Iconoclasts

Release: 2018

Platform: PC

Developer: Joakim Sandburg

Publisher: Bifrost Entertainment

Genre: 2D, Action, Platformer, Metroidvania

Gameplay Stats: 13 hours, 9/11 Achievements

This game has been extremely hyped up! It was brought up in many Game of the Year talks in 2018 and even won Destructoid's GOTY. 2018 was a strong year for games, so this is a pretty huge deal. I waited patiently for a sale (because I'm cheap) and was pretty eager to jump in and try this game out!

Visuals: This game is gorgeous. It has a coherent sense of style that all of the pixel art sticks to. All of the elements seem to fit into the same world. I did have some issues with communication though. The game has a kind of chibi-style and there were several times that I mis-gendered a new character. Not a huge deal, but it kind of hints at a bigger issue I had with the game. There are 3 types of weapon that you acquire over the course of the game, each with a charge attack and a regular attack. Several enemies are only vulnerable to 1-2 of these and I couldn't figure out the tell for which enemy would be weak to which weapon. This lead to me jumping around, trying all of the combos most times I ran across a resilient foe. It was easy to tell when enemies were being damaged and when they weren't, but many of the bosses would kill me once or twice while I was figuring out what would actually damage them. It was kind of frustrating.

Audio: The music in this game was really nice! So were the sound effects! No voice acting to speak of, and I don't think I will revisit the soundtrack at all, but everything worked. The weapons sounded distinct and appropriate. I could tell when enemies were around. Solid audio all around, really.

Gameplay: This game actually felt great to control. All of the platforming worked the way that I thought it should. The fighting, once I figured out which weapon to use was similarly excellent. Some of the hitboxes felt a little weird, but it was so rare that I don't really feel justified getting into it. I enjoyed the extra boss and all of the platforming challenges. I played the game on the Hard difficulty and I don't regret it.

Plot: Here is where the game kind of lost me. All of the characters go on long bits of exposition, but we have a silent protagonist. No one acknowledges that she is silent, but she communicates through little emoji thought bubbles. You have useless companions for the majority of the game and the literally only serve to add a little emotion to the cutscenes. There are two instances where a boss fight takes advantage of two characters and they allow you to switch between them. Those instances are GREAT! Easily the high points in the game for me. The rest of the plot felt kind of high-school deep. I think the same themes have been handled much better by other games. The plot hit similar high points to the first half of Tales of Symphonia, but it wasn't done in as much depth or with the same kind of satisfying resolution.

Overall, I liked the game pretty well! I don't think I'll be giving it a second playthrough. I don't think it deserved all of the GOTY hype a couple of years ago, but I think the game was good. [8/10]