Iconoclasts

A sweet taste of Metroidvania. Jump, hit, puzzle a little. Circle back for some goodies or point yourself forward and run through. If you're playing on Standard and are used to these sorts of games you'll have relatively little trouble and generally enjoy everything. No puzzle is too long. A close calm look at each boss-fight takes it from infuriating mystery to clever satisfying tell-response-win. Very few of the puzzles and boss fights seemed unfair, unclear, or plain punishing. Every time I got stuck I just took a breath, thought through the available actions and tried again. This game is probably too easy for hardcore players, and too hard for total novices, but just right for this very tired Dad. And pretty? Yes. Pretty in the way you remember the games from childhood but actually a little better than they really were. Lots of solid animation on characters and a strangely engrossing plot despite being presented in rushed snippets. Playing as Sunflower was a joy and I wish I felt this happy being a character more often. Gave me the feelings I hopped from Owlboy but somehow missed.

Iconoclasts has a lot of strong points. The pixel art is gorgeous and the soundtrack is wonderful, evoking a GBA-like feeling. Controls feel smooth and intuitive. Gameplay is a mix of Metroidvania and puzzler. However, the game suffers from numerous flaws that unfortunately dampen the fun. - Level design is convoluted. The map is only of limited use, f.e. treasure chests still appear on the map even after being opened. In the beginning it's not too big of a deal but once you reach the Tower (the section where you have to collect 3 keys) you are going to rage. Which leads me to Iconoclasts 2nd major problem. - The game is terrible at telling you what to do. Some bosses are a complicated strings of actions you have to perform in order to damage them. Worsened by the fact that you have too many attacks & abilites to keep track of, you gotta go through every single way of attack to figure out the one thing that does damage. - One part towards act 3 in particular rubbed me wrong. You have to backtrack to an area only to be greeted by the most obnoxious stealth mini game I've had to suffer through in a while. And once you've done that you have to run back exactly where you came from! Making this entire distraction accomplish absolutely nothing. Did we really need those 30 minutes of padding? - Tweaks are useless. They barely improve your abilities and you can only equip 3 at a time. - Finally, the story is a muddled mess. It's intriguing enough to keep your interest but actually not all that original once you understand what's going on. Dialogue also sounds strangely wooden and unnatural. Everyone's talking like they're doing a bad Shakespeare impression. In the end Iconoclasts left me feeling the same way Ori did. It had bright moments but I was mostly just glad that it was over. I would still recommend Iconoclasts, the good parts are good enough to be worth playing. Just prepare for a dash of frustration along the way.

Yeah, Iconoclasts turned out quite well. Good on Mr. Sandberg to get this puppy out after seven years. For folks that might not know, Joakim Sandberg is the sole creator of this game. He's worked on other games for WayForward before, like Contra 4 and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, as an animator. He's got some serious skills, because the game is gorgeous. Really, the nuts and bolts gameplay (ohoho, see what I did there) consist of using your various weapons and wrench to progress through areas, somewhat Metroidvania-style. The game feels more akin to something like Monster World, though, in that while there is some poking around for treasures, you're not constantly mining for upgrades like Metroid or sitting there leveling up and getting new equipment all the time like Castlevania. Many rooms present puzzles, not unlike Zelda's dungeons, just presented within a 2D platformer context. Figuring out where to go, and how to get there, is where the fun is. And again, man, does this game look good. Combat feels excellent as well, with some really slick bosses that require a lot more than just blasting away. Make no mistake, there IS blasting, but you also have to suss out weak points, making them often puzzles as well. The treasures you do unearth are used to craft upgrades. They are somewhat useful, but not necessary to beat the game. This did not bother me. Without spoiling the story, it is presented very well, with mysteries unraveling through the game. One quibble, though, is that the game can get DARK at times. The game sports a bouncy art style, but there's some seriously messed up stuff. There's also a bit of an anti-religious element to the game, but it makes sense in context and isn't too overbearing. Overall, this might be one of the best puzzle platformers to come out in recent memory. It ascends to the heights of Owlboy's presentation, but also happens to be a lot more fun to play. Highly recommended.

This game runs very well on Arch Linux, 64bit. 20€ is the max price though. I regret nothing though. However, if you ever see it discounted this is a no brainer to get. I am 10 hours in the game now. The story is very good and has enough suspense and mystery to keep you from getting the full picture yourself until now. The German translation is very bad to the point that it reads like an automatic computer translation. Some sentences only makes sense if you guess the original English word. Gameplay itself was not challenging on "Normal," so I restarted in "Hard" after two hours, now it is good. The mechanics are a good mix between Metroidvania tradition and innovation. "Rocket Jumping" with the start weapon is possible, the place switching gun is nice etc. There is very little hand holding in the game besides the start tutorial signposts. I wish they had removed the later signposts in Hard mode as well, or removed the little white flies in the tower that tell me where to go next. But it is well within reason. I don't like the music though. It is not bad but certainly below average. The technical quality, instruments and sounds themselves are good but the composition sounds more like a beginners work from time to time. Game itself runs well. There is only a small graphic glitch that sometimes 10px on the right border are drawn with glitch graphics. Control with a keyboard is very accurate and you can rebind keys. Cutscenes are skippable. Feature wishes for updates: - An option to change the language in game - An option to change the difficulty from Normal to Hard (or vise versa) without restarting - Choose weapon directly (number keys or so)