed/played in order, so you cannot play Repentance without installing Afterbirth and Afterbirth+ first. Basically, my recommendation is to just install them all right away. You'll become familiar with all the content early on, and the overall time to 100% will be shorter due to the way how each DLC essentially extends how many things you can achieve in a single run. This is subjective though. There are some things that are easier if you hold off on certain DLCs (completing The Keeper character is easier in Afterbirth+ than in Repentance for example), but I judged that these were insignificant enough to outweigh the benefits of installing all at once.

 

I think the conflicting opinions you heard arose due to people with different aims. If you are only trying to get the Platinum, installing the DLCs will make this harder and is not recommended - Godhead becomes much harder to unlock, and you must do all the DLC challenges too (both required for Platinum) as Xylobe noted. Again, from Xylobe's reply, the only real significant thing in your favour is that Afterbirth significantly buffs the hardest character in the base game, The Lost. However, this is probably outweighed by the fact that you will have to do a lot more as this character to get the Platinum if the DLCs are installed.

 

If your end goal is instead to get 100% across all DLCs, and not just the Platinum, then I'd recommend installing all the DLCs. This means that you will get the Platinum later than you would normally if you hadn't installed them, but you will get 100% sooner.

 

Hope this clears some of this up.

[Finch_III]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm doing the vanilla version of the game – I didn't want to buy all the DLC at once in case I didn't enjoy the game. And now I've managed to sink 60 hours into the vanilla version, I'm a little bit reluctant to start over with all the extras needed for DLC. 

 

However, I'm already envisaging that doing everything with The Lost is going to be pretty hard without Holy Mantle. Any tips for Lost runs in the vanilla version? I guess "git gud", but anything else that might be useful? I've not actually started doing Lost runs yet, but I'm already steeling myself for it... 

[lurch_9944]

50 minutes ago, Finch_III said:

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm doing the vanilla version of the game – I didn't want to buy all the DLC at once in case I didn't enjoy the game. And now I've managed to sink 60 hours into the vanilla version, I'm a little bit reluctant to start over with all the extras needed for DLC. 

 

However, I'm already envisaging that doing everything with The Lost is going to be pretty hard without Holy Mantle. Any tips for Lost runs in the vanilla version? I guess "git gud", but anything else that might be useful? I've not actually started doing Lost runs yet, but I'm already steeling myself for it... 

 

save scumming

 

[No longer here]

I got repentance on ps5 but my files got corrupted for ps4 and ps5. Idk what happened and they weren’t saved to the cloud at the time

 

Somehow my Vita has the save file, but since it’s without DLCs, I’ll just try for the plat and that’s about it lol

Edited March 24, 2023 by victorrfuego

[cy1999aek_maik]

On 24/03/2023 at 3:31 PM, Finch_III said:

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm doing the vanilla version of the game – I didn't want to buy all the DLC at once in case I didn't enjoy the game. And now I've managed to sink 60 hours into the vanilla version, I'm a little bit reluctant to start over with all the extras needed for DLC. 

 

However, I'm already envisaging that doing everything with The Lost is going to be pretty hard without Holy Mantle. Any tips for Lost runs in the vanilla version? I guess "git gud", but anything else that might be useful? I've not actually started doing Lost runs yet, but I'm already steeling myself for it... 

You could keep restarting until you get a good first item room. Yeah the OG lost was very challenging, there's no way around that, although I remember people were talking about some glitch you could do on the vanilla version. I would recommend getting the dlc. You don't have to start over again, it carries over the progress as far as I remember. I think it's fair to say, every dlc made the game more fun. I've completed afterbirth + on multiple save files on pc, even the toughest challenges aren't that hard and the lost gets a lot easier. haven't been able to finish repentance yet but that's because of not having enough time, although in my opinion this dlc does have the hardest tasks to complete 

[Finch_III]

On 03/04/2023 at 2:35 PM, cy1999aek_maik said:

You could keep restarting until you get a good first item room. Yeah the OG lost was very challenging, there's no way around that, although I remember people were talking about some glitch you could do on the vanilla version. I would recommend getting the dlc. You don't have to start over again, it carries over the progress as far as I remember. I think it's fair to say, every dlc made the game more fun. I've completed afterbirth + on multiple save files on pc, even the toughest challenges aren't that hard and the lost gets a lot easier. haven't been able to finish repentance yet but that's because of not having enough time, although in my opinion this dlc does have the hardest tasks to complete 

 

I'll see how I go with The Lost on the vanilla version I think. I tried unlocking him a couple of days ago, and it didn't work. I must have screwed something up, although I'm pretty certain I followed the instructions correctly in the PSNProfiles Trophy Guide for the game. 
 

If I find it too difficult with The Lost on the base version, I'll probably get the DLC. Thanks for the advice. 

[Jerry_Appleby]

Let's say I want to eventually get 100% in the game but I worry about unlocking the Godhead with the DLC installed.

 

If I did all the base game hard mode unlocks for the Lost (ie Boss Rush, Mom, Dark Room and Chest), that should unlock the secret for Godhead right?

 

But then if I then install all the DLCs after unlocking the secret for Godhead, then will I still have it unlocked or would I need to also do all the DLC bosses to re-unlock it?

 

I figure this would be the best way to get the hardest item unlocked earlier on.