Here I am at work, reflecting back on this morning's attempt at completing challenge 10 in the Binding of Isaac.

For those unaware, the DLC Wrath of the Lamb brought ten challenges for you to complete the game in various ways. Challenge 10, the final one, includes:

• Start the game as Isaac without any starting items.
• No treasure rooms on any of the floors.
• Defeat the final boss in the Cathedral (DLC's version of Sheol).

This pretty much requires you to have insane luck on at least the first two levels, finding every secret room and curse room there is hoping you'll get good items to start you off. I'm in a routine that if I haven't gotten at least two upgrades I'm happy with after the first two levels I restart the game. I had luck in this morning's run, having necessary upgrades such as flight and high damage. My problem? Too little health. I got greedy with the devil rooms and sacrificed 4 heart containers for more damage for example, along with bad play during Womb and Cathedral levels.

So I stood outside the boss door at the Cathedral with two full heart containers and two soul hearts. Shit. Do I risk exploring the level to refill my empty containers, or just bite the bullet and hope for the best? I had the Little Gish familiar, so the boss' projectiles would be easier to handle. I bit the bullet and went in. I managed to dodge the projectiles flawlessly, and once the third and final phase hit I still had my health I went in with. Then the fucking adds started to spawn, and of course everything went to dogshit from there. Long story short; the boss had literally a centimeter of health left when one of the adds finished me off. Two or three more shots on the boss, and the challenge would have been won.

Right now I'm just sitting at work and can't wait to get home and try again. And again. And again...

Here I am at work, reflecting back on this morning's attempt at completing challenge 10 in the Binding of Isaac.

For those unaware, the DLC Wrath of the Lamb brought ten challenges for you to complete the game in various ways. Challenge 10, the final one, includes:

• Start the game as Isaac without any starting items.
• No treasure rooms on any of the floors.
• Defeat the final boss in the Cathedral (DLC's version of Sheol).

This pretty much requires you to have insane luck on at least the first two levels, finding every secret room and curse room there is hoping you'll get good items to start you off. I'm in a routine that if I haven't gotten at least two upgrades I'm happy with after the first two levels I restart the game. I had luck in this morning's run, having necessary upgrades such as flight and high damage. My problem? Too little health. I got greedy with the devil rooms and sacrificed 4 heart containers for more damage for example, along with bad play during Womb and Cathedral levels.

So I stood outside the boss door at the Cathedral with two full heart containers and two soul hearts. Shit. Do I risk exploring the level to refill my empty containers, or just bite the bullet and hope for the best? I had the Little Gish familiar, so the boss' projectiles would be easier to handle. I bit the bullet and went in. I managed to dodge the projectiles flawlessly, and once the third and final phase hit I still had my health I went in with. Then the fucking adds started to spawn, and of course everything went to dogshit from there. Long story short; the boss had literally a centimeter of health left when one of the adds finished me off. Two or three more shots on the boss, and the challenge would have been won.

Right now I'm just sitting at work and can't wait to get home and try again. And again. And again...

Cathedral's boss is going to damage you no matter what, so my suggestion is 6 heart containers is the minimum to have a chance to beat it. Also if you come up with The Sun during play, try to save it for the boss battle.

I'm so glad that i'm done with all the challenges. Not because they were difficult but just the opposite. I feel like edmund dropped the ball in making these challenges actually challenging. They still very much rely heavily on luck. I was expecting these challenges to be a test of skill with either no item pickups or only item pickups that acted as stat buffs.
 
When i heard of the purist challenge i was like oh crap, i'm gonna have to beat this game with no items at all. In fact, it's just a matter of getting lucky and salvaging what good items you can....That's pretty much how isaac works in general.