Iconoclasts
Iconoclasts is a game made by one person. Let that sink in while you watch the gameplay trailer: one single developer, Joachim Sandberg, was responsible for building the world, the gameplay, the music, for coding the game. It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it? While most indie games I’ve played are the product of small teams, sometimes down to two or three people, I think this is the first time I play a full-fledged game made by one person. And the production quality doesn’t give it away either: Iconoclasts is a really neat looking game.
But let’s put aside Joachim Sandberg’s undeniable merits for a minute and try to evaluate the game on its own merits. First of all: you might think Iconoclasts is a metroidvania; I certainly did when I started playing it. But I’m not sure I can say it is one. It does look like one, for sure: there’s a world map with areas you can revisit, there’s some hidden treasure here and there, you unlock powerups that let you access new areas. But the game and the development of its plot are going to lead you on a very linear path. There’s no exploring and finding your way around the world and unlocking its secrets; Iconoclasts is closer to Ori and the Blind Forest than it is to Hollow Knight or Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. This of course is not necessarily a bad thing — Ori is a great game, after all. But while the two games might share a similar structure, Iconoclasts’ gameplay is not focused on platforming. There’s some of it, of course, but it’s very light and has a low execution barrier. Traversing the world usually requires solving puzzles and defeating enemies rather than precise jumps executed in quick succession.
The puzzles are relatively simple. There are some exceptions, of course; but most of them won’t trouble you any longer than the time required to physically put all the pieces in the right place. Sometimes you won’t even need to do that, considering I was able to “solve” a couple of them in ways that I don’t think were intended. One of the puzzles towards the end of the game can be completely bypassed by clever use of the pink boxes in the room and the swap gun. Similarly, it happened a couple times in my playthrough that some obstacles that clearly required more brainpower than I had available at the moment, could be surpassed by simply diving headfirst into them and using the few seconds of invincibility granted whenever you take damage to reach the otherwise inaccessible area. But let’s give the developer the benefit of doubt: it might be that he is fully aware these things are in the game (after all, it didn’t take very long for me to find them), but left them in as…”alternative” ways of solving the puzzles. After all, getting stuck sucks, doesn’t it?
Robin’s wrench and stun gun are not going to be used only for puzzle-solving; there’s a fair deal of combat in Iconoclasts, too. Generic enemies are varied enough, both design and mechanically wise: simply whacking or shooting an enemy often won’t be enough to dissuade them from standing in your way. At the same time, though, I wouldn’t say the combat is one of the game’s selling points; while it does its job decently enough, this is no Hollow Knight or Hyper Light Drifter. Bosses also offer a good deal of variety, both in terms of design and gameplay, and while some of them might be a bit forgettable, Iconoclasts doesn’t lack memorable boss fights. Some of them also require you to play as Mina, another character, but I didn’t particularly enjoy controlling her, as her shotgun is much clunkier to use than Robin’s stun gun.
The tweak system also isn’t particularly impressive. When she reaches a savepoint, Robin can choose to equip up to three upgrades; she will lose these upgrades when taking damage, but they can be restored by defeating enemies and breaking stuff. These “tweaks” need to be crafted, and the schematics for them can be found around the levels (usually on the main path, or not far from it). I have two main issues with this system: the first is that the upgrades, while neat to have, are not particularly interesting: they’re usually stuff like “run a bit faster” or “hold your breath for longer while underwater”. They’re also not that significant in terms of value; the difference only starts getting noticeable when you stack two or more of the same.
The second issue has to do with how you acquire each upgrade: as mentioned, they need to be crafted, and to do that you need materials that can be found in the numerous chests spread around the world. The thing is, every time you open a chest, you’ll find one of four upgrade materials, with Ivory Oil being the rarest. The chests never contain special upgrades, or additional tools that can be used in your travels, and this in turn makes treasure hunting not very appealing. There were times when I saw a chest behind a closed door, considered looking for a way to get it and then asked myself… why exactly would I? I already know what’s going to be in there, and upgrades aren’t that exciting in the first place, so why go the extra mile?
Narration wise, Iconoclasts is very Cave Stor-ey in vibe: both games start colorful and wacky and have cute characters but it doesn’t take long before you come to the realization that the story is, in fact, really dark. If you don’t like stories that involve human experimentation and people dying horrible deaths, you probably should stay away from Iconoclasts. And while I’m not bothered by that kind of things in a story (well, to a reasonable extent, at least), Iconoclasts seems to quickly develop a taste for the melodramatic, like it mistakes making everything and everyone as miserable as it could possibly be for how a mature story should look like. There are so many sad, ugly backstories or tragic fates for so many of the side characters that it all ends up being drowned in the tides of misery. When everything is a tragedy, nothing is.
There are also a few plot developments that left me a bit skeptical, mainly the fact that no one of the characters seems to pay any sort of attention to the blue goo that is more and more present as the game progresses, and that looks like some kind of mix between Starcraft’s creep and the corruption brought forth by some malevolent eldritch god. I get that Robin and her friends were a bit busy, but… you know, maybe it’s not the kind of thing you can afford to ignore? (spoilers: it‘s not).
Finally, as the name suggests, one of Iconoclasts’ main themes has to do with religion and with the influence it has on people’s life. While I can appreciate the choice to deal with serious themes, and the effort put into writing some of the characters’ dialogue in this regard (especially Chrome’s), at the same time I can’t help but find that the message the game wants to send boils down to a well worded “religions are bad”. This is not limited to the One Concern, who are the game’s villains, either; Mina’s cult of the ancestors comes out of the experience relatively battered as well. In conclusion, the taste for the melodramatic, the weird plot developments and the simplistic message about religions meant Iconoclasts’ story, as a whole, did not leave a great impression on me. But with that said, the game does have some pretty good character moments (Agent Black’s arc in particular is very good), and it wouldn’t be right to ignore the fact that Joachim Sandberg had the guts to take some risks. You can’t write great stories without first making some missteps along the way, and Joachim has definitely shown that he has the potential to become a competent writer, should he decide to do that in the future.
In the end, Iconoclasts is certainly not a game without its charms; the general design is very good, as well as animation quality; the gameplay, while it might not be a shining beacon, is still solid and varied enough to keep you entertained; the music is also pretty good and, while I might not be the biggest fan of the game’s story, I was still interested in seeing how it would end. Maybe it wouldn’t be my first pick, but it’s still a solid game that I would recommend to someone who enjoys the genre.