LTTP: Iconoclasts - Local Men Ruin Everything [OPEN MAJOR SPOILERS]

[Don Fluffles]

I did not expect Joakim Sandberg's latest game to take such dark turns, even in the first hour. It didn't help that my expectations were set years ago by the Ivory Springs demo.


I love the story overall, but i can't help but think that two of the male side characters, Elro and Royal are, storywise, the most incompetent NPCs I've ever had, but especially Elro.

Throughout the game he:

• Asks Robin to fix the heater, which draws the ire of One Concern, getting his family killed and himself injured
• Constantly tells Robin that what she's doing is not safe for her, despite doing almost nothing of note without her
• Tries to take on Black with a sword, monologuing to her before getting shot, losing an arm and getting put in One Concern's prison.
• Kills Chrome, the only Once Concern member willing to reason with Robin and help save the earth
• Nearly refused to help launch the rocket carrying Robin and Royal until Mina shoots at him
• Near the end, where I'm at, he's like, "Let's just wait at home for the world to end because fuck everything."

Royal did a lot of dumb things that often made things go from worse to apocalyptic(WHY DID YOU FUCKING ATTACK THE STARWORM!), but at least you can understand that he's an obscenely naiive, pampered manchild. Elro's a fully grown adult who worked in the One Concern labs. Traumatized or not from the penance, it's not enough of a justification for being an incredible dumbass.

I'm now back on the planet trying to recover the half of the tweaks I missed throughout the entire game. Gameplay-wise, tweaks are my only major issue with Iconoclasts. I'm almost ready for the final boss, so please post Spoiler tags!
EDIT: Finished the game! Wooo! My other complaint is how only 45-degree sloped surfaces will let you slide down when you do a ground-pound.

The final boss had pretty much everything a great final boss does: Evocative design, a good challenge and provides closure. It took HUGE GUTS for Konjak (or severe trolling) to reveal that the Starworm was just a ship piloted by a bird guy who complains about the lack of ivory.

Story-wise, it's far from perfect. It's no Undertale by a long shot. But what it set out to do and accomplished set it far, far above a lot of story-heavy games.

 

[Alastor3]

I waited so many years for this game to be kind of disappointed gameplay wise :(

 

[Chivalry]

Got really bored of it a few hours in. Looks pretty, but not very satisfying to plan.

 

[Xagarath]

Loved this game. Really good blend of combat and puzzles, and the boss fights are reminiscent of the glory days of Treasure.

And yeah, Elro is the worst.

 

[EarthPainting]

I really liked this game, and yes, Elro is the pits.

 

[Ragnorok64]

My biggest issues are how much the game drags at the tower section and the fact that it forces you to leave Royal. You have the gun that swaps your positions there is no reason that should have had to happen.

Elro literally loses everything during the course of the game I can't be too hard on him.

 

[VaeVictis]

There is currently a Thread on Era asking people why they keep playing games that they are clearly not enjoying. I immediately thought of Iconoclast.
I wanted to like it due to previous works of Joakim Sandberg and the art style appealed to me. But the gameplay and ridiculous storyline kept pushing me away.
Since I was playing it on my Vita during my commute I played it only in short bursts and that made it more bearable, I guess.

It did have one memorable line I still remember, though :

Spoiler

Don't point your butt at me!

 

[Don Fluffles]

Personally, I loved the gameplay. I saw it as an action puzzle game and had a great time.

Even if you did use the usurper on Royal, I don't think the scanner on the other side would work. Also you couldn't jump over the blocks immediately after.

 

[lambdaupsilon]

when i think of compelling characters in games one of the first that comes to mind is, for some reason, black
she just resonates with me a lot

 

[Deleted member 5322]

Game was pretty wretched. And the way it treated Robin as a character was just...what are we doin

 

[Don Fluffles]

edit: double post. Looked like it was somehow saved even after the post.

 

[Rickenslacker]

I really liked this game, and yes, Elro is the pits.

Click to shrink...

No, Mina is the pits.

Stinky pits.

 

[TheMadTitan]

This thread reminded me that I need to finish it. Started it, and then Bloodstained came out.

 

[Nocturnowl]

This is one of those titles where I completely get where complaints are coming from, but ultimately I really enjoyed my time with it, even if it's probably a one and done for me.
Cracking bosses.

Yep, Elro was heavily flawed, I guess that's just a way to frame how early events in the plot really wreck him as a person and that he never truly recovers.

 

[PKrockin]

I blazed through this in only a few sessions. I thought it was a lot of fun to control, especially stomping on enemies, the bosses were great, and the difficulty was well balanced on hard. My only complaints with the game were that the level design was a bit obtuse sometimes, I feel like the story is unnecessarily confusing due to the writing, and that the tweak system is a bit pointless. Pretty fun game overall.

 

[hyouko]

I blazed through this in only a few sessions. I thought it was a lot of fun to control, especially stomping on enemies, the bosses were great, and the difficulty was well balanced on hard. My only complaints with the game were that the level design was a bit obtuse sometimes, I feel like the story is unnecessarily confusing due to the writing, and that the tweak system is a bit pointless. Pretty fun game overall.

Click to shrink...

Writing-wise... I feel like the game really could have benefited from a professional translator. The English in the game is comprehensible, but it's rather awkward - and that doesn't fly when a game is trying to lean as hard on its writing and characters as this one did. Assuming there's a version out there in Swedish (since Sandberg is Swedish), I'd be curious to know if it flows better that way.

I enjoyed my time with it overall, and the animation throughout is just gorgeous. It's hard to recommend without caveats, though.

 

[Nocturnowl]

Whoops, wrong thread

Let me just add something here, this game has one fun combo of walk cycle and sound effects, actually sound effects in general have punch here

 

[Don Fluffles]

Whoops, wrong thread

Let me just add something here, this game has one fun combo of walk cycle and sound effects, actually sound effects in general have punch here

Click to shrink...

This. It's great.

 

[StrangeRoboMemory]

I wanted to like this game so much but the characters are obnoxious and the story is awful.

 

[denpanosekai]

I beat it but I hated it. What a train wreck. Omg the tower went on forever.

 

[Don Fluffles]

I wanted to like this game so much but the characters are obnoxious and the story is awful.

Click to shrink...

I beat it but I hated it. What a train wreck. Omg the tower went on forever.

Click to shrink...

You have a chance to take back what you said.

 

[Seeya]

I loved it. One of my favourite recent games. Not sure where the complaints come from. The puzzles and free roaming were simple and intuitive, the story was amazing and actually had something to say. People say 'X character sucked' but that was the point of them? They weren't there to make you like them.

 

[Deleted member 19868]

I detest Elro and Royal. "Stubborn asshole men refusing to face reality and thereby dooming the world" is an incredibly realistic piece of storytelling, given current events, but I hate having to play a game where their whims determine what the player is allowed to do in the world. Robin has almost no agency at all, she just gets shoved from place to place, and has to do whatever the other characters want her to do. That's a terrible choice for a Metroidvania game, and it's poor storytelling too. The only characters who are even remotely likable are Samba and Mina, because at least Mina realizes she's a terrible person and wants to grow up for the sake of Samba and Robin. I guess the doctor is all right as well.

I've never been this disappointed by a game from an otherwise good dev before. I'm up to the One Concern West, but given spoilers in this thread, I don't want to bother continuing. It's a shame, because the music and the actual gameplay is good, and the boss fights are great. The rest is just so bad.

edit: I can understand why people would find the overall plot compelling, of course, but as someone who struggles hard with depression and has to try hard not to give up due to the daily onslaught of terrible news, it's so not what I want in a video game right now. Maybe if a I'm feeling better someday Imclild finish it, but right now, I can't.

 

[Seeya]

I detest Elro and Royal. "Stubborn asshole men refusing to face reality and thereby dooming the world" is an incredibly realistic piece of storytelling, given current events, but I hate having to play a game where their whims determine what the player is allowed to do in the world. Robin has almost no agency at all, she just gets shoved from place to place, and has to do whatever the other characters want her to do. That's a terrible choice for a Metroidvania game, and it's poor storytelling too. The only characters who are even remotely likable are Samba and Mina, because at least Mina realizes she's a terrible person and wants to grow up for the sake of Samba and Robin. I guess the doctor is all right as well.

I've never been this disappointed by a game from an otherwise good dev before. I'm up to the One Concern West, but given spoilers in this thread, I don't want to bother continuing. It's a shame, because the music and the actual gameplay is good, and the boss fights are great. The rest is just so bad.

edit: I can understand why people would find the overall plot compelling, of course, but as someone who struggles hard with depression and has to try hard not to give up due to the daily onslaught of terrible news, it's so not what I want in a video game right now. Maybe if a I'm feeling better someday Imclild finish it, but right now, I can't.

Click to shrink...

Completely fair, though I will say that Robin drives the story moving forward, and the end scene is a fantastic bit of non verbal character exposition. I wouldn't recommend finishing the game until you feel better, shit gets dire.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

Yeah the game gets dark, and many characters are deeply flawed, but it works on the setting.
Also, the animation and gameplay are really solid.

 

[AStrangerIsHere]

When I had to retry the stealth section multiple times (and later on, the rhythm section with the soldiers), I knew that game wasn't for me. That was too bad, because I really wanted to love it.

 

[Feep]

I personally loved the story. It had an "off-ness" about it that perhaps results from the creator's non-native English, but characters felt realistic and it had some absolutely gut-wrenching moments (right before the space station explodes, notably). Really unique setting and themes, I think.

Also, incredible boss battles and spritework. Whew.

 

[Jakke_Koala]

I really liked this game, it was one of my GOTY contenders last year
The boss fights and boss design was pretty great and the story was compelling. And it really gets kinda weird.
The characters were cool, but flawed and the artwork is so beautiful.

It's amazing this game was made by 1 person.

 

[eXistor]

Very fun game, but people had led me to believe it was a Metroidvania. It's very much not. Fun game though, cool graphics, tight controls and the story was actually pretty decent.

 

[Asbsand]

The game plays beautifully but it sure feels like a story created by one guy riffing on their favorite kind of isms and movie-like quotes.

 

[Manzoli]

I love it!!!

Was not expecting a dark story based on the visuals and got very surprised with a very dark plot.

Gameplay was ok. I got so into the plot that it became kind of an annoyance really. Buy i still dig it!!

Would recommend the game anytime!

 

[FreddeGredde]

I really really loved this game, and I don't understand how anyone can complain about the gameplay. I thought the controls were spot-on!

The story was nice too, but I agree that the dialog was clumsy and too complex. It wasn't needed in my opinion.

 

[NediarPT88]

I liked the game overall, though by the end of it I was skipping the dialogue which is something I pretty much never do, I didn't like the characters and writing. The presentation was pretty good though.

Bosses were hit or miss, I usually don't like gimmick bosses and that's the majority in this game. I did enjoy the fights against Black and I also remember a cool hidden fight against two opponents at the same time.

 

[lightning16]

This game was a pretty big disappointment for me. I was on a bit of a Metroidvania high when this came out, and this was one of the games that brought me back down to earth.

I'm in the camp that really didn't like the writing at all. I hated most of the characters (probably intentional?). Not only were they almost entirely just comically awful people (again, probably intentional), they were exceedingly annoying on top of it. They were terrible. Made it hard to care about the story. It all felt very schlocky to me. And it's the type of game where if you weren't digging the writing, I don't think it offers a ton else outside of that. The combat felt pretty good to use but was never put to great use imo. Level/map design was pretty subpar. Exploration was limited and didn't feel rewarding. Only thing this game did especially well was the sprites were great.

 

[Thatguy]

I waited so many years for this game to be kind of disappointed gameplay wise :(

Click to shrink...

Agreed. I thought the story was complete trash too. Still fun enough to finish which probably is a comment on how much I enjoy metroidvanias.