As we reported earlier, The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth is struggling to function on the New 3DS, Wii U, and PS Vita. This prompted some interesting fan reactions, calling the developer out for not getting their game into a state that it will work on the various platforms. One running thread in the criticism was that while people understood why the 3DS couldn’t handle it, and even the more powerful PS Vita, but what didn’t make sense was the Wii U.
Sure the Wii U isn’t as powerful as the PS4 and Xbox One, but surely it had enough to run a 2D roguelike. However, the developer, Tyrone Rodriguez has commented on the matter, saying “Stop lying to yourself, the Wii U is not much more powerful than a PS Vita.”
This, of course prompted even more of a reaction from the community. Most brought up visually impressive titles like Bayonetta 2 and Mario Kart 8, both of which run at 1080p and 60FPS on the Wii U. Meanwhile The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth is a 2D game that is not visually taxing. However, the complexity in the game comes from its features, including the weapon abilities that can stack together.
Tyrone went on to explain, “among other things, consider that Afterbirth has over 100 weapon combinations, Rebirth had much less. Those stacks add up.” Fans continue to argue though, saying that the game is simply not optimized well enough, as it has had performance issues on multiple platforms.
Looking at the raw specs it is tough to justify the statement that the Wii U is only slightly more powerful than the PS Vita. Some of the raw numbers are similar, but the hardware behind those numbers is quite different. And as many pointed out, it is doubtful that the Vita could run games like Bayonetta 2 at 60FPS. However, the developer has more access to the system than most fans, so maybe he has a point. Let us know in the comments what you think.
