Iconoclasts

Iconoclasts is an indie-darling created by sole developer, Joakim "Konjak" Sandberg. It is a metroid-vania inspired game that features excellent sprite and animation work. The game offers clever puzzles, an impressive variety of boss fights and a surprisingly deep and dark story. Unfortunately Iconoclasts falters with other elements. The Tweaks upgrade mechanic is underutilized. Combat outside of boss fights is not exciting. And the storytelling is poor and convoluted.

Robin is an unlicensed mechanic residing in Settlement 17. She and her fellow inhabitants live under a religious totalitarian organization known as the One Concern. Practicing engineering without their approval, results in a Penance, where the perpetrator is executed and their home is demolished. Despite these risks, Robin decides to continue practicing to follow in her father’s footsteps. She is caught by the Agents of One Concern repairing her brother’s house and is promptly imprisoned. Fortunately, Robin is jailed along with an Isi woman named Mina who helps her escape. Robin and Mina go on a wild adventure, fleeing from the One Concern, whilst investigating the frequent tremors across the land, the mysterious powers of Ivory and One Concern’s true objective.

Robin’s base equipment is a wrench and ranged stun gun. Her wrench is a video game Swiss army knife. She can use it as a melee weapon, to open or activate various switches and doors, to hang on to elevated bolts, parry ranged attacks and generate electricity by twirling it around. Robin’s stun gun in the meanwhile, is less impressive, outside of doing a charged shot to blast away barriers, the stun gun is Robin’s only direct ranged attack for the majority of the game. Iconoclasts breaks with the usual formula of metroid-vanias in that it is not a combat heavy game. Most rooms involve some puzzle and platforming element where players have to guide Robin to turn various knobs or swing across chasms. Bosses have The Legend of Zelda-like charm to them where they are puzzles in themselves and Robin will usually have to do something to expose their weaknesses.

Iconoclasts introduces a Tweak system that doesn’t feel very well thought out. Throughout the world, Robin can collect materials recovered from chests that can be crafted into Tweaks. Tweaks grant minor boosts to Robin’s kit, such as Iron Heart which nullifies a single hit or Fleet Foot which increases movement speed. She can equip three Tweaks at a time and getting hit removes the right most Tweak. To recover them, Robin has to damage enemies or break statues. Due to the nature of how Tweaks are lost after getting hit, there isn’t much incentive to invest heavily into them. Most players would do fine to stack three Iron Heart Tweaks and call it a day. There are more interesting and varied Tweaks out there, but I found them very gimmicky and only useful for speed runs or unlocking hard to earn chests.

Iconoclasts also features a Party system or rather a Party icon permanently affixed to the top-right of the screen. The Party icon indicates who is currently traveling along with Robin… that’s it. There is no character switching or anything of that sort so it’s a complete waste of gameplay real estate. It’s a minor gripe but fixed GUI elements like these make playing on an OLED screen susceptible to screen burn-in. The only occasion where players can swap to Mina is in two boss fights. Unlike Robin, Mina is armed with a deadly shotgun and can perform a slide dash. There isn’t much puzzle solving during Mina’s parts and it is more about swapping back and forth between Robin and Mina to defeat these bosses.

I’m mixed with regards to the story of Iconoclasts. The lore is genuinely interesting, with numerous flawed characters, a mix of religious and sci-fi elements and a reoccuring theme of parental love. The game is also very poorly told and feels like the equivalent of being forced to watch an episode mid-season without any context. Iconoclasts tells its story by flooding players with proper noun after proper noun. The story does start to piece itself together by the end and will probably make more sense on a second playthrough.

Iconoclasts is a charming metroid-vania with clever puzzles and varied boss fights. It is a beautiful game with expertly crafted animations. The game’s cartoon appearance is deceiving as it harbors a dark and nuanced tale. Minor spoilers… I would not recommend parents letting their 8 year old play this game, as there are numerous occasions of limbs being torn off and bodies exploding. Iconoclasts will be disappointing to players expecting a more traditional metroid-vania. There are no substantial power-ups to collect and Robin’s equipment remains relatively the same until the end game. Iconoclasts is an easy recommendation if you enjoy challenging puzzles and compelling (albeit poorly told) lore.