• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Iconoclasts (indie, "took 7 years to develop")

llien

Member
Robin just wants to be a mechanic and help people, but without a license she’s a sinner in Mother’s eyes.Ever since picking up her wrench, the world has been going nuts and she's wanted to bolt it back together. Now Penance is raining down on everyone she loves and One Concern agents are after her.But something big is going on – bigger than droughts of Ivory fuel and personal conflicts – and Robin’s in the thick of it.Iconoclasts is the masterwork of indie developer Joakim Sandberg, seven long years in the making. Iconoclasts delivers awesome action, hilarious hijinks and an emotional rollercoaster of deeply personal storytelling.
  • Hours of nut-twisting platform action-adventure
  • Numerous densely detailed locations filled with fine-tuned action and puzzles
  • 20+ gear-grinding, screen-filling boss battles stand in your way
  • Three game-changing difficulty settings supported by a unique tweak system
  • A heart-wrenching epic – can one mechanic fix the whole world?




https://www.gog.com/game/iconoclasts


Reviews

PCGamer - 78%
Iconoclasts is a fine game, offering both satisfyingly sharp platforming and shooting, and some really smart puzzles. It’s enormous too, packed with secret areas and other stuff to discover. And although I found the humour a little glib and childish at times, it tells its heartfelt story well. A lot of Metroidvania games go for a bleak, downbeat atmosphere, but Iconoclasts is infectiously vibrant and sunny, even if the story does occasionally venture into dark territory.

Gamespot - 9/10
Iconoclasts is a sincere and compelling adventure that anyone with respect for fantastic storytelling and 2D-action can enjoy.

Destructoid - 9.5/10
The cute pixel art and gorgeous animations belie a surprisingly weighty narrative. One full of mysteries, surprises, and occasionally uncomfortable questions.

Arstechnica - NA
The good:
  • A cleanly colorful dystopia to explore.
  • (Mostly) pitch-perfect combat and platforming.
  • Big, bombastic bosses with a lot of fun moving parts.
The bad:
  • Lots of clunky, jumbled story without a consistent tone.
  • Dry and stilted dialogue.
  • A handful of imprecise puzzles.
  • Not much variety among upgrades.
The ugly:
  • I can’t decide if I agree with the game’s politics, because I can’t quite tell what they arethrough the messy writing.
Verdict: If you’ve already burned through your pile of Metroid-likes, Iconoclasts is solid fuel for the fire. Try it.
 
Last edited:

Z3M0G

Member
Yup watched the trailer and it looked FANTASTIC. Had to buy it!

- Metroidvania map system
- Surprise cross-buy Vita/PS4 even though store says nothing about it

I opted for Vita initially.
 

DonF

Member
Looks interesting.
No Psn release?
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows, Linux, IBM PC compatible. It's on the store.
You can use code D9NGJ7NF3L to get a 10% off (its a promo that's on the store banner right now)

The game looks great and it has good reviews, but god damn I feel like the name is going to hurt it's sales in the long run. I know nothing about the story and the word might be used correctly, but sounds nothing like a metroidvania, I know its really dumb, but the name alone turned me off...
 

Z3M0G

Member
Damn the story gets dark quick... but wow there is a hell of a game here.

SPOILER... this is pretty early in (30 min or so), but if this is the kind of dialogue and drama to expect going forward, this is going to be a real treat.



(Note: the grammer isn't bad, "Concern" is an actual entity)
 
Last edited:

Blam

Member
Would love a switch release of this as well if the dev ever goes that direction. I'll buy it on PS4 for the time being to support.
 
Last edited:

Z3M0G

Member
Played another hour today during lunch. The dialogue in the game is stellar. It is very linear (the metroidvania influence is minor at this point), but it is a very story/character driven game, which is great! 7 years to develop, you can tell they took the time to revisit and flesh out the script during that time. Great humor, and interesting twists/turns. It is a very cinematic experience even though it never (so far) leaves that 16/32-bit 2D presentation. I've fought 2 or 3 of the "20" bosses so far, and they have been fun to take down. Interesting puzzle / mini-game challenges along the way too! The game also uses a mod/upgrade system (the "tweak" system) that is surprisingly unique and satisfying, allowing a cool level of customization for your character.

Personal GOTY contender for sure... (recent years were Severed and Axiom Verge, if that tells you anything... though last year will be between Zelda and Horizon for sure)

I still can't say or remember the name of the game without reading it though... I hope that doesn't hold it back too badly...
 
Last edited:

Shifty

Member
This came out of nowhere for me, I played the Noitu Love games back in the day but entirely forgot that the dev was working on something new.

The trailer grabbed me straight away, and I've been enjoying the game a whole lot. About 3 hours in so far and it's really nailing the GBA-era inticreates/treasure vibe in terms of pacing and set pieces.
 

Silvawuff

Member
It looks to me like Mischief Makers and Cave Story had a baby. I'll admit I totally overlooked this title at first because of the name. Going to check it out!
 

Ostrava04

Member
I’m so tempted to pick this up, anybody have some impressions of it? How long is the game?
It was great, visuals are great, controls are tight, story is a little dark since it's heavily surrounds religion. I played it on normal and took me over 10hrs to beat the story mode with 60+% completion. Once you do beat the game you unlock new game plus and a challenge mode.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Konjak is underrated, all his games/demos are well worth checking out. Bit of a stretch to call this 7 years in the making and set expectations though, it's only one guy and it was canned/restarted several times.
https://gematsu.com/2018/12/iconoclasts-limited-run-physical-edition-announced
Iconoclasts-Limited-Run-Games_12-27-18.jpg
 
Last edited:

ROMhack

Member
I'm going to qualify this by saying it's a seriously impressive game for one dude and well worth checking out if you think you might like it.

However, I think it's a real marmite game in terms of content. I personally gave up halfway through as I was finding the story to be painfully presented. I ended up agreeing with John Walker for once who talked about how 'its clumsy prose is a struggle to read, its difficulty spikes are aggravating, and the sense of being directionless is too all-pervading.'

I really feel like the designer needed somebody to work on the script to get the best out of it. It feels like his talent lie elsewhere (i.e. the amazing pixel-art and imaginative world-building).

Again, some people loved it. It's also nice to see it getting a physical release.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom