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. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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.
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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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