Welcome to our review of Icey. A side-scrolling action game with twisted narration.
ICEY is a 2D side-scrolling action game. As you follow the narrator’s omnipresent voice, you will see through ICEY’s eyes and learn the truth about her world.
“Alright, you caught me! This ISN’T really just a simple 2D action game, and you WON’T be seeing through ICEY’s eyes… NOR will you learn the truth about her world.” says the narrator.
ICEY is a Metagame in disguise. The narrator will constantly urge you in one direction, but you must ask, “Why? Why am I following his directions? Why can’t I learn the truth about this world and ICEY’s purpose here?” Fight against his tyranny, and uncover what’s really going on for yourself!
In fact, you can become ICEY, and let loose the shackles of your own identity. You are ICEY, and ICEY is you… if you want it that way. Feel free to keep hold of your own self, if you wish.
Now Is the Time For You to Discover the Truth.
In this genre, there are literally hundreds of games, I can think of Aeternoblade, I can think of Castle of Heart, … All available right now on Nintendo Switch, so what sets this game apart from the others? The crazy narration and the unhealthy desire of the narrator to “follow the arrow”.
Sporting some very fine graphics, this game might be called another pea in the pod on that aspect, sure, the game has some great combo attacks and the swift jumping is quite nice, it just does not stand out. It comes over as just another game in the genre, a saturated genre, mind you. When I was playing, at times I was admiring the view, but at times I was just mindlessly button smashing.
The attacks can be very elegant though, just that I could not shake that repetitive feeling. Attack, Attack, Attack and push the A-button to finish off the enemy. It is 99% the same in the first few levels and it does not really provide a real challenge, except maybe the bosses that are out of league of the normal ones. Nothing unusual, but yeah, it felt the same old’, same old’…
So what about that narrator? That is actually the part that kept me hooked to the game. At times he just keeps babbling about how he had no time to color the backgrounds, at other times he starts narrating what the heroine is doing. My favorite part is actually the insight of the history of the game, explaining the ideas of the original game and so on. You do not always get such a view of what a game is about. I loved it.
In conclusion, this game is good but not great. If you like the genre, do give it a try. My rating is a mere 60%.
