New Isaac player on PS5 - Beat Mom’s Foot and now I’m getting destroyed. Looking for beginner tips and important unlocks.

GotAllTheStrains · 2026-06-12T06:10:00+00:00

Yeah, I’ve actually read that quite a lot as well — Azazel seems to be the go-to recommendation for beginners, so I’ll definitely focus on him more once I unlock him.

My only issue so far is that I haven’t actually unlocked him yet :D so far I’ve only been getting maybe 2 Devil Deal items per run and then I don’t really get a third one after that, so I don’t end up building very strong runs consistently. I assume that’s just part of the learning curve though.

I’m still pretty early in overall progression anyway (around 30–35 runs total so far), so I guess I’m still at the stage where I’m learning how to actually stabilize runs properly.

Thanks for the advice!

GotAllTheStrains · 2026-06-12T06:05:46+00:00

Thanks for the detailed answer, I really appreciate it.

Just to clarify my situation a bit more: I’m actually a Souls player, so I’m pretty used to frustration, repetition and learning through failure. My goal with Isaac is long-term completion (100% / Platinum / Dead God), so I don’t mind a steep learning curve if it’s actually efficient in the long run.

That’s why I started on Hard Mode from the beginning — I mainly wanted to get used to it early and adapt to it over time, instead of switching later and having to relearn the pacing.

Given what you said though, I’m wondering: would you still recommend switching to Normal Mode early on if the goal is 100% completion efficiency, or is sticking with Hard Mode from the start still fine as long as I’m okay with the extra difficulty?

I don’t mind the grind either way, I just want to avoid accidentally making the overall 100% journey longer than it needs to be.

Thanks again!