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:
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.
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.
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.
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