Iconoclasts

un metroidvania no tan metroidvania muy bonito

I used to think that the best game ever created by one person was Cave Story. But no, it's this game. There I said it.

Simple fun, played this on Switch and liked it, so I decided to play through it on Steam too.

Iconoclasts is not a metroidvania. It's a puzzle platformer with action elements. If you're looking for something more puzzle-solving, exploration, narrative-driven, with some fun boss fights thrown in there for good measure... then I would recommend it

Doesn't work. Not even worth the 5 bucks I spent on it. I'd troubleshoot it but they don't pay me to do their debugging work for them.

An excellent game

If you seek for a metroid-vania, it's not what this game really is, it remind me more of the old-shantae (pre Half-genie hero for those who know), as an action platformer, but you keep crossing the old zones, and with a a story and cool characters. But unlike Shantae where the story are a bit simple and the characters more fun, this game as a really well writen story, and some amazing characters.

The gameplay is great, all the moves come pretty naturally, even without the tutorial panel, and the discovery of all possibilites is natural. I also like the mechanics where you have to seek which move will work on each ennemis, and the only point is sometimes, you aren't sure if something really deal damage, particulary with some end-game mobs, and the grenade, but since almost all ennemis take 1/2 hit to kill, you quickly figure if it works or not.

The enveironnemental puzzles are greatly made, and ask some complexity, especially for those who are optional and only provides chests with materials, and even the hiden path aren't frustrating, since the presence of a chest is notted on the map, like in metroid, and they are not hiden in random place.

The game as numerous bosses, particulary for the only 8-10 hours for a normal explorating walkthrough, and neither of them feel like a repetition. The fact that they all have unique gameplay, and also act like the normal ennemis, where you have to seek how to beat them, so a first try can be a bit difficult, but when you die on a boss, you can retry directly, without returning at the last check point, and they are not sand bag with a ton of HP, so it's not frustrating in my opinion. The only little thing, is sometimes how to counter an attack can be hard to figure out I think instantly of Mother's rolling attack. But you almost always figure out at the end, or it's only one attack out of 3/4 of the boss, so it's okay and understandable

But for me, the real point where I havn't wait the game, is on the story. I was expecting something close to an old shantae when I started the game, so with a story, but not really an important or particulary deep one. But it's one of the best point for me in this game. Especially the character, who have an exceptional design, and don't hesitate to go away from the classical roles in those games, and for the best. All the story is very cool, but the end is just magnificient and their is only one thing I can tell on that, and it's (spoiler of the end of the game) : The game should have stop for me when you escape the space base in the capsule, and maybe let the earth explode. For me It ill be an amazing final, but I understand why the dev does this (primarely for letting people do the final collect, to 100%, go seek the hidden quests/boss... And it permit the last boss and the last reveal which I found pretty funny

One for all, an amazing game, with an almost perfect in all aspect, especially thinking it's the art from one person.

vuuihuoi

Amazing art, well written characters and story in general, fun mechanics/puzzles, great music.
You can't go wrong with this one.

Fighting in this game just isn't any fun. Bosses nor normal enemies, and there's so much fighting.

A Great Metrovania game with a very good story to boot! I hope they make a second one!

Enjoyable gameplay, the story is kinda a mess and the bosses are too easy.

Really caught me off guard, I enjoyed this game and its narrative a lot.

fuck yeah

great!

hell yeah!!

Played through the entire game on steam deck and it ran wonderfully

This game was a lot more heavy than I thought it would be, but I enjoyed the characters and gameplay

Some parts felt a bit rough and I am not the best gamer so I struggled with some fights and some unskippable cutscenes were a real nuisance when I had to try again.

Overall very good game and interesting story

What a game

Made me smile, laugh a lot, but, of course, it has THAT side...

As you get involved with the story and the very charismatic characters, there's no turning back... you're gonna get the f e e l s, the final unroll destroyed my heart without mercy.

Gameplay wise, it is a very fun metroidvania-ish game, of course its story is definitely the strong point, but I think the gameplay was really sweet, lot's and lot's of fun bosses, one of them is still my favourite of all games I played.

I can sum the game as a title of a video I saw about it:

"The weight of a world you care about"

A wonderful masterpiece, I'll carry it forever as one of the games I love and cherish most.

robin is kinda bad tho

It’s hard for me to say mean words about a game made by only one person, but even more mixed feelings came up as I’ve checked Joakim "Konjak" Sandberg background: he is talented and also worked in the art/animation department of games made by WayForward, and here lies the answer for the “is Iconoclasts a “‘metroidvania’?” dispute: This game draws direct inspiration from the Shantae series, but with a more serious universe and a political/religious commentary that in the end I felt like I shouldn’t have paid so much attention to.

The game constantly switch gears from gameplay to story/cutscenes and both are a drag:

>The platform is not precise, some movements and jumps the game demands from the player doesn’t match the grid/tiles/platforms where the objects are in the 2D layout.
>The story starts bold but in the end you can see the Game of Thrones vibes of it, where everybody has shades of grey and as the scores passed through my screen I wish I could’ve got the good ending where EVERYBODY F* DIES!
Add to this mix the topping that you can only save in some checkpoints scarcely spread across the map, put it in the preheated oven and voila! Iconoclasts!

The next time someone tells me that videogames are “fun” I’ll pull out this game. I’ve finished for the love for the media and to see if the story wasn’t a prank. As Jaime Lannister once said: “The things we do for love”.

This is a good game that I like quite a lot, although it is one that I have a hard time recommending to everyone due to the gameplay and the story. Regarding the gameplay, if you are expecting a metroidvania similar to Hollow Knight or Metroid; you won't find it here. This game is much more linear then most metroidvanias and it also has a lot more dialogue than both of those games as it is much more story focused than any other metroidvania I've played. Expect to be reading a lot of text in between your gameplay to soak in the story.

Regarding the story, I think it is very good, albeit it will be controversial and may potentially offend you depending on your religious views. As an atheist and someone who holds somewhat negative opinions of religion, I certainly agree with the vast majority of the points the game makes. The game doesn't target any one specific religion as being bad either, it mainly talks about it conceptually. Certain elements might be related to certain religions such as oil in the middle east being relevant to Islam in the form ivory being the lifeblood of the planet; or the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit symbolism in the case of the One Concern with the Tri, but it's not bashing these religions in particular more so making historical connections that you can relate to.

Overall if you can get over both of these points, you have a very excellent game on your hands with very relatable characters, especially if you have religious trauma yourself.

Pros :
- Expressive, well animated characters and exemplar sprite work
- Solid game play
- Good game design
- Great Boss fights
- Great story overall
- Lots of quality of life features
- Soundtrack that matches action well

Cons :
- Stun gun homes in on enemies badly, and you can't aim diagonally, it aims for you. Add insult to injury, one of the guns you get can fire diagonally, and isn't a homing gun. That one is significantly more enjoyable and consistent to play with.
- While the music's fine overall, some of the tracks get annoying real fast
- The Tower section was stupid. Remove it.
- I found some bosses to be unclear in how to beat them, and as a result kind of boring/annoying
- The ending was abrupt, and poorly executed. The final boss took the best aspect of the game (the amazing story), and made it into a damn joke.

Overall :
- I really liked the game with only minor cons and major pros, with the exception of the ending. By golly was that ending a let down. It was stupid, anticlimactic, and to top it all off, not even a great boss. 8/10

nice!

Brilliant game, honestly. If you are teetering on the edge of getting it, this is your sign to do it.

im genuinely. so dissapointed. ~20 hour playtime. this game is like... it starts a little slow, but charming, and visually interesting, and steadily slopes up, good writing, interesting setting, good characters, and just keeps getting better and better and fun to play and well designed and entertaining and then in the last 2 hours of the game it just shoots itself in the side of the head. It has SO much going for it but its ending is just... so dissapointing... the gameplay is Fine but god the story went downhill SO fast towards the end. worth playing but prepare to be Very dissapointed at the end

I've played through this game several times on multiple platforms and bought it for my friends more times than I can count. I fucking love this game.

The one thing that (to me) throws people off is that the gameplay is not its charm point— it's a Metroidvania, not an especially difficult one, and not one that does a ton of groundbreaking stuff. It's held back by a somewhat tedious collect-a-thon, to boot. By no means do I think it's a bad game– I love that every room has its own puzzle, and every pixel of every map, to me, is downright charming. I just think some people go into Iconoclasts wanting it to be something that it isn't.

To me, the story is its hidden gem. Its writing, while sometimes flawed and sometimes pessimistic, absolutely hooked me in. The game tells you comparatively little outright, characters are often intentionally cryptic, and the game relies on (if not outright begs) you as a player to be willing to put the pieces together, sometimes by completing multiple playthroughs or seeking out optional content. There's a ton of subtext and symbolism to unpack, and in that regard, I think it being an easier game with accessibility settings is the best thing for it.

And if you're reading this, I'm begging you to play it too, and to play it with a willingness to crack its worldbuilding open and slurp out its yummy insides.

However, please be warned: this game is known to not play well with Windows 11! If you have W11 and are worried about it not running, know that you can also pick this gorgeous game up on a number of other consoles, including the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.

this game is so underrated, it has peak story, art and game play. 9.5/10 some of the puzzles piss me off but are satisfying when completed

Great game!

Fantastic. I'm blown away that this was created by one person!

+ Some of the best pixel art and animations I've seen
+ Excellent level design
+ Interesting story/themes
+ Unique bosses that aren't too punishing

Looks great, plays not so great.

I don't recommend this game not because it's bad but because it's only good and had the potential to be so much more.

The game is gorgeous and has an undeniable charm. The animations, characters, bosses, backgrounds, everything is really, really good and it's a visual masterpiece in my opinion.

The story and universe are very interesting. However, for much of the game, I was left very confused on the lore because the game never takes time to establish new concepts and expand upon ones already introduced. It's a constant barrage of information without a moment to let it simmer in.

The dialogues are a big part of the reason the story feels so weird. Characters are constantly talking yet saying absolutely nothing of substance, to a point where I'm not even sure about their motivations since the core of their message is drowned out by useless ramblings.

The themes of the story are also very much skimmed over. There are many interesting topics the game bring up but also drop in the blink of an eye. Indoctrination, religion, casts, classes, culture, etc. It doesn't flesh the lore out as much as it just makes me disappointed that these themes are barebones.

Gameplay wise, it's where I think the game really dropped the ball. You don't find upgrades to your character, per se. You have to find a recipe for "tweaks", the materials for it, craft it and then equip it. It functions in a similar way to Hollow Knight's charms. However, every hit received breaks a tweak. The problem stems from the fact that during fights, it's near impossible to regenerate the tweaks. This makes them pretty much useless and is also compounded by the other problem during fights:

Trial and error. The game has one way to beat the majority of enemies and most of them have no real indication on what should be used.

Its a very good plataformer game, nothing much to say. It delivers perfectly its premise

this is one of my all time favorite games, and after finishing my 3rd playthrough i think it's about time i contribute to the ratings!

first things first with this game: i'd definitely recommend buying it on sale. while i love it, i think the $25 price tag is a bit much. i think it'd be more worth about $15, so snag it when it's low!
also, while the game is tagged as a metroidvania, definitely don't expect a standard metroidvania experience from this. it does have a metroidvania-like layout, and there are couple parts of the game that let you freely explore, but the game is far too linear to really be called a metroidvania imo.

ok, onto the good stuff:

first, the story. this seems to be an issue for a lot of people, and i can understand some complaints, but i personally love it to bits. it can be a bit hard to follow some times, but it's very much one of those "religious trauma in video game form" kind of projects which i always dig. it's about cultures and their beliefs, icons, and outcasts, and how they clash. it focuses on a world run by a religious government called the One Concern, ruled by a divine medium known as Mother who communicates the will of "Him", the Concern's enigmatic god. there's also the Isi, simply called "pirates" to others, who are a race of people whose culture holds procreation as the pinnacle of their being, and are targeted by the concern for independent fuel mining.
the story has the player assume the role of Robin, who illegally works as a mechanic without the blessing of the One Concern. she uses her skills to help people in her settlement, which soon leads to her getting arrested by the Concern, quickly roping her into a grand conspiracy involving the true nature of the Concern, Him, and the planet itself.
along the way Robin befriends Mina, a queer Isi woman who is alienated from her culture and family for loving another woman, and Royal, the clueless future successor to Mother who believes he can use his power to make things change. the story focuses on the three of them fighting against their cultures simply to lead a happy existence, and against the oppressive control of the One Concern.
i don't know if this does the story any amount of justice, but it's a very unique story and one of the few to consistently make me emotional.

second, gameplay. there isn't a whole lot to say, but this is a highlight for me, mostly cus i just fuckin love puzzle oriented games. the game has pretty standard platformer combat, equipping you with a gun and a comically large wrench that you can swing at enemies. you also use your tools for puzzles, twisting bolts to open doors and using electrical charges to power lifts and all sorts things. it's nothing too special, but the puzzles are creative and plenty of fun, if only a bit slow at times. there are also a number of very fun boss fights, each with a unique mechanic that utilizes your puzzling skills. the game isn't too long, my last playthrough took me ~8 hours, and that's with both secret bosses completed.

third, art. this is, for me, the best part. the art style is super charming and, as far as i know, the whole game was made by one guy, which is absolutely bonkers for the level of artistic quality at play. the pixel art, the animations, the music, the sound design, there's genuinely not a single element of it i dislike. it's all so creative and high quality that it feels criminal that this game is as underappreciated as it is.

please, get this game on sale, give it some love, i love it so much and want as many people as possible to experience it!

Story/Writing: 9/10
Gameplay/Mechanics: 6.7/10

Overall: 8.3

Controls well and looks good but the game-play is tedious and can't really commit to doing a few things well and instead does many different genres poorly

Very welldone game with great story, bossfights and exploration

This is a good, but not quite great Metroidvania action game. I really liked the characters and the story, but I had some issues with the gameplay. It slipped into frustrating rather than challenging a few times, but not so much that I seriously considered giving up. On the other hand, right now I have zero desire to go back and collect all of the schematics and materials, even though I am a completionist.

If you're like me then I can't recommend the game to you. One of the early boss fights is very frustrating because the character's gun controls abysmally. I wanted a challenge so I started my first playthrough on hard, but the difficulty isn't supposed to come from stiff "controls" (quotation marks because it didn't even feel like I was in control at that moment). I don't have high tolerance for frustrating gaming features so this was the point I uninstalled the game.

If you like fighting the game while fighting bosses, then I think I can recommend the game from what I've seen until this point. Fun and creative puzzles and terrain traversal, interesting story and characters. Very cold open to the story compared to some other games, feels like there's a lot to learn throughout the journey.

With how often I talk about this game, it baffles me that I haven't written a revieew for it yet. probably because I played this game years agao way before I really started writing reviews. This game is phenomenal, the gameplay's fun, the lore and story are captivating, the music is catchy, the characters are charming, the dialogue is incredible. The art, while being pixel graphics, is still incredibly good. Bossfights are clever, puzzles are interesting, and I know I've already mentioned the story, but my god, the story. It's an incredibly interesting world, the story's well done, and the characters are where the story really shines. General Chrome is super charismatic, and I don't want to spoil too much, but in one of the final bossfights of the game, the story, character, dialogue and music all come together to make one of the most incredibly tragic bossfights I've ever experienced, to the point where the song that plays in that fight still makes me tear up when I hear it. Buy this game. It's worth your time.

This is the best example of a game made with passion and love. The character are an absolute delight, the story may appear simple and generic at first but it gets very interesting as it goes on. It has heartaching and emotive moments that i don't wanna ever forget. Everything and everyone is so frail, thanks man.

Iconoclasts? i barely even know asts!

I wish there was a neutral or mixed option, because there's plenty I liked and disliked here. There's great visuals and music, the platforming and puzzling is solid, and the story, while somewhat confusing and escalating in stakes very rapidly, is at least rousing you with it as it unfolds.

But the game forgets halfway through that it's supposed to be a metroidvania and stops giving any new abilities, the combat ranges from meh to bad, and most of the bosses have annoying gimmicks and poor telegraphs.

Despite this I still think it's worth playing, just maybe lower your expectations a bit and wait for a sale.

Great game.
Great story
Long gameplay.

This game is meh. I found myself rushing through the levels and really enjoying the design of the various characters but I find the meat of the game to be lacking some serious luster. The characters doesn't get enough development and despite her reactions and emotes she does Robin feels flat and uninteresting. The humor is descent at best and the bosses are fine. But my main problem is finding interest and motivation to keep going. To find the flow and the gameplay just feels jerky and unresponsive and the puzzles slow down the game to the point where it just crawls.
Just play hollow knight, Metroid or Celeste. This feels like a bad re-skin of a mesh-mash of those three and it's boring.

And also, I tried to finish this game twice but I just cant do it while Celeste pushed me to the point of insanity with the B-sides. Actually GOOD games does that to you.

This game goes from investigate the funny sound to overthrow the government by killing god real quick and I'm all here for it. It's especially funny when you realize that you don't really sleep during your antics so it's likely everything happens in about a single day, it's super

Iconoclasts was an incredible journey, one that I believe will stick with me for a long while. A mixed one, but with the right attitude, the good outweigh the bad.

Let’s start with the weakest part of Iconoclasts: The gameplay. This game is listed as a 2D Metroidvania. It’s not. Levels are fairly linear, every collectible is entirely optional/become useless the moment you take damage 3 times, and you get 4 permanent power ups in the entire game. There’s backtracking, but only for the semi-useless collectibles and endgame secret stuff…which I needed a guide to locate most of. I didn’t mind the bosses, as they were semi-competent puzzles to fight. Nothing properly challenging (for most of them), but hard enough to make you memorize a few patterns before you can beat them.

The pixel art is rather pretty, and at times compelling. I’m not in love with the soundtrack, as it’s not…teeerribly memorable? There were a few gems, but those were mostly in the climax.

I know that sounds pretty middling, but it’s a short enough game where it was only annoying, not offensive, and that’s if you’re trying to 100% all the optional stuff. Where I believe this game shines is its characters and their stories.

For the first area or so, I wasn’t really sold. I think that’s mainly because they just drop you right in with no preamble, having characters speak as if everyone already knows what’s going on, which was a little disorienting. Just a bit, though.

I’d had this on my list for a good while, and I wanted to stick with it and put in the effort to take in the lore. And man am I glad I did.

The main cast of named characters characters are some of the most compelling I’ve seen for a long while. This game’s story and world appear colorful, but it has some beautifully somber and dark moments that all feel very grounded and personal. I leaned back in my chair dazed from several occasions from how powerful certain scenes were.

This game may not be for everyone. It’s environment/feel could be more engaging, and it ought to be classified as an adventure more than a Metroidvania, but I will remember Iconoclasts’ portrayal of grief and pain for a long time. Without question.

This game is messed up in a beautiful, tragic way, and I have come to respect it way more than I thought I would when I first booted it up.

So let's start of by saying this is a really solid game and it isn't bad per se, it's just not for me and I want to share why so other people can make a better choice whether this game is for them.

What I did like:

- The movements of the character feel great and natural. I especially liked using the wrench to get to places, had some fun with that. I would've liked more platforming challenges but I realise that's not what this game is about, it's just that I loved to movement so much I wanted to use it more
- The puzzles were fun and sometimes it took me awhile to not only realize what I had to do but also being able to do it (because I needed precision or be quick)
- The visuals are pretty and the music is amazing, especially when you realize it's all done by one person.
- It did make me laugh at times

What I didn't like:

- This game is really story focussed. I didn't really care about the story or the people involved. I didn't always get what was being said (but that me be telling on myself, dunno if I'm the only one who doesn't really understand what's going on) and I disliked almost all characters. I'm not really a story focussed gamer but it can work for me if I really like the story. Sadly this wasn't the case here. I feel it's about 50/50 in terms of gameplay vs story so keep that in mind if that's not your thing, if I'd known that beforehand I don't think I'd have bought it.
- This game is advertised as a metroidvenia but it is not. It is as linear as it gets with a few things you can backtrack for, but imho these things are not worth it to go to all the trouble for.
I never mind getting lost in a metroidvenia because that's part of the fun and mostly it doesn't really matter which way you go. However in this game there was clearly an intended path so losing my way was not enjoyable. It also wasn't always very clear what I had to do next to progress (talk to a certain character or go to a certain area etc) Also the fast travel got introduced way later than I would've liked.
- Last but definitely not least for me, while it was fun having different guns doing different things, especially in boss fights it was not always clear which one I should use. Like you have 3 guns and a wrench and most of the time with bosses only one of these (or a special way to use them) deals damage. That makes 8 moves that are a possibility, with most of the time only 1 of those doing any damage at all. I didn't feel the game made it clear what to use most of the time, so with quite a few bosses it took me a while to figure it out. This resulted in me not being able to pay much attention to what attacks the boss was doing and therefore made me die a few times. I don't mind having to try things again and/or dying but this just feels unfair. For me this took away a lot of freedom and creativity to create my own preferred attacking style, something I really love doing.
For some of the bosses I even had to Google how to kill them because again, it was just not clear to me sometimes how to progress. For me this took me completely out of the game and just makes it frustrating to play.

So I decided to not finish the game even though there were definitely things I liked. I got stuck again at a monster that was not clear for me how to kill them and I was done googling it.

So if you're someone who doesn't mind these things this very well could be your game!
But if you're not really storyfocussed, looking for a real metroidvenia and want to be free to create your own attacking style, then maybe look somewhere else (I'd advise Hollow Knight, Ori and the blind forest - Definitive edition, and/or Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, but I'm certain there are so many more out there that'll be better games for you than this one if that's the case)

I want to end this by saying I have so much respect for the dev for making this game all by themselves including soundtrack etc. That's a great feat and it is not a bad game, just not my cup of tea by no fault of the dev.

I'm still pretty new to metroidvanias and I'll watch some videos and read a bit more and update my review if necessary, but I don't think this game really lives up to the hype.

I feel like for a metroidvania the gameplay takes kinda second stage to a grand story they had to tell and while the setting is no doubt interesting the characters motivations and dialogue are hard to follow or don't make much sense making it hard to feel any attachment to the characters. This can be said most of all for the protagonist Robin who seemingly has no agency in the story and only really listens to what others tell her to do and kill whatever is in their way.
While there are plenty of puzzles and breaks from what ultimately felt like a pretty un-engaging combat system the puzzles felt either obvious or tedious sometimes both and generally your reward for interacting with these puzzles are crafting ingredients to make upgrades that hardly affect the way you interact with the game.

I feel like there certainly could be an interesting story with maybe not these characters but certainly this setting it feels like the developer may have gotten to grand in scope and certain elements kinda didn't get the refinement one would hope.
Still very impressed by the work of the developer and the art and setting are no doubt praise-worthy but it doesn't really feel like a game you need to play even if you're a fan of the genre.

This game seems to be setting up some really interesting story and worldbuilding, crafting a mysterious environment that asks a lot of questions. The hook of the game for me was learning more about the world, I was excited to learn how all the different elements would connect. Unfortunately, the end of the game is really disappointing and doesn't resolve anything. It seems like a lot of interesting ideas were introduced to keep the player invested, with no actual thought or intention behind them. The ending felt like a cheap joke. The gameplay is mid, and I wouldn't call this a metroidvania. If something about the gameplay or aesthetic appeals to you go ahead and try it out, but I can't recommend this game to anyone who is interested in a compelling story or interesting world.

A 2D Linear Metroidvainia with a emphasis on the worldbuilding and story. This game is a solo dev project that took a quite a long time to make and I don't think the dev plans on doing anything this big again.

I don't really have much more to say about it sadly. It's not anything outstanding gameplay-wise but it has story and characters I enjoy with a good artstyle and sometimes that's good enough to make it one of my favorite games of all time. As a Metroidvania you aren't really sequence breaking rather than you can back track to talk to people and get things at certain points in the story but not others.

So really the best tell for if you would like this isn't to read a review describing it but to just look at the screenshots and maybe a gameplay video of the first section. The game is pretty much exactly what it looks like other than the fact that it packs alot of dialouge and story in, more so than is usual for this genre.

very fun