Iconoclasts

 Switch
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 76 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 48 out of 76
  2. Mixed: 20 out of 76
  3. Negative: 8 out of 76
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  1. bskierys
    Jan 12, 2020
    8
    I was attracted by the graphics and sound affects that are extremely pleasent. Then I was entertained by the metroidvania gameplay and focus on puzzles and finding the way rather than combat skills. And then I was charmed by the characters and how your relationship with them evolves through the story. Even if the story itself is not so engaging and the world, even if original lacks depth -I was attracted by the graphics and sound affects that are extremely pleasent. Then I was entertained by the metroidvania gameplay and focus on puzzles and finding the way rather than combat skills. And then I was charmed by the characters and how your relationship with them evolves through the story. Even if the story itself is not so engaging and the world, even if original lacks depth - the chemistry between characters is what kept me to the end of the game.
    And well, then I stay even more, because I had to "complete" it. It's an open-world. I had to pick up everything.    … Expand
  2. Did-
    May 9, 2019
    8
    One man. Eight years. One game: Iconoclasts.

    I cannot fathom how this is even possible. There is so much in this game! There are many environments and they are all pretty detailed. There are a lot of different NPCs, and each have a set of unique animations, and each animation is so fluid I don’t even want to know how many different animation frames the developer had drawn for this game    One man. Eight years. One game: Iconoclasts.

    I cannot fathom how this is even possible. There is so much in this game! There are many environments and they are all pretty detailed. There are a lot of different NPCs, and each have a set of unique animations, and each animation is so fluid I don’t even want to know how many different animation frames the developer had drawn for this game (actually, I’d really like to know).

    The other aspects are also pretty amazing. There’s one I didn’t expect: The story, and the characters. It has a really interesting plot line and tackles serious subjects in a depressing pre-apocalyptic environment. Even though the game looks cute, the situations can turn bad very quickly, someone can get his head squashed in the ground when you expect him to be just taken into custody, it really reflects the mood of the world and is not trying to be politically correct.

    The level design oscillates between greatness and frustration. Sometimes, it innovates with interesting layouts and situations, and other times, it’s really difficult to read and understand where to go or what to do, or just boring to traverse. After the game was over, I wasn’t interested in finding all the hidden items, something I usually like, but here, the rewards are close to useless, it’s always the same thing: materials to craft items, and these items are not really useful.

    The bosses are well-designed and present good challenges (at least in hard mode). Except one, who is horrible because it’s so hard to understand how he works. Aside this one, all have interesting patterns and sometimes also stage layout with them.

    All in all, it’s a good Metroidvania game, but the fact that it has been made by a single person (game design, graphics, development, music, sound, level design, everything!) makes it incredible. A pure work of art.    … Expand
  3. pizzanuggs
    Jan 17, 2019
    9
    I haven't been so gripped by a narrative and characters since Mother 3. If you dig fantastic sprites and well developed interesting characters that aren't presented all "dark & gritty" you will not find a better feast.

    Boss battles are stellar and the simple platforming and puzzles between these set pieces flow with ease. It's been billed as a Metroidvania, and in many ways it does    I haven't been so gripped by a narrative and characters since Mother 3. If you dig fantastic sprites and well developed interesting characters that aren't presented all "dark & gritty" you will not find a better feast.

    Boss battles are stellar and the simple platforming and puzzles between these set pieces flow with ease.

    It's been billed as a Metroidvania, and in many ways it does function like one, though more linear than is typical of the genre. Within this linearity the game manages to tell a story with twists and turns that had my jaw dropping. The last few hours had me glued to my controller to discover where the plot was taking me.

    I'd also say, in a time where Retro style games are coming out frequently, this the first that really made me feel like I was playing a long lost gem from the 16-Bit Era unlike other games that seem to just do a good job of "looking" like one. Iconoclasts plays fresh and handles its subject matter with a maturity I wasn't expecting.

    Check it out and marvel at what a single developer can accomplish.    … Expand
  4. Ophenix
    Aug 10, 2018
    6
    This game is a mixed bag for me. For every brilliant feature there's a bad design choice.
    Platforming is mostly fun, the lack of accuracy on the wrench add some skill to the whole thing... Till it gets used in a boss-fight as a gimmick and leaves you hating the game.
    A lot of the bosses are fun and original, while the rest are pure **** That part where you are stuck in the elevator and    This game is a mixed bag for me. For every brilliant feature there's a bad design choice.
    Platforming is mostly fun, the lack of accuracy on the wrench add some skill to the whole thing... Till it gets used in a boss-fight as a gimmick and leaves you hating the game.
    A lot of the bosses are fun and original, while the rest are pure **** That part where you are stuck in the elevator and one pixel to the left or right means 25 of your health? fun :|
    World building is phenomenal, but nothing is explained in depth and half the plot threads go no where.
    You get extra characters to add some diversity! But they handle like ass, are slow and one of them is literally crippled and plays like it. Fun :|
    Dialog is mostly great but the phrasing and the wording leaves you very confused when it isn't, like someone didn't proof-read the whole thing to see if every sentence had a noun to tell you what the **** are they talking about...

    I honestly feel bad for giving a mediocre review to a game made by one man and this game is unique in every aspect, from the tone to the world to the dialog. But it is a very uneven experience with entire segments ("lets split up so we can fight 3 characters that were introduced this very second! Why? To pad the game out of course!") being completely redundant and most of all frustrating.
    The best thing about this game is that at any point you can turn on the casual mode and just stroll to the ending while enjoying the story.    … Expand
  5. Spassbremse
    Oct 18, 2018
    7
    This game has an excellent story, interesting and complex characters, and quite a bit of fun puzzle-platforming and combat. I want to give it a 9/10 for that alone, but...sadly for every brilliant feature of the game there's an awkward or awful design choice in equal measure.

    Great: Characters/Story/Themes Music Inventive boss fights Bad: Random enemies at different parts of the    This game has an excellent story, interesting and complex characters, and quite a bit of fun puzzle-platforming and combat. I want to give it a 9/10 for that alone, but...sadly for every brilliant feature of the game there's an awkward or awful design choice in equal measure.

    Great:
    Characters/Story/Themes
    Music
    Inventive boss fights

    Bad:
    Random enemies at different parts of the game are unkillable and will stonewall you
    Bad boss fights with imprecise hit detection
    Being told "to go somewhere" by the game and getting lost for hours because the hint was vague, stupid, and ultimately misleading

    There is a lot to love here, it's just held back in weird ways throughout the game; still, overall, I enjoyed my time with it.    … Expand
  6. bl1rt
    Jan 3, 2019
    3
    The game does not live up to the praise (and price). Ultimately, there is a lot to like, but too little to enjoy.
    Most of the time is spent solving puzzles, like how to kill a certain enemy type, pushing platforms around, or find where to go next. Unfortunately, those puzzles are usually easy to figure out, yet hard to pull off because the controls frequently get in the way. This makes    The game does not live up to the praise (and price). Ultimately, there is a lot to like, but too little to enjoy.
    Most of the time is spent solving puzzles, like how to kill a certain enemy type, pushing platforms around, or find where to go next. Unfortunately, those puzzles are usually easy to figure out, yet hard to pull off because the controls frequently get in the way. This makes the game feel slow and artificially hard, and deeply unsatisfying to me.
    The art style is neat, but I found the music noticeable annoying at times, and quickly began skipping the story, as the characters constantly talk beyond where it is interesting.
    I stopped playing about three hours in. Kids might enjoy it more, but I think the bosses will be too hard for them.    … Expand
  7. AllySky
    Sep 5, 2018
    5
    Overall this game is fantastic, however it lacks something important. First off I want to say that it's amazing that one person made a game like this, but that can also be the games down fall. While in some rare cases the weaknesses of the bosses are shown in one way or another, being able to exploit that weakness is a whole 'nother thing. When it is just one person, you don't have otherOverall this game is fantastic, however it lacks something important. First off I want to say that it's amazing that one person made a game like this, but that can also be the games down fall. While in some rare cases the weaknesses of the bosses are shown in one way or another, being able to exploit that weakness is a whole 'nother thing. When it is just one person, you don't have other people to try out your product from a customer, or in this case, player point of view, the person who made this game knows all the secrets, the ins and outs, and what to do, in some cases like the bosses for example, it becomes so confusing that it becomes frustrating. It's a great but flawed game.… Expand
  8. MindWanderer
    May 19, 2020
    7
    This is a game full of conflicts that doesn't quite know what to do with itself.

    It's in a 16-bit cartoony style that would appeal to children, but the subject matter is incredibly mature, dealing with corrupt theocracy, torture, and graphic death. It's a Metroidvania with lots of hidden collectables, but those collectables--materials for crafting "tweaks"--quickly add up to more    This is a game full of conflicts that doesn't quite know what to do with itself.

    It's in a 16-bit cartoony style that would appeal to children, but the subject matter is incredibly mature, dealing with corrupt theocracy, torture, and graphic death.

    It's a Metroidvania with lots of hidden collectables, but those collectables--materials for crafting "tweaks"--quickly add up to more than you can really use until the post-game, so there's not much incentive to explore until then.

    The battles are tough but also contain puzzle elements, meaning that you'll spend a lot of time dying and reloading because you got to a new phase of a fight and have no idea what you're supposed to be doing. (At least the checkpoints are generous.) Some of the big bosses have a lot of moving parts and it can be hard to even see what's going on.

    There is a good (if dark) story, the mechanics are solid and unique, and the controls are smooth . There are just a lot of choices that crossed a line into being not fun. I usually try to 100% Metroidvanias, but the postgame here consists of optional bosses (frustrating), exploration (not rewarding), and fetch quests you'd never figure out without a guide or hours of random wandering, so no thanks. I beat the game at 59% and even that was after collecting a whole lot of stuff that was literally useless to me.    … Expand
  9. b00lpr0p
    May 7, 2019
    6
    It's a fun game, but it has some bad design choices. Sometimes the hints to solve the puzzles are vague and/or not understandable, and some bosses are just boring.
  10. crotch
    Sep 13, 2021
    8
    It would have been an easy 9, but the unusual boss fights really left a bad taste in my mouth.

    There were two boss fights in particular where I basically had to look up the solution on my phone. It’s like in those point-and-click adventure games where you have to to one specific thing, and until you figure it out (or look it up), there is absolutely no progress, and you’re just wasting    It would have been an easy 9, but the unusual boss fights really left a bad taste in my mouth.

    There were two boss fights in particular where I basically had to look up the solution on my phone. It’s like in those point-and-click adventure games where you have to to one specific thing, and until you figure it out (or look it up), there is absolutely no progress, and you’re just wasting your time.

    It’s funny to think that if this game had a ”walk in the park” mode for bosses, I would have liked it *more*. This game has so much going for it; it doesn’t need strange bosses. Alternatively, the game could have given you hints during the boss fights if you die a lot and/or make no progress. Not knowing what you’re supposed to do is just so frustrating, and that’s basically why I’ll never be able to enjoy a point-and-click adventure game.

    If you play the game with this in mind, it’s an easy 9 as I said. Just pull up a boss guide and use it as soon as you don’t know what to do. And then enjoy a game with a great story.    … Expand
  11. jeffbizloc
    Jun 4, 2019
    5
    Iconolclasts just could not pull me in. The platforming felt too outdated and the story didn't draw me.

    Game(s) like: Owlboy, old SNES games Pros: - The gameplay was part platforming and part simple puzzles and it was average Cons: - Some of the bosses you get an NPC character and I just had trouble figuring out what was going on. Imprecise. - Platforming felt imprecise as    Iconolclasts just could not pull me in. The platforming felt too outdated and the story didn't draw me.

    Game(s) like: Owlboy, old SNES games

    Pros:
    - The gameplay was part platforming and part simple puzzles and it was average

    Cons:
    - Some of the bosses you get an NPC character and I just had trouble figuring out what was going on. Imprecise.
    - Platforming felt imprecise as well
    - Started on hard and it was fine until I got a couple bosses in, switched to normal and it was too easy.    … Expand
  12. pmasterfunk
    Nov 8, 2019
    9
    Iconoclasts is an amazing game, with some minor flaws. It plays fine on Switch, so I have no reason to not recommend for this specific platform (damn you, Bloodstained).

    The game starts well enough, with a cutesy look and colours, simple puzzle platforming action. However, for me the story lags a bit after the introductory stages. The story hasn't really been set up yet, motivations are    Iconoclasts is an amazing game, with some minor flaws. It plays fine on Switch, so I have no reason to not recommend for this specific platform (damn you, Bloodstained).

    The game starts well enough, with a cutesy look and colours, simple puzzle platforming action. However, for me the story lags a bit after the introductory stages. The story hasn't really been set up yet, motivations are still unclear, and I wasn't really invested in the whole thing.

    Thankfully, once the midway point of the game comes around, the themes of the story start getting clear, and the characters' divergent beliefs and in-world politics and hierarchy are surprisingly profound. I did not expect this game to delve into topics of religious fanaticism and hubris, but it does so skillfully enough to not be either too critical or preachy. For me, the story is the highlight of the game.

    From a purely mechanical point of view Iconoclasts works well. The graphics are wonderful, animations smooth, and the world is amazingly detailed. The controls are okay, though I have some mild issues: I find the jumping momentum kinda finicky; and I find the ledge grabbing animation too slow, and bogs down exploration.

    The upgrades are nice, but not essential and not quite useful enough for me to mess around with them more. Chests only hold items for crafting upgrades, so I did't have too much interest in searching for them.

    Boss fights - which are many and often visually appealing - are mostly puzzle bosses, which is not my bag. I've beat one boss without really understanding what was going on, and could not figure out how to beat another without looking it up online.

    Now that I've finished the game and experienced the story, I don't feel like gameplay is quite strong enough for me to want to go back, at least not right now. I am however grateful to Joakim Sandberg for writing a deceptively deep piece of existentialism without making it patronizing and fitting it inside an enjoyable and easily-digestible video game. The game took me a bit less than 10 hours to complete.    … Expand
  13. iMustang
    Jan 13, 2020
    9
    Iconoclasts ended up being a very pleasant surprise of a game. Feeling like a hybrid between Megaman and Metroid (with dare I say an element or two of Zelda thrown in there), this game delivered a very solid adventure with lots of interesting characters, a driving story, and some really good music and visuals along the way. The story is not always the happiest being dystopian, but thatIconoclasts ended up being a very pleasant surprise of a game. Feeling like a hybrid between Megaman and Metroid (with dare I say an element or two of Zelda thrown in there), this game delivered a very solid adventure with lots of interesting characters, a driving story, and some really good music and visuals along the way. The story is not always the happiest being dystopian, but that seems to only project you to not only solve your problems, but the problems of the world as well. The story of this game is not what makes it great however, it's the addictive gameplay of exploring, blasting, and taking on fun bosses. The game is also very generous with its checkpoints, making the difficulty very reasonable. Overall this one gets a strong recommendation from me, especially if your like Metroid or Megaman.… Expand
  14. MiguelAngel242
    Feb 28, 2019
    10
    El mejor juego que he probado nunca, el estilo es perfecto, la música es fantástica y ambienta genial, los bosses y los personajes tienen una excelente historia y motivaciones propias, excelente jugabilidad con todos los personajes, la historia es brutal y las armas son variadas, necesarias (no inútiles) y se adaptan al juego perfectamente, la dificultad media un poco baja porque es unEl mejor juego que he probado nunca, el estilo es perfecto, la música es fantástica y ambienta genial, los bosses y los personajes tienen una excelente historia y motivaciones propias, excelente jugabilidad con todos los personajes, la historia es brutal y las armas son variadas, necesarias (no inútiles) y se adaptan al juego perfectamente, la dificultad media un poco baja porque es un juego de historia (la baja no la recomiendo) y la difícil para los que quieren un mayor reto (también hay una muy difícil al terminar el juego para los que quieren algo como un megaman), en resumen, compra recomendadisima.

    Única pega: el sistema de potenciadores no ofrece una ayuda relevante    … Expand
  15. JonatanPedroso
    Aug 3, 2019
    10
    Este jogo é uma obra de arte.
    A História é fantástica dentro desse mundo interessante e intrigante, os personagens são EXTREMAMENTE carismáticos, é praticamente impossível não gostar de nenhum, a trilha sonora é deliciosa e muito boa, a Pixel Art foi trabalhada até os mínimos detalhes. A gameplay é bem diversificada, e os puzzles te fazem sentir um gênio quando os resolve. O game é    Este jogo é uma obra de arte.
    A História é fantástica dentro desse mundo interessante e intrigante, os personagens são EXTREMAMENTE carismáticos, é praticamente impossível não gostar de nenhum, a trilha sonora é deliciosa e muito boa, a Pixel Art foi trabalhada até os mínimos detalhes. A gameplay é bem diversificada, e os puzzles te fazem sentir um gênio quando os resolve. O game é imprevisível, e nunca se sabe o que pode acontecer. Resumindo, esse jogo é LINDO.    … Expand
  16. Tkellgren
    Feb 14, 2020
    9
    The art style is awesome, the sound design is great, the humorous dialogue is done very well, the controls are tight, the difficulty level is perfect, challenging but not to the point of frustration, the upgrade system is good, just an all around awesome game for the switch.

    Highly recommend!
  17. SenseiMiguel
    Sep 1, 2019
    9
    Me enamore de este juego. Los jefes estaban brutales. Las musicas estaban nitidas. Le di 9 porque el jefe final me decepciono. No era algo WOW que esperaba. Fue muy random. Aun asi me gusto muchisimo el juego. Love it
  18. matt1184
    Oct 12, 2021
    0
    The dev really tried his hardest with this game, but it is just plain awful. It is a very poor quality Metroid clone that simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The gameplay is arduous and the rewards are few.
  19. GabFire
    Aug 10, 2020
    8
    Esse jogo é muito bem feito, história incrível com personagens ainda melhores, gostei muito do que vi e gostaria que tivesse mais sobre esse jogo, super recomendo.
  20. theradgasm
    Jan 29, 2020
    7
    Iconoclasts mini-review:

    A flawed game, with some fun to be found. Iconoclasts is neat "Metroidvania" with a lot of interesting concepts, but enough glaring problems to stop me recommending it.  The pixel art is phenomenal, and the chiptune music is excellent. And the CONTROLS! Wow, so satisfying! The plot is a bit nonsensical, the message is vague and muddled, and the dialogue, my    Iconoclasts mini-review:

    A flawed game, with some fun to be found.


    Iconoclasts is neat "Metroidvania" with a lot of interesting concepts, but enough glaring problems to stop me recommending it. 


    The pixel art is phenomenal, and the chiptune music is excellent. And the CONTROLS! Wow, so satisfying! The plot is a bit nonsensical, the message is vague and muddled, and the dialogue, my god, the dialogue is so painfully verbose and self-indulgent that I found myself mashing the button just to get through it. Not to mention, much of it comes in the form of excruciatingly frequent unskippable cutscenes.


    It's astounding and inspiring that a game like this can come from one individual developer's vision, but it clearly suffers from the solipsism that comes with that: the script could have massively benefited from a compassionately ruthless pass of an editor.


    I often compared the game to Super Metroid - a game that so clearly inspired every aspect of iconoclasts' design, and yet dwarfed it in every aspect. Metroid manages to pack in more story, atmosphere, and depth, with practically zero dialogue, where Iconoclasts is tripping over itself every four minutes to tell you (and tell you, and tell you) what's going on. That's the thing: Iconoclasts doesn't work because it Tells instead of Shows, and showing is what a great Metroidvania needs to do best.


    All said, I did enjoy Iconoclasts, in the stretches where the game for out of its own way and let you PLAY it. For me the joy of a Metroidvania is in the sense of discovery, like in Metroid, when you discover a new power-up that unlocks new places on the map, and new mechanics of play. In Iconoclasts, your power-ups aren't discovered like that, they're literally just handed to you by an NPC when the plot dictates that it's time for you to get it. And that's really a metaphor for everything Iconoclasts does wrong - the joy is in letting the player uncover the mysteries (and even leaving some things untold), not just barfing every last detail all out at them.


    If you're going to play Iconoclasts, and you don't mind a game spending a lot of your time wanking itself off, then give it a go. I paid ten bucks for it, played it for ten hours, and genuinely enjoyed five of them.


    6.75/10


    (This is my personal take, based on my personal tastes, and my mood. This isn't an empirical score. )


    Loved the graphics, some of the message at the end, and the music. Oh, and the controls were VERY satisfying. The writing was so bad (and so abundant) that it lost A LOT of marks, though.


    Have you played Iconoclasts, on Switch or other platforms?Did you pay full-price? What do you feel is the valueWhatdid you think of it? Which aspects did you like or dislike?

    I'm interested in others' takes on this game. I think the flaws make it more worth discussing!    … Expand
  21. MechaGojira
    Feb 27, 2020
    9
    Many a folks refer to Iconoclasts as a Metroidvania, and it is...... Though it really feels extremly lacking as a Metroidvania! There is not much back tracking needed to be done as the path of progression is fairly linier. Most backtracking is to find collectables, but exploring to find those collectables does not feel very rewarding at all. The use for the in game collectables just hasMany a folks refer to Iconoclasts as a Metroidvania, and it is...... Though it really feels extremly lacking as a Metroidvania! There is not much back tracking needed to be done as the path of progression is fairly linier. Most backtracking is to find collectables, but exploring to find those collectables does not feel very rewarding at all. The use for the in game collectables just has little to no impact on the game. I regret going after them as much as I did! The game goes as far as to have dialog making fun of backtracking at one point.....

    With all that negitivity out of the way, Iconoclasts was a fantastic game!!
    The graphics, music, sound effects, Character designs, dialog, story, and the combat was all just fantastic! Definitly a game I would highly recommend, not as a Metroidvania for sure, but by its own merits!    … Expand
  22. Daisuk
    Mar 4, 2021
    5
    The fact that one person made this game is nothing short of astounding. It's a very mixed bag, however. The puzzles are repetitive and boring, the boss fights riddled with bosses with poor hit boxes and there's just a boring blandness of "get this" and "fetch that" creeping in. The plot is somewhat interesting, but it's just not very engaging overall. The music is also downright annoyingThe fact that one person made this game is nothing short of astounding. It's a very mixed bag, however. The puzzles are repetitive and boring, the boss fights riddled with bosses with poor hit boxes and there's just a boring blandness of "get this" and "fetch that" creeping in. The plot is somewhat interesting, but it's just not very engaging overall. The music is also downright annoying at times. The character moves well and it looks colorful and vibrant at times, but it doesn't really help the game out of mediocrity for me.… Expand
  23. LilBlackRabbit
    Jul 11, 2020
    7
    I was never a big fan of action games tbh. I do not particularly enjoy the games that require the player to press the button fast or at the right time. I consider myself too clumsy for that. I never tried Celeste or Hollow knight. Oh well, I did try to play Hollow knight but that only last for less than an hour.
    However, I really like the art style of ICONOCLASTS so I decide to give it a    I was never a big fan of action games tbh. I do not particularly enjoy the games that require the player to press the button fast or at the right time. I consider myself too clumsy for that. I never tried Celeste or Hollow knight. Oh well, I did try to play Hollow knight but that only last for less than an hour.
    However, I really like the art style of ICONOCLASTS so I decide to give it a try.

    And it's not bad, not bad at all. The controlling part indeed got my nerves every now and then. But I do enjoy the art style and puzzle-solving, although some of the puzzles are kinda not reasonable. The story is intriguing and creative.

    However, even with a positive experience with ICONOCLASTS, I still choose not to play action games in the future. I mean the average gameplay time for ICONOCLASTS around 10 hours and it took me almost 20 hours to finish and I did not collect everything.....so.....I mean you get my point....

    BUT if you are a fan of action games and into retro art style. I would highly recommend you to play this game and I think you would enjoy it a lot!    … Expand
  24. kirrwed
    May 28, 2022
    4
    The single best feature of this game is that there are a number of quality puzzles to be solved with the arsenal of tools at your disposal. The controls and movement are also relatively tight. But after a few short hours of amusing gameplay, the game steadily got more tedious and unintuitive.

    So many of the enemies, especially at the end, just follow the same unintuitive pattern. You    The single best feature of this game is that there are a number of quality puzzles to be solved with the arsenal of tools at your disposal. The controls and movement are also relatively tight. But after a few short hours of amusing gameplay, the game steadily got more tedious and unintuitive.

    So many of the enemies, especially at the end, just follow the same unintuitive pattern. You don’t know which one of your weapons will do damage to them and at what point in the fight those weapons will do damage to them. So it’s like use weapon A when the boss is in position Z and then you can stun the boss, at which time you have to use charged up weapon B, etc…. It’s all random and tedious trial and error.

    SOME BOSS SPOILERS IN FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH:
    Like one fight has robot worm attacking you and you can only hurt it if you electric charge into it and when it isn’t shooting its bombs and you have to have grabbed this random sword that’s there for some reason. Another fight that looks like some aztec clown you have to hit a button, then swittch to another character to move a slider, then switch to the other and hit a lever and the clown moves over and only then is it vulnerable. There’s one place in the tower where a large electric sphere can’t be charged even though you are plenty close to it - they want to make you wait to get the shooting electric upgrade so it apparently doesn’t work earlier for that reason even though all the other same size spheres would have from that distance. The “mother” fight was ludicrous. She has at least 6 different attacks including jump, bullet hell of 3 projectiles, small boulder attack, medium boulder attack from Royal (which can only be stopped by rapid mashing of your original gun attack because you’ll find out through trial that hitting royal while he controls the boulder does nothing, no matter what weapon), large boulder attack, tail attack. Different tactics counter these. You can only damage her during the 3 projectile attack and THEN only after you first hit her “cat” twice in the mouth with bombs, and THEN you have to do a teleport switch with her, and THEN you have to run back to where she landed and get in a few hits. The fight is simply ridiculous. All of this takes tons of trial and error to figure out not only dodge timing, but which weapon will have any affect at which time, etc.. In the impact zone at the end, the ghosts can float out of the playing area where you can’t finish them off with the wrench spin. So you sit there waiting for them to float back into the field of play.

    END OF SPOILERS

    There is also way too much interruption with long sequences of dialogue. And finally, the villains are all religious fanatics foolishly thinking they are divine or whatever according to the game. The religious fanatic villain must be the most overused villain trope in gaming.    … Expand
  25. Nikopro245
    Oct 9, 2021
    6
    So what is Iconoclasts all about you wonder (or not)? It is a 2D platformer (with metroidvania elements) that I saw on a Youtube ‘Top-10’ so naturally I was intrigued.

    The story develops, gets deeper and more twisted as you progress with a lot of effort having gone into the character development that I don’t often come across in most games. Hence, quite a bit of time goes into the plot    So what is Iconoclasts all about you wonder (or not)? It is a 2D platformer (with metroidvania elements) that I saw on a Youtube ‘Top-10’ so naturally I was intrigued.

    The story develops, gets deeper and more twisted as you progress with a lot of effort having gone into the character development that I don’t often come across in most games. Hence, quite a bit of time goes into the plot and key protagonists, however, too many speech bubbles to skim through and the game really does take you on a bit of a tangent.

    The big brain-twister here is how the cute and perfectly pixelated graphics contrast heavily against the backdrop of a dark and violent adventure. And this is one place where Iconoclasts really does shine. The graphics themselves are beautiful with many difference backdrops, the most interesting (at least for me) being a trip to a space station in order to meet the space alien creature worshipped throughout the game by “One Concern”. The bosses also look both epic and beautiful with some of the best pixel art I have seen that again shows the amount of work and love which went into the game.

    So then how does the game play? Well it is a mixed bag, controls-wise it can be fidgety especially in boss fight with some pretty useless upgrades you can add to your trusty spanner - but here is the thing - I didn’t think it was that much fun. Sure the exploration was good, but the puzzles were not that exciting and I got lost quite a few times not knowing where to look whilst annoying tunes were constantly being played back. I didn’t get the same buzz I usually do with many other similar genre titles. In the end I was really just racing to finish the game which defeats the purpose and for that reason I would say that if this is a game you miss out on playing I really don’t think you are missing much of an ‘experience’ anyway.    … Expand
  26. Online_NPC
    Oct 11, 2021
    9
    Pixel-art metroidvania at it's best. At it's core, it's a puzzle game, with light combat and boss-fights to break it up. The pixel art was vibrant and smooth, the animations were crisp, and the characters surprisingly well detailed. The soundtrack was good and lots of fun with each zone having a central theme or melody. You weren't in any zone long enough o have the melody get repetitivePixel-art metroidvania at it's best. At it's core, it's a puzzle game, with light combat and boss-fights to break it up. The pixel art was vibrant and smooth, the animations were crisp, and the characters surprisingly well detailed. The soundtrack was good and lots of fun with each zone having a central theme or melody. You weren't in any zone long enough o have the melody get repetitive or boring. The story started off kind of cheesy, but the longer i played, the more I felt drawn into the world.

    Graphics: 9
    Gameplay: 8.5
    Audio: 8
    Story: 8.5    … Expand
  27. TheLinkgirl
    Jul 26, 2022
    1
    Disappointment. That's my experience of Iconoclasts in a single word. While the visual style of Iconoclasts is enough to suck you into buying it, everything else has no merit what so ever. The game is easy, the combat and puzzles are tiresome, the environments are uninteresting, the music is completely forgettable, and the characters are just there. There are tons of great MetroidvaniasDisappointment. That's my experience of Iconoclasts in a single word. While the visual style of Iconoclasts is enough to suck you into buying it, everything else has no merit what so ever. The game is easy, the combat and puzzles are tiresome, the environments are uninteresting, the music is completely forgettable, and the characters are just there. There are tons of great Metroidvanias out there like the Ori games, Rabi-Ribi, Hollow Knight and Momodora RutM. Iconoclasts is not one of them.… Expand
  28. rebster
    Nov 28, 2021
    8
    I got this game because I liked the way it looked and didn't know anything about the story. Once you start playing you notice that the story is actually dark. I also don't usually play 2D platformers and metroidvanias but this game has opened me up to them for sure. It is really impressive that Joakim Sandberg made this game by himself and for that he deserves a lot of credit.

    The game    I got this game because I liked the way it looked and didn't know anything about the story. Once you start playing you notice that the story is actually dark. I also don't usually play 2D platformers and metroidvanias but this game has opened me up to them for sure. It is really impressive that Joakim Sandberg made this game by himself and for that he deserves a lot of credit.

    The game looks beautiful, the music is good, the bosses are fun to fight and the tool upgrades are rewarding. You can play as different characters sometimes which is fun too, even though I have to say that personally I didn't feel connected to some of the characters, like Mina who we spend a lot of time with. For me my favourite part of the game was figuring out how to open the gates and similar puzzles.

    At first I really didn't care for the story as it seemed too deep and out of place in relation with the visuals of the game and I was simply playing for the fun of it. The story slowly grew on me and I became interested in the politics of their world. The game has the gift of making you question what is right and wrong - there was one particular boss fight where I felt truly guilty for killing them and it left a bad taste when it was over.

    Sometimes the dialogue can run on for a bit too long and I was just pressing the button to speed through the text.

    Finding chests is not that rewarding because there aren't that many different tweaks and you don't need many materials to craft them and they're not that useful so I feel like that aspect of the game wasn't that well integrated.

    Overall it's a really fun game to play and it kept me excited and wanting to progress. I recommend this to anyone that likes puzzle solving and lots of boss fights and the aesthetic of the game.    … Expand
  29. lolo6259
    Nov 5, 2022
    6
    At the beginning, i liked Iconoclasts as a good metroidvania.
    And objectively, it is.
    But soon, some drawbacks wasted my play time : - Really too verbose. Soon enough I started to lose interest in the story, and numerous and too long cutscenes/dialogs become a plague for me - Boss are difficult : until you find the way to hurt him, you make 0 damage, so it's very frustating. -    At the beginning, i liked Iconoclasts as a good metroidvania.
    And objectively, it is.

    But soon, some drawbacks wasted my play time :
    - Really too verbose. Soon enough I started to lose interest in the story, and numerous and too long cutscenes/dialogs become a plague for me
    - Boss are difficult : until you find the way to hurt him, you make 0 damage, so it's very frustating.
    - Sometimes too labyrinthine : minutes/hours lost, trying to find what to do and where to go    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

21
#21 Best Switch Game of 2018
59
#59 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
87

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Oct 29, 2018
    85
    I went into Iconoclasts completely blind and came out at the other end of the tunnel smiling. [Issue #36 – November/December 2018, p. 23]
  2. Switch Player
    Sep 4, 2018
    60
    Iconoclasts is a fun, but difficult platformer with a great cast of characters, brilliant controls and a fantastic soundtrack that is let down by a story with little direction.
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  3. ZTGD
    Aug 22, 2018
    90
    Iconoclasts is a brilliant game that permeates from the amount of care and time put into it. It is by far one of the best of 2018, and I recommend everyone give it a go. It is now available on almost everything (still waiting on my XB1 version guys!) and even if you are as sick of the tried and true formula of so many other games in this genre, this one stands out. Yes it is worth noting that we are affiliated with the publisher, but I promise that has no bearing on my feelings for this game. It stands out above the crowd and deserves so much more attention than it is currently getting.
    Read full review
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