Iconoclasts

A great Metroidvania that I've been watching for a few years now. After all that waiting and hype, it manages to live up to those expectations. The pixelart is beautifully done and the controls feel great (using a SteelSeries Stratus XL with Xboxdrv). The music fits the world well as well. If you're looking for a beautifully vivid Metroidvania, you can't go wrong with Iconoclasts. On a note for Linux users: The port runs great and supports gamepads through both Xboxdrv and xpad.

I had been following the development of this game for a long time and was very excited about it. It blew my expectations out of the water. Gameplay was solid, super solid. Animations and character designs were amazing. The puzzles the game throws at you are great. The "aha" moments during levels and bossfights were frequent. The levels require you to go back a forth between it a lot, so if you don't like that, oh well. There were these roller enemies at the end of the game that were awful to take out because of the cramped space you were in, died there more that anywhere else in the game. The story is both good and "meh". I personally like long string of dialogue and cutscenes between gameplay, and the scenes add to the gameplay because it gives you and hint for how to take down an enemy. The game would not be able to exist without these cutscenes. Even then the game points a pretty clear path on what to do next, making sure you're never lost. The story is always gripping you by the nose, making you wonder what will happen next. I'm still thinking about the message of the game, which I guess is a good thing, but it did seem pretty muddled. Can't say Konjak is a literary genius, but he did write a decent story about how religion affects people in an intriguing way. World building was good. Final boss was amazing, and really put everything you had done into perspective and totally gave new light into the "meaning" of the game, which I love.

Many people compare this to Dust: An Elysian Tail and in some way it makes sense. Both are indie games, created mostly by one person, story driven metroidvania, beautiful graphics and sound, good controls, mechanics, etc. But Dust has more manga/sad disney atmosphere, this one takes you to pixel art religious dystopia. Most of the time it does not takes itself too serious, it has a lot of humour in it, but the lore and background story is quite good, expect some twists. At first this world is strange and has a lot of things that are not explained to you, but the game slowly unravels almost everything to you. The characters are great, really nice written for a platformer like this. Difficutly is spot on, pacing is good, there is backtracking but it doesn't feel like a pain in the lower back. Also the underwater segments didn't make me want to break my controller in half and that's rare. The puzzles are not frustrating, some of them are easy, some require more meddling with it but I didn't need any gamefaqs. Core elements are very well executed, the detail of the world is awesome, each area is distinctive, sound design is awesome... Even if you are not a platformer/metroidvania geek you should play this game, one of the best games available on GOG. Overall great, highly immersive experience. PLAY IT

Iconoclasts is an action platformer with emphasis on puzzles. The story is bad. Poorly explained references to the world's backstory, a slew of selfish characters, several people with nonsensical ideologies, and scenes that are even more nebulous (and with a lot of drama they didn't earn). The gameplay is meh. You have a gun (which can fire different types of ammo, and you can charge up) and a huge wrench you can swing and whirl. The wrench is also used to attach yourself and swing from bolts (very enjoyable) and to activate puzzle elements. Finally, you have a ground stomp. What's bad about it? The level design doesn't flow well at all. Expect to stop and go constantly to deal with enemies (almost all of them have particular immunities). Puzzle elements are set far apart, requiring constant backtracking, or force you to waste time with timed sections. Controls are also poor. Lifting blocks is awkward, using up, when all other interactions require you to press down. Some weapons seem to have different arcs depending on how long you hold the button but this also charges the attack. Hanging from bolts with the wrench requires precise timing, but sometimes you move way too fast or have really awkward angles. Reflecting enemy attacks with the wrench is a crapshoot. Some projectiles you can't reflect, and timing is a bit weird regardless. Bosses require you to wait a lot, without much to do until the attacks are finally over. The screen flashes constantly with explosions and other stuff, making it hard to understand what hit you or what's the weak point of bosses in several situations. The presentation is the best part, with a really lovely artstyle, and nice music (sounds are fine as well, although nothing amazing IMO). It's a shame, because the same elements if arranged competently could make for a good game (story/plot aside, which I think is unsalvageable). The game is not difficult, at least, but I still didn't finish it (I was too bored to continue).

Play as Robin, a young mechanic in a sci-fi world ruled by a religious cult. Since the cult attempts to control all technology and assigns everyone their jobs (on the penalty of death by a crushing meteor), Robin's fascination with machines (inherited from her deceased father) and her desire to help everyone around her forces her into opposition to the regime. In her journey she encounters several characters and learns more about the world, the machines that keep it running and the mysterious "Ivory oil" that powers all of the world's machinery. Iconoclasts is a metroidvania with a heavy emphasis on puzzles. Your main character is a mechanic, so her primary tools are her wrench and a variety of projectiles. The wrench is your melee weapon, your tool to control mechanisms, and also your main means of traversal, as it gets additional upgrades. There's some backtracking across the levels to find more hidden crafting materials that allow you to build "tweaks"- various swappable upgrades that primarily help with combat; but overall the game has a pretty linear structure, with a really good pace taking you from a set of platforming and puzzle challenges to another boss fight or escape sequence set piece. Although the story does the usual JRPG thing and goes a bit bonkers towards the end, I still enjoyed the overall pacing. There are a couple of hidden bosses that require you to visit certain hidden areas in each "level" in certain order, and are easily missable, which encourages replays, but overall the game's pretty linear and makes for a fun 20 or so hour experience that's a nice change of pace from the more combat-focused games that make up most of the genre.