History YMMV / Iconoclasts

** Most of the characters in ''Iconoclasts'', save for Robin, Mina and the various [=ChemiCo=] Contra workers you encounter, are jerks, which makes it hard to actually care about their fates. The majority of the people you encounter are jerks or are very selfish and ungrateful. Robin's brother Elro is a KnightTemplarBigBrother whose attitude towards her borders on stay-in-the-kitchen sexism (not to mention his decisions directly result in much of the game's plot), while Royal's legitimately tragic arc is undercut by his arrogant personality. Even Mina has an episode in which she undeservedly lashes out at Robin; and since she's mostly a HeroicMime saddled with ButThouMust, you can't really call anyone out.

* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** [[spoiler:The true final boss. As it turns out, the Starworm is just a machine created and piloted by... an alien bird trucker. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer No, we are not making this up.]] We promise.]]
** In the ending cutscene of the Tower, Black is about to execute Robin for being a constant thorn in her side. [[spoiler:The Silver Watchman rushes Robin down, busting through the walls, and unwittingly saves her from Black's firearm.]] Black's response?
--->'''Black:''' I HATE YOU ALL!!!
** The ending. [[spoiler: Robin (And potentially Mina) have just killed what most of the world has considered God for the past three generations. Robin nonchalantly walks home, and when she gets in, Elro realizes all the round trees and the lack of quakes are her doing. Robin, having had enough of Elro's shit, proceeds to ignore him and collapse in bed. Everything's quiet for a moment...and then Elro wakes her up to say he'll finally stop telling her what to do from now on. Robin just looks at him for a moment, as if thinking 'Finally,' and collapses back in bed.]]

* CounterpartComparison:
** Ash could very well be the ''Iconoclasts'' equivalent to [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater The End]], as his boss battle requires staying hidden, tracking and manipulating his movements, and striking him without letting him see the player characters. There's also the fact that he's a super-empowered BadassGrandpa who has ties with the main antagonist faction.
** Silver Watchman shares similarities to [[VideoGame/{{Iji}} Assassin Asha]], both being helmet-toting [[RecurringBoss persistent]] adversaries with [[LaserBlade beam weapons]] who can TeleportSpam and require split-second timing to defeat using a "weak" weapon. They also [[spoiler:ambush the protagonist at an unexpected point and are almost single-mindedly obsessed with their defeat]].

* CrowningMomentOfFunny:
** [[spoiler:The true final boss. As it turns out, the Starworm is just a machine created and piloted by... an alien bird trucker. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer No, we are not making this up.]] We promise.]]
** In the ending cutscene of the Tower, Black is about to execute Robin for being a constant thorn in her side. [[spoiler:The Silver Watchman rushes Robin down, busting through the walls, and unwittingly saves her from Black's firearm.]] Black's response?
--->'''Black:''' I HATE YOU ALL!!!
** The ending. [[spoiler: Robin (And potentially Mina) have just killed what most of the world has considered God for the past three generations. Robin nonchalantly walks home, and when she gets in, Elro realizes all the round trees and the lack of quakes are her doing. Robin, having had enough of Elro's shit, proceeds to ignore him and collapse in bed. Everything's quiet for a moment...and then Elro wakes her up to say he'll finally stop telling her what to do from now on. Robin just looks at him for a moment, as if thinking 'Finally,' and collapses back in bed.]]

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Elro is not meant to be a wholly sympathetic character, but the fanbase is sharply divided over whether he's a JerkWithAHeartOfGold who's suffered a lot and really does want the best for Robin or TheMillstone who manages to cause all of the game's conflicts and ruin Robin’s life while blaming everyone else for it. It's only appropriate that [[spoiler:the boss fight where you play as him]] is considered a love-it-or-hate-it affair.

* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: The main focus of ''Iconoclasts'' is its story, with the gameplay being less well-received outside of the boss fights and puzzles. Its {{metroidvania}} aspects are very limited (it's possible to play the whole game in a linear fashion without affecting the difficulty much, since Robin's stats never change), while the combat is more simplistic and less fluid than it is Konjak's other titles.

* AwesomeMusic: Much of the soundtrack is masterfully done. A few examples:

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Elro is not meant to be a wholly sympathetic character, but the fanbase is sharply divided over whether he’s a JerkWithAHeartOfGold who’s suffered a lot and really does want the best for Robin or TheMillstone who manages to cause all of the game’s conflicts and ruin Robin’s life while blaming everyone else for it. It’s only appropriate that [[spoiler:the boss fight where you play as him]] is considered a love-it-or-hate-it affair.

* ThatOneLevel: The Tower. It starts off as a NoGearLevel (though Robin retrieves her wrench pretty quickly) and then turns into a vertical maze where the goal is to free Mina and Elro and then collect three keys to reach the top. Its annoyances include enemies that sap your wrench charge, having to crawl slowly through many air vents, needing to manage several elevators to get around, and getting periodically ambushed by the Silver Watchman. It's also a pain to collect everything in, since you need the Usurper Shot for two items and the map isn't very helpful (it displays the inner rooms as being accessible from both above and below, even if they aren't).
* TheWoobie: Elro. His wife and daughter die within the game's first minutes. Over the course of the game, in trying to protect Robin, his only remaining family, he gets dragged all over the world, imprisoned, beaten, and even [[spoiler:loses his arm and gets shot in the back]] for doing what he thinks is right. Throughout the game, he constantly moans about how he ''just wants to go home.''

* ThatOneLevel: The Tower. It starts off as a NoGearLevel (though Robin retrieves her wrench pretty quickly) and then turns into a vertical maze where the goal is to free Mina and Elro and then collect three keys to reach the top. Its annoyances include enemies that sap your wrench charge, having to crawl slowly through many air vents, needing to manage several elevators to get around, and getting periodically ambushed by the Silver Watchman. It's also a pain to collect everything in, since you need the Usurper Shot for two items and the map isn't very helpful (it displays the inner rooms as being accessible from both above and below, even if they aren't).

-->'''Black:''' I HATE YOU ALL!!!

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Most of the characters in Iconoclasts, save for Robin, Mina and the various [=ChemiCo=] Contra workers you encounter, are jerks, which makes it hard to actually care about their fates. The majority of the people you encounter are jerks or are very selfish and ungrateful. Robin's brother Elro is a KnightTemplarBigBrother whose attitude towards her borders on stay-in-the-kitchen sexism (not to mention his decisions directly result in much of the game's plot), while Royal's legitimately tragic arc is undercut by his arrogant personality. Even Mina has an episode in which she undeservedly lashes out at Robin; and since she's mostly a HeroicMime saddled with ButThouMust, you can't really call anyone out.

* EndingFatigue: By the time [[spoiler:City One is reached]], the game begins to wind down. It drags on for quite a while, however, despite there being numerous points where the story could easily end, such as [[spoiler:the fight against Mother and the fight against Mutated Black]]. The final boss could also be truncated to [[spoiler:Midway]] instead of its own area, but that would make endgame item collection irritating as there's no fast travel points in [[spoiler:One Concern East]], meaning backtracking out of it would be tedious.

** Teegan doesn't appear until the last third of the story, but she's popular with fans for being a fun, friendly member of the [=ChemiCo=] Contra and for calling out Elro for his shenanigans.

** Without at least one Spinner perk equipped, Robin's wrench just barely can't charge itself with a single spin. Either you deal with having to spin twice every time you need to charge up (which you'll be doing a lot) or you spend one of your three tweak slots on something that doesn't have much benefit outside of charging the wrench.

* TearJerker: Made even more poignant with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BAQoX9uY8Y Moonlight]] playing as the BGM.
** Agent Black's last battle. [[spoiler:She insisted on protecting the rocket to her last breath, so you're forced to kill her by shoving Isi seeds into her innards. Even as the seeds start to sprout, she refused to stand down, forcing herself to keep on fighting even as more of the seeds sprout and weigh her down. By the end of the fight, she could only shamble weakly before succumbing to the seeds. Even the following OneWingedAngel battle did little to mitigate the feel that this is less of a fight and more akin to putting down a very, very sick puppy.]]
** The aftermath of meeting the Starworm. [[spoiler:The Starworm delivered a MindRape in retaliation to Royal's attack, and broke the glass dome of Midway. You could only lift Royal as he went into a HeroicBSOD, saying that it's all his fault, and how he should die... All the time, Robin pushed through the rapidly decompressing atmosphere with, and then comes the part that you ''have'' to leave him by the biometric scanner to keep the door open so you can escape. It's as heartwrenching as it sounds, and worse.]]

* ThatOneBoss: The Silver Watchman in his first and second encounters, who teleports constantly and leaves the player with only a split second to react to his katana swing... which requires the wrench to be ''spun'' to deflect, not merely swung like most parry-able projectiles and enemies, leaving even less reaction time, coupled with the fact that he will [[AlwaysAccurateAttack counter]] after his swing for a second attack if you're too late on the draw. He ''is'' a GlassCannon and takes only 4 (5 in the rematch) swings to defeat, so there are small mercies, but simply damaging him once takes a small act of [[EldritchAbomination Him]]. He's just as much of a pain in the BossRush; the Usurper Shot has no effect on him and he takes six hits before going down, so if you aren't careful he'll tear through your Iron Hearts and leave you with less life for the later bosses.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BAQoX9uY8Y Moonlight]], the music when you face Black for the last time is one hell of a TearJerker. [[spoiler:By this point, she's been reduced to a mental wreck shadow of her former self, and it's less a fight and more akin to putting a sick, rabid dog down for good. For the same reason, it's also the music used when you ''had'' to abandon Royal in the decompressing space station.]]

** [[spoiler: The true final boss. As it turns out, the Starworm is just a machine created and piloted by... an alien bird trucker. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer No, we are not making this up.]] We promise.]]
** Black was about to execute Robin for being a constant thorn in her side. [[spoiler:The Silver Watchman rushed Robin down, busting through the walls, and unwittingly saved her from Black's firearm.]] Black's response?

** Air-swimming is a major part of the game’s base speedrun, since it can be used to clip through walls and skip large chunks of the game; it’s used to transfer InterchangeableAntimatterKeys from Isilugar Labs to the Tower while skipping most of Ferrier Shockwood, for skipping from the start of Dark Cave to the [[spoiler:Omega Controller]] fight, and for clipping from the middle of One Concern West all the way to Lawrence’s fight in One Concern East, skipping five bosses and an entire area. That last glitch also allows to you fight Lawrence with Robin, for rather odd results.

* ThatOneBoss: The Silver Watchman in his first and second encounters, who teleports constantly and leaves the player with only a split second to react to his katana swing... which requires the wrench to be ''spun'' to deflect, not merely swung like most parry-able projectiles and enemies, leaving even less reaction time, coupled with the fact that he will [[AlwaysAccurateAttack counter]] after his swing for a second attack if you're too late on the draw. He ''is'' a GlassCannon and takes only 4 (5 in the rematch) swings to defeat, so there are small mercies, but simply damaging him once takes a small act of [[EldritchAbomination Him]].

* EndingFatigue: By the time [[spoiler:City One is reached]], the game begins to wind down. It drags on for quite a while, however, despite there being numerous points where the story could easily end, such as [[spoiler:the fight against Mother and the fight against Mutated Black]]. The final boss could also be truncated to [[spoiler:Midway]] instead of its own area, but that would make endgame item collection irritating as there's no fast travel points near [[spoiler:One Concern East]], meaning backtracking out of it would be tedious.

* GoddamnedBoss: The Reborn Lawrence fight. [[spoiler:You're in control of Elro who can only limp forward while dodging/parrying Lawrence's attacks, to deliver a stab dealing a minor damage, only for Lawrence to punch Elro across the screen. Rinse and repeat.]] No, it's not a difficult boss fight, and it can be cool the first time, but it takes quite a while to get through compared to the other One Concern East bosses, and it’s a nightmare on [[OneHitPointWonder Challenge Mode]] where you have to repeat the whole thing if you mess up.

* GoddamnedBoss: The Reborn Lawrence fight. [[spoiler:You're in control of Elro who can only limp forward while dodging/parrying Lawrence's attacks, to deliver a stab dealing a minor damage, only for Lawrence to punch Elro across the screen. Rinse and repeat.]] No, it's not a difficult boss fight per se... but it's an absolute ''slog''.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BAQoX9uY8Y Moonlight]], the music when you face Black for the last time is one hell of a TearJerker. [[spoiler:By this point, she's been reduced to a mental wreck shadow of her former self, and it's less a fight and more akin to putting a sick, rabid dog down for good. For the same reason, it's also the music used when you ''had'' to abandon Royal in the decompressing space station.]]]

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BAQoX9uY8Y Moonlight]], the music when you face Black for the last time is one hell of a TearJerker. [[spoiler:By this point, she's been reduced to a mental wreck shadow of her former self, and it's not as much a fight than putting a sick dog down. But then comes [[OneWingedAngel the remix...]]]]

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: [[spoiler: The true final boss. As it turns out, the Starworm is just a machine created and piloted by... an alien bird trucker. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer No, we are not making this up.]] We promise.]]

* The Dark Cave. A dimly lit cave with multiple [[AnimalisticAbomination animalistic abominations]] inside! Fun!

* AwesomeMusic: