History VideoGame / Iconoclasts

''Iconoclasts'' is a {{Metroidvania}} PlatformGame developed by Joakim "Creator/{{konjak}}" Sandberg and published by Bifrost Entertainment, formerly a {{retraux}} VideoGame/CaveStory-influenced project called ''Ivory Springs''. It was in development for seven years before finally releasing in January of 2018.

* During boss fights, incidental dialogue said by the NPC heroes will give hints as to what you need to do. For instance, in the ClimaxBoss fight in City One, Mina will shout "get down here!" at the boss, hinting that you need to use the Usurper's charge shot to bring them to the ground.

* {{Antepiece}}: When Robin arrives at [[spoiler:City One]], she's stopped by a gatekeeper, and the only way to get past him is to use the Usurper's charge shot, which pulls him off the high platform and onto the ground. This weakness is shared with [[spoiler:Mother]], the boss fought a few minutes after this scene.

** [[spoiler:Elro gets a segment during One Concern East as well, though most of it is him limping through the hallway with only a few enemies present. He fights Lawrence at the end of it.]]

** Lawrence health in his boss fight in Challenge Mode is reduced to 6 from standard 12. Very convenient for a fight, [[OneHitPointWonder where one mistake means repeating fight.]]

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Mina and Robin. Mina carries a large shotgun, bashes things with its butt, has enough body odor that a trained hunter can track her by scent, and gets angry a lot. Her chosen profession at the start of the game is wandering the world looking for stuff to take. Robin may be a mechanic with an oversized wrench, but also carries a small stun pistol (see TechnicalPacifist), apparently bathes regularly, gets flustered, embarrassed, or scared far more easily, and even dolls up her hair. Her chosen profession at the start of the game is to fix up and nurture a settlement near where she lives. This distinction is on display in the fight against [[spoiler:Mother]], wherein Robin [[spoiler:counters and dodges Mother's attacks, occasionally stunning Mother and pulling her out from protection]] while Mina [[spoiler:is the one to do the actual damage against her by shoving seeds into her body, after Robin has made her vulnerable]].

* VillainProtagonist: [[spoiler:Elro, whose stubbornness and selfishness nearly doom the planet to destruction several times over. His controlling nature with Robin and fear for her after losing his wife and child also cause several problems throughout the game and result in a needlessly antagonistic relationship with Mina. His RevengeBeforeReason attitude also results in his arm getting torn off by someone ''much'' stronger than he is, wounding him even further.]]

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [[spoiler:Leticia]] sure doesn't, as noted when [[spoiler:Robin defeats Fitzroy]].
-->''"Eternity" is only the dream of irresponsible children. Nothing with a propensity for fear would ever endure eternity.''

* YourHeadAsplode: The demise of [[spoiler:Agent Black's final form, preceded by her uttering "HEAD...ACHE" for one final time.]]

* DevelopersForesight: After being taken into [[NoGearLevel The Tower]], it's possible to use a [[GoodBadBugs long dive]] to enter the Strange Contraption entrance without your wrench. In order to keep players from getting stuck, this Strange Contraption entrance is one of the ''only'' ones that ''doesn't'' require you to use your wrench to leave.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Subverted with the final boss, [[spoiler:the Starworm Himself. Right after you ''finally'' beat it into submission (using a wrench and a ''handgun''), a hatch in His head opens cleanly to reveal a cockpit... With a very pissed, wrench-wielding ''bird'' inside. ''It's not actually a god!'']]

** Even earlier in the timeline: [[spoiler:Agent Black mentions her repeated suicide attempts untold numbers of years ago, until she finally accepted it was easy for her to be brought back.]]

** Once [[spoiler:Mother dies, Aisling Ferrier and Emmet Darland are seen trying to strangle each other with their scarves, fearful of the incoming Star Worm.]] It's somewhat fitting, given that [[spoiler:Darland was one of those who ordered to stage Gerry's suicide. The end credits, however, reveal that he survives, while Ferrier is nowhere to be seen.]]

* EasierThanEasy: The Relaxed difficulty mode, in which the player character [[NighInvulnerability doesn't take actual damage when hit]], and only has their Tweaks broken. There's only two instances where the player can die in this mode: [[spoiler:getting crushed to death during the Omega Controller fight]], and [[spoiler:[[TimedMission running out of time]] when escaping Midway]].

** Robin, Mina, Royal, and Elro all practice some form of self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good. Robin has ChronicHeroSyndrome, Mina pursues the Once Concern in the name of saving the Isi ([[HeroicSelfDeprecation even if she hates herself for it]]), Elro is willing to [[spoiler:attempt a HeroicSacrifice in the name of saving Robin's life by confronting Agent Black alone]], and Royal eventually comes to lose his HolierThanThou attitude in the name of helping the good guys.

* NewGamePlus: Beating the game allows you to save a completed file. Continuing the file will restart the game, but keep all of your Tweaks.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It seems that Royal is particularly good at this. First, [[spoiler:he accidentally activates and is forced to destroy the Omega Controller, which throws the planet's ecosystem out of balance and summons the Starworm. He heads to City One to confront Mother, which basically allows Chrome to start his rebellion, which sparks a vicious civil war. He also attacks the Starworm when it ignores him, only causing it to be angered and attack the planet. Though that last one may have been for the best, as the attack left a vulnerable spot on the Starworm, and it's likely a fight would have occurred regardless of Royal's assault]].
** You can make a lesser case for every single potential hero, as just about everyone manages to in some way make things ironically worse, betraying the point of their values due to acting on them. Robin being a HeroicMime is the primary reason she's exempt, as it keeps the audience at just enough of a remove to leave her beliefs if not her motivations ambiguous.

* NotSoStoic: [[spoiler:Agent White's death by Ivory-accelerated Isi Seed growth clearly terrifies Agent Black, while Grey's death at the hands of Elro actually made her break down. And that's not getting into her SanitySlippage in the game's climax.]]

** Robin, Mina, Royal, and Elro all practice some form of self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good. Robin has ChronicHeroSyndrone, Mina pursues the Once Concern in the name of saving the Isi ([[HeroicSelfDeprecation even if she hates herself for it]]), Elro is willing to [[spoiler:attempt a HeroicSacrifice in the name of saving Robin's life by confronting Agent Black alone]], and Royal eventually comes to lose his HolierThanThou attitude in the name of helping the good guys.

** There's no getting around [[spoiler:leaving Royal to die on a decompressing Midway, as one scanner is pulled too far away from the door to work while you're carrying him, and the other is just flat out broken, meaning trying to use the Usurper Shot to position him near it would be pointless [[GameplayAndStorySegregation even if it did work]]. The game even twists the knife by giving you way more time than you need to escape, as if to suggest that there is actually a way to save him when there isn't.]]
** Far more egregious example at City One. Usually, you are locked into a boss battle by the One Concern metal doors activating behind you. However, this doesn't happen when [[spoiler:fighting Mother, because all she wants is for you to get out of the way, and let her converse with her people in peace. She even offers to talk to you at the Bastion at first, before ordering Bastion Elites to escort you there.]] Yet, you are forced to fight regardless, the way out blocked by an InvisibleWall, even though [[spoiler:the reason you wanted to meet her in the first place was so that she could '''heal''' Elro, which she obviously can't do at all once she's dead.]]
* RainbowSpeak: Anything important is usually highlighted in [[red:red]]. This includes hints and things that may not seem important at the time ("cartography?").

** Once reduced to just a head, all the Carver machine in Ferrier Shockwood can do is spin its blades to produce debris. Elro will jam his sword into the blades to lock them up, at which point Robin has to charge up and grab a rail to ram into the head and knock it back; this repeats for a while, with Robin occasionally dislodging Elro’s sword from the ceiling, until the Carver nearly falls off a cliff (the "abyss" was only a few feet deep, but the Controller that Mina was chasing pops out and wrecks it).

* RelationshipReveal: Though they made it glaringly obvious throughout the game, [[spoiler:the ending credits show Mina and Samba reuniting for the first time since rescuing her from the Tower... and promptly start passionately making out]].
* RingOutBoss: Double subverted. In the second phase of the train boss, Robin and Elro knock what's left of the train backwards into a pit. The subversion comes when it turns out the pit behind the boss is only a few feet deep, causing the operator to get out of the train and laugh at them. But then, it's double subverted when a Collector comes from beneath and rips open the ground, causing the train to fall.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Robin's GroundPound has a mild homing effect on enemies, making it easier to land hits even if your aim is slightly off.

* CaptainErsatz: Not in terms of what she does, but [[VideoGame/CryptOfTheNecrodancer Robin looks familiar...]]

** [[spoiler:Fitzroy]] slowly crawls towards Robin for his first two phases, which only makes it harder to keep dodging attacks from [[spoiler:the golem face made of Ivory rising out of his back, which represents his memory of Leticia as she once was, and of her after she lost her face to Transcendence, respectively.]].

* AlienBlood: Two separate examples. [[spoiler:Transcended individuals bleed white, as they've become totally infused with Ivory. Then, the final boss may have blue feathers, but its blood is green]].
* AllForNothing: All the pain and sacrifice to get [[spoiler:Royal to the moon to commune with the Starworm ends up not mattering —- Royal can't even get the thing to respond to him. He does end up wounding Him, which then allowed Robin to defeat Him, but he could have done that on the planet, too.]] In a larger sense, [[spoiler:all the panic and strife over the Starworm's return ends up not mattering either, since Robin still kicks its ass.]]

* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: Barely a few hours pass between Robin, Mina and Royal getting to Isilugar, and the attack on it by the One Concern. [[spoiler:it gets moved to prevent them from sending back-up down there, and the whole battle works out well for the Isi, but disastrous for the One Concern, since the only person to die in the battle is Agent White, earlier considered to be nigh-immortal. They also lose ten soldiers prisoner, while Isi only lose Samba, who is eventually recovered by Mina anyway.]]

** Don't let what's expected of you or indoctrinated into you cause you to ignore what's right, but at the same time, don't let your ego prevent you from seeing right and wrong clearly in the first place. Each of the supporting characters are weighed down by what is expected of them (or what they expect of others) and what that costs them personally, while wrestling with their own selfish impulses that only make things worse: Robin, on the flipside, is characterized by her staunch devotion to whatever she can do to help regardless of what anyone thinks, and her sense of self sacrifice.

* AndIMustScream: It's implied that being possessed by the blue eye creatures feels like this. [[spoiler:It's further implied that if Starworm was alive, and not just a mech, then this is what it felt for untold years as the pilot controlled it through the blue eyes. If so, then the pilot being killed by the Starworm "malfunctioning" and attacking him instead of you might not have been a malfunction at all, but the Starworm regaining control over its body and spending its last moments before death [[TheDogBitesBack getting revenge on the asshole who enslaved it to use as a spaceship]]]].

* OrcusOnHisThrone: Mother is essentially the goddess of the One Concern and the ruler of the planet, and yet, she hardly does anything with this power, and simply stays in City One, [[spoiler:waiting for the B-17 rocket to get finished and take her to the moon]] and only venturing out to inspire her "children" [[spoiler:where she ends up killed by an angry Mina with Robin's assistance]]. Everything the One Concern does during the game is initiated by the lower-level leaders, be they Transcended, like Agent Black or General Chrome, or even regular humans, like Ferrier and Darland. It's implied that she's lived for so long, she's beginning to enter the kind of decline seen in [[spoiler:Father and Fitzroy]], and so her commanders have taken on the active roles, and are already squabbling for succession.

* FauxAffablyEvil:
** Mother is a borderline example. On one hand, she genuinely believes in what she and One Concern is doing, and seems to genuinely care for all her "children", which is seen very well when she's contrasted with Royal. Her original plan [[spoiler:to finish the B-17 rocket so that it would hold as many humans as possible and take them to a new world, before this one breaks apart from Ivory overuse]] could also have saved the world, even if at an enormous cost. On the other hand, she still presides over a theocracy which liberally executes those violating its decrees and hunts down dissenters like Isi, as well as [[spoiler:creating a Tower complex to indoctrinate a few dozen chosen pupils into worshiping her above everything else, and considering them a priority over everyone besides the agents when Royal destroyed the Omega Controller and put paid to her original plan.]]
** Emmet Darland is a regular human who nevertheless became One Concern's most important civilian commander, who oversees its most important projects like [[spoiler:The Tower and B-17 rocket]], while agents and Chrome, powerful as they are, are simply guarding them. He is a soft-spoken and thoughtful man, whose notes at One Concern HQ reveal his regrets about the way the war with the Isi went, among other examples. He also [[spoiler:orders for Gerry, a frightened pupil at the Tower who left it too early and saw that the outside world is not the wasteland as the pupils were told, to be shot with a prototype of Star Worm's guilt weapon, so that he would commit suicide on a stage in front of the other pupils, and thus dissuade them from ever leaving it again.]]

* BraggingRightsReward: For the purposes of a single playthrough, the DoubleJump tweak granted after [[spoiler:defeating Mother's Corners]] is useless, since all that's left of the story by the time they're available to fight is [[spoiler:to confront the Starworm]]. It can still be carried over to a NewGamePlus, however. Same goes for [[spoiler:defeating Fitzroy]], since the tweak from his fight is a JokeItem designed for a SelfImposedChallenge.

* InterfaceSpoiler: There are five save slots, each with a different character's sprite marking it. First is Robin, the player character. Mina, the first player to join your party, is second, followed by your third party member, Royal. [[spoiler:This is your first big clue that Elro didn't die with the rest of his family in the Penance, as he's the fourth save icon.]] Averted with [[spoiler:Agent Black, who is the fifth save slot yet never joins the party.]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: On the one hand, Ivory is revered as sacred and powerful for good reason, as it can cause superpowers in those exposed to high amounts of the stuff, ultimately culminating in psychic powers that border on RealityWarping and an absurdly powerful HealingFactor. [[spoiler:Not to mention removal of it causes things to turn into a purple dust that inhibits said powers.]] On the other hand, [[spoiler:considering how the birdman piloting the Starworm (AKA Him) treats the stuff, it may just be a strange, mutagenic oil]].

* TacticalSuicideBoss: In its first phase, the Kerthunk boss can only be damaged when it throws its metal arm in the center of the screen.

* DespairEventHorizon: Agent Black went careening past it long ago, according to herself. [[spoiler:She almost came back when Agent Grey started trying (successfully if her dialogue before her final fight is any indication) to woo her, but that ended when Elro killed Grey.]]
* {{Determinator}}: [[spoiler:Black in her final battle is absolutely determined to protect the rocket from you, to the point that she eventually breaks open the rocket's fuel tank and starts drinking the Ivory fuel just so her HealingFactor can keep up with the damage you are dealing. By the end of the fight, she is weakly shambling around, with multiple Isi Seeds sprouting out of her back, barely able to form a complete sentence, and vomiting up the fuel she's been guzzling, but still ''refuses'' to stop fighting until she is swarmed with the blue eye parasites and dragged offscreen. [[OneWingedAngel And even then, she's still not done]].]]
** [[spoiler:Elro]]'s boss battle lets ''you'' be the Determinator for once.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Royal is hated by practically everybody for basically being a superpowered spoiled brat. Pretty much the only person that shows him any kindness or respect is Robin, and even then, it can be up to the player's dialogue choices. [[spoiler:That said, being rude will come to bite Robin in the ass come the first phase of the final boss.]]

* AffablyEvil: Chrome may be a general in the One Concern who's [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first act]] is to kick a man to his death off a cliff over a philosophical disagreement, but he's a genuinely nice and devout man who prefers to avoid violence.

* AmbidextrousSprite: Elro's eyepatch switches from left to right when he turns, [[spoiler: as does his ''entire missing arm'' ]]
* AmbiguousGender: Agent Grey's gender is deliberately ambiguous, with Agent Black using "them" when referring to Grey.
* AnAesop: Take time to grieve over the deaths of your loved ones and those close to you. If you don't, you may act irrationally and lash out in ways you'll later regret. [[spoiler:This bites both Elro and Agent Black ''hard.'' Elro makes a huge mistake that essentially kickstarts the conflict of the game because he didn't think rationally when Agent Grey was simply asking him to calm down and Agent Black slowly goes off the deep end demonizing Elro and Robin for what Elro did instead of taking Chrome's advice and taking time to come to terms with the death of Grey.]]
** Also, don't let what's expected of you or indoctrinated into you cause you to ignore what's right, but at the same time, don't let your ego prevent you from seeing right and wrong clearly in the first place. Each of the supporting characters are weighed down by what is expected of them (or what they expect of others) and what that costs them personally, while wrestling with their own selfish impulses that only make things worse: Robin, on the flipside, is characterized by her staunch devotion to whatever she can do to help regardless of what anyone thinks, and her sense of self sacrifice.

* AnimeHair:
** Rather than tie her hair into a ponytail, Robin turns her hair into a big "U" stuck to the back of her head, most likely to resemble the head of a wrench. [[https://78.media.tumblr.com/5a220db53df86594ecfc8e0f98c6bf43/tumblr_p0f4zxLRme1rihtq2o1_1280.png Just look at it!]]
** Agent Grey has what can only be described as a big, fluffy mohawk.

** The Isi’s seeds have extremely volatile reactions when exposed to Ivory, making them grow instantaneously; this makes them an excellent tool for wrecking Concern technology, which is reliant on Ivory. Royal also notes that even though his powers allow him to control plants enough to sprout them in the middle of the desert at will, he is completely unable to affect the plants grown from these seeds [[spoiler:because Royal's powers work by manipulating the Ivory in an object, but the Isi plants don't have any Ivory in them because they're from Earth]]. They also work disturbingly well on [[spoiler:humans who have been injected with Ivory, being used to take out Agent White and Mother (Agent Black [[{{Determinator}} resists their effects]] until the blue eyes mutate her). When Robin jams a seed into the Starworm, the resulting explosion causes a wave of nature to overtake the whole planet.]]

* AsTheGoodBookSays: Chrome is fond of quoting the One Concern scriptures, even in the middle of boss battles.

* BerserkButton:
** Reminding Agent Black about Agent Grey is a quick way to anger her (more so than usual). [[spoiler:And because of his involvement in Grey's death, Elro's mere existence is enough to set her off.]]
** Royal does not take kindly to being ignored or otherwise treated as lesser than he believes himself to be. [[spoiler:This more or less gets him killed when he attacks the Starworm in anger.]]
** Royal also manages to find another way to anger Black, when he tells her "This is bigger than you." while trying to [[spoiler:persuade her to leave the B-17 launchpad so that they can fly to the Star Worm.]] The sheer hypocrisy of an Agent who sacrificed her humanity to her service hearing this from someone who followed his whims all his life completely crosses out his earlier efforts:
--->'''Black:''' ''HAHAHAHA! So right! THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING SMALLER THAN ME. BUT YOU [[spoiler:TAKE THIS ROCKET OVER MY DEAD BODY.]]''
* BigBrotherInstinct: Elro takes this ''way'' too far, [[spoiler:nearly dooming the planet several times because of it]]. It's only once Robin [[spoiler:literally ''kills God'']] that he grudgingly admits that ''maybe'' she can actually take care of herself.

* {{Bowdlerise}}: In the original release of the game (as well as ''Ivory Springs'' and the 2012 demo), while escaping from Settlement 17's jail through the rafters, the noise Robin makes is covered up by One Concern troopers cracking lewd "if you know what I mean" jokes and laughing. Later patches changed these into simpler puns. Konjak's official reason for changing the jokes is that they didn't fit well with the tone the game has early on before hitting CerebusSyndrome. It helps that it keeps the troopers more sympathetic, since the original jokes painted them as {{Politically Incorrect Villain}}s, which doesn't align with how they're treated in the rest of the game.

* CanonImmigrant: Mina the thief was originally the focus of [[http://www.konjak.org/index.php?folder=9&file=26 another Konjak project]], though she was redesigned significantly for this game (her original design was recycled for an unique NPC in Isilugar).

* ChurchMilitant: The One Concern acts as the sole military power of human civilization. While the Isi can at least fend off the church's attacks long enough to escape, they're not equipped to handle any kind of full confrontation.
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: The only doctor in the game [[spoiler:has an incurable disease.]]

* CorruptChurch: The One Concern has control over virtually all of human civilization, and it's not particularly shy about doing whatever it takes to keep things that way.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: Downplayed with Isilugar. At first glance, it seems like a perfectly pleasant place to live in. In a lot of ways, [[SugarBowl it is]], specially if you compare it with life in the Settlements where even minor, unintended crimes can result in Penance. Life in Isilugar is more relaxed and free, with the Isi religion being all about love and reproduction. That last part has a catch, however. Turns out the Isi religion is not perfect, either. Arranged marriages are common, and procreation is seen as a vital responsibility of every adult, which means that people who are unable or unwilling to reproduce, [[spoiler:like Doctor Gustavo, who doesn't want to pass on his genetic disease]], are seen as outcasts, through no fault of their own. That also means that [[spoiler:Mina and Samba's relationship]] is probably ''also'' frowned upon, which might explain why it's played with such ambiguity throughout the game.

* {{Bowlderize}}: In the original release of the game (as well as ''Ivory Springs'' and the 2012 demo), while escaping from Settlement 17's jail through the rafters, the noise Robin makes is covered up by One Concern troopers cracking lewd "if you know what I mean" jokes and laughing. Later patches changed these into simpler punchline jokes and puns. Konjak's official reason for changing the jokes is that he felt they didn't fit well with the tone the game has early on before hitting CerebusSyndrome.

Robin is a mechanic (complete with [[WrenchWench massive wrench]]) living in a world that's slowly withering away. Her society relies on Ivory, an energy source controlled by a powerful organization called One Concern, which is the center of a religion represented by a figure known as Mother. Robin is not permitted to do mechanical work due to their regulations, but she does it anyway. When she's found out and becomes a sinner in the eyes of the world, she embarks on an adventure with other outcasts in order to stop One Concern once and for all, and find out what's really happening to the planet.

* AffablyEvil: Chrome may be a general in the the Concern, but he's a genuinely nice and devout man who prefers to avoid violence.
** Rather debatable, considering the first thing the player sees him do is kick a man to his death off a cliff over a philosophical disagreement.

* NonIndicativeName: Agent Black is a very pale girl. Agent White is a ScaryBlackMan.

* BattleInTheCentreOfTheMind: We finally find out what the One Concern "prototype" does when [[spoiler:Starworm uses the real thing on Robin, and she has to face off against the shadow creatures who represent the people she failed, while the backgrounds portray said failure. The first creature carries Elro's broken sword, and has his ruined house standing in a sunflower field (sunflower being Elro's nickname for Robin), with the statues of his wife and daughter in the background. Mina's shadow has the graves of her Isi ancestors filling the background, Robin presumably thinking they would've lived if she could have stopped the One Concern sooner. The triangle-headed apparition representing Royal has the broken moon where he died. Agent Black has a literal black void, both it and her figure being a skeleton referring to her death at Robin's hands. The first three cannot be damaged conventionally and must be bypassed by turning on switches, which represents Robin's unwillingness to hurt others and desire to “fix” things. All but Black that is. "She" must either be shot again, or allowed to crawl past and explode on her own.]]

* EasterEgg: The first time you visit the third floor on the left side of the Tower, there are two Bastion guards hanging out behind some [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence boxes you can't climb over]]. Using a [[GoodBadBugs long dive]] to jump over the boxes reveals that unlike most characters you aren't supposed to interact with, these two actually have some [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth wall-busting dialogue]]:
-->'''Right Guard:''' This game is too linear for skips.
-->'''Left Guard:''' Watch out for softlocks.