The magic of Iconoclasts lies in its characters. The story wouldn’t be as good were it not for the animated depth in its entire cast. Without the narrative, the mechanics would not be enough to elevate it above other indies of similar style.

Such a statement may seem to devalue the hard work developer Joakim “Konjak” Sandberg had put into the entirety of this game – and startling as it is, pretty much every aspect of this title was handled by just the one man. The rest of the credits are largely QA staffers and relevant staff at publisher BiFrost that helped get this game through quality assurance and certification. Regardless of objective quality, Iconoclasts stands alongside surprisingly polished and executed titles as Stardew Valley.

Despite the Herculean task of making a game by oneself, even Demigods have finite power and are prone to making mistakes.

Before I discuss those flaws, I’d like to perhaps clarify the nature of the game. A lot of folks refer to it as a “Metroidvania”, and while I have no doubt that such titles play a heavy inspiration, it is also a label that misrepresents the nature of gameplay. Narrative-driven puzzle-platformer is closer, though still limited in representation of the product. Narrative-drive action-puzzle-platformer just becomes too much of a tongue-twister, and still fails to represent the lesser-exploration present in each region.

Those familiar with me know that this sort of genre mash-up is my fetish, and so Iconoclasts was bound to appeal to me regardless of what you’d call it. The side-scrolling perspective and focus on gates and locks may call to mind Super Metroid, but each environment containing rooms of puzzles that build upon one another brings The Legend of Zelda to mind instead. A natural combination, as both franchises share many traits. Many of these puzzles ask “what would a mechanic (as in, the profession) do if abstracted to a Super Nintendo era video game?” This results in greater cleverness than lighting torches or merely pushing blocks.

In fact, the very interacting with blocks calls to mind Super Mario Bros. 2 or Capcom’s Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers – or if I’m being honest to my inspirations, Mickey’s Dangerous Chase – indicating how varied and deep the game’s inspirations run.

The majority of time in the game will be spent learning and navigating these different puzzles, broken up by a variety of cleverly constructed boss fights that rely on some clever tricks and tactics. Weak points may not always be immediately apparent, and sometimes the trick isn’t even to fight the opponent at all but to escape them. Some players may find themselves reaching for the nearest available Let’s Play, tolerating the annoying observations of wannabe-PewDiePie’s in hopes of discovering a solution to a particular brain-buster. There are areas I personally struggled where I shouldn’t have and some solutions I found intuitively that others may not have.

This is the problem with puzzles. They’re damn near impossible to balance unless you have the focus testing knowledge and resources of a studio like former game developer Valve*.

Despite the jagged-toothed difficulty of these puzzles and bosses, their variety isn’t the only thing that makes them impressive. It’s the small handful of mechanics that Sandberg uses to build such a diverse combination of brain teasers and challenges. Mario’s plumbing background may be mere decoration, but protagonist Robin’s skills as a mechanic are core to the gameplay as she twists bolts and gears throughout the world. This is perhaps one of the reason I do not consider Iconoclasts a Metroidvania. You’re not really focused on expanding your arsenal, and most hidden treasures and secrets are components to “tweaking” your performance. Swing the wrench for a bit longer, extend the amount of time you hold your breath, increase the speed at which you run, these are all minor incremental upgrades that you swap out rather than use to permanently increase your capability.

Any necessary upgrades are freely given at the appointed time rather than hidden in some corner of the planet. Just like an old skool Nintendo upgrade, however, that additional power is all about squeezing out every possible function of one simple Wrench or Stun Gun. You will never have an insane combination of buttons or inventory to wrestle with, yet these minor changes to capability allow Sandberg to take many of those old puzzles and remix them with new and inventive twists.

You can think of it as simple multiplication. A 2x2 grid is only going to have four squares, but simply increasing to 3x3 more than doubles the quantity of squares to nine. Increase it once more and you’ve got four-times the original squares as you started with. The puzzles and bosses work in a similar fashion in Iconoclasts.

Despite the variety, however, I cannot say that the gameplay snagged me like other, similar indie games. If I were to compare on a raw mechanical level, I’d say last year’s Hollow Knight had me much more deeply invested.

That’s fine. Iconoclasts is bound to be the game I return to more often regardless of gameplay quality (though I still enjoy it, and that certainly makes it easier to return). It instead excels where I least expect an indie title to excel, far surpassing much of what the AAA industry has on offer: story.

It’s not just the quality of the narrative, but how it is presented throughout the game. I’ll admit, the early exposition in Iconoclasts is rough, and it’s easy to be dismissive at yet another negative representation of Catholicism. Stargate SG-1 ran this sort of material into the ground back in the 90’s and early aughts. If you’re going to come at me with a critique of the Catholic Church you’d better come at me with something as captivating as Final Fantasy Tactics.

Throughout the game characters will also occasionally reach a point of verbosity in desperate need of an editor. Despite this occasional stumbling block and an engine that sputters and stalls on start-up, Iconoclasts gets the engine running after a few hours and hums with the sweet, sweet purr of character development.

Firstly, Iconoclasts is not a game about religion being bad, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Sandberg were an Atheist. It’s not even about environmentalism, no matter that the finite supply of Ivory, the planet’s energy resource, is clearly a parallel to oil. I found Iconoclasts to instead be a game about purpose. Characters of differing religions rely on their faith to provide purpose. Others struggle against the purpose their faith has defined for them. Some crumble as their assumed faith – and therefore purpose – is lost or proven a lie.

Robin, the protagonist, is a most suitable cipher for the player in such a world. Representing the freedom to choose one’s own purpose, this silent protagonist is constantly disobeying or disagreeing with those around her – even family and friends – and following her own will. Her purpose is what she decides. This may seem a bit contradictory compared to the meta-commentary of a game like Bioshock, especially in light of a near end-game decision that I think may be the only choice available – a choice I’d have rather done differently or found an alternative for. For the sake of the narrative, however, Robin is free of the shackles all other characters feel compelled to keep latched onto their wrists and ankles.

I would not call Robin a “character” due to her silent status as cipher. She never really exhibits proper flaws. However, Sandberg animates her in just the most perfect way to give her a widespread appeal. Some of her actions are vicious, others cute, and towards the end she clearly starts running out of frells to give. What little timidity she has early on is dead by the conclusion, and her response to saving the world is one of my favorites in a video game.

As far as silent cipher protagonists go, she’s certainly more likeable and has more personality than Ness, Crono, or even the likes of Master Chief – who perhaps talks too much.

Iconoclasts is not unique in having good characters and animation, but it succeeds where so few games do: the sense of rising action, escalation of scale, and climax are handled on the level of some of the best anime and novels I’ve read. It is why I played over three hours in a single sitting. I was driven to know what would happen next, and in most instances the game actually reduced the complexity of many of these puzzles and environments in order to keep that sense of pace. In some ways gameplay breaks still felt like a bit of an obligation, and one could argue Sandberg may have been running out of time or ideas, but it works. Too many games try to push in an exorbitant amount of challenging gameplay so that the mechanics rise in difficulty in tandem with stakes, but they often become little more than distraction. Instead, gameplay is softened without reducing challenge.

In some ways it is still a bit much, and while the majority of the boss fights towards the game’s conclusion are thematically appropriate, some feel like unnecessary padding or unnecessarily padded. This is sort of the curse of Iconoclasts: even when it’s doing something extraordinarily well it still trips up at points. Start to finish, it is not a perfect game.

However, it is one of the best examples we have of telling a riveting story in games, and it didn’t have to rely on cheap meta-commentary to do so. It is shameless in interrupting gameplay with character-driven dialogue, and it is not afraid to reduce the gameplay’s priority in favor of pushing that emotional punch forward.

Were it just the mechanics, I don’t know how often I’d feel compelled to return to Iconoclasts. Thanks to that narrative, I’m already itching to give it another spin. I encourage you to give it at least one yourself.

* This is a joke. I’m hoping I don’t need to explain it but I know someone is going to think this is an erroneous claim.