Introduction
While I was on the search for some cheap games recently, I stumbled upon ICEY. I watched the trailer and looked at the Steam screenshots, and decided that the game was worth the $3.87 to spend on it. I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I actually enjoyed this game.

Gameplay
The gameplay is nice and smooth, with tight controls and fun moves to use. ICEY is a 2D Hack 'n' Slash/Metroidvania style game, so expect plenty of juggling enemies, doing long combos, and plenty of button-combo variations. It's nothing over-the-top or crazy, but it's satisfying to play and juggling enemies is as fun as always with these kinda games. ICEY (the main character) has a fast and responsive dash move, which gets upgraded early on to have upwards of 5 dashes, all in many different directions, allowing you to quickly reposition yourself to avoid damage or to continue a combo.

Story (NO SPOILERS)
I'll be honest, I didn't really understand the story too well, but what I do know is that this game has a Stanley Parable feel to it. There is a narrator who tells you where to go/what to do, and you, as the person who controls ICEY, are able to ignore what the narrator says and deliberately go on a separate path. The narrator usually warns you or tries to correct your mistake, but you can continue ignoring him and push forward, usually getting you into a completely new route or at least getting you an achievement for seeing a secret room. Sometimes, the story will get completely sidetracked when you disobey the narrator, sometimes going as far as putting you into a completely separate game unrelated to ICEY. It's honestly pretty fun and it makes you really want to explore every corner of the game to see what route you might've missed out on.

Characters
The bosses are pretty unmemorable, with the only ones I remember off the top of my head being Trinity and Dahal. As for characters, you have ICEY, who is an android/cyborg girl. She doesn't ever speak or have any thoughts of her own, so you don't get to know what kind of personality she has. The narrator talks to you through the whole game and basically explains what's going on or what ICEY's objective is, sometimes commenting on a boss or giving some plot or backstory. Otherwise, there isn't much to the characters, as bosses have no dialogue.

DLC (and my appreciation)
There are two pieces of DLC for ICEY, those being the OST and an expansion to the story, "UCEY's awakening". Both are completely free, and I cannot describe how happy that makes me. In the modern world where DLC is typically $15+, getting both the OST and an expansion story for FREE as DLC is such a great thing to see. I cannot speak much on either, as I haven't listened to the OST nor have I played UCEY's awakening, but from what I can tell, both are fantastic additions to the game.

Conclusion
ICEY is a game that is well worth the price tag, and if you ever see it on sale, I highly suggest getting it even more. A nice, short Hack 'n' slash that doesn't overstay its' welcome and is worth every single dollar.

One of the few cases of a game dificulty making me hate it for how unfair it feels.

To go into more details, the gameplay of this game feels like it wants you to focus on combos, however, most enemys have super armor and won't flinch with yout attacks. But the same doesn't happen the other way around, a single hit can send you flying, enemys have attack animations with no startup and can spam it, there are rooms with 3 to 4 enemies like that, where as soon as one attack goes of, another follows it up, most times leading to a combo that will get you from 100% to 0%.

"Why don't you just get good?"

The thing is, that argument only really works if you are already invested in a game, there is no reason for me to waist my time and effort trying to get better at a game i didn't like. It doesn't help how obnoxious the narration is all the fucking time, or how repetitive the areas are. I get it is trying to pull a nier automata, but it didn't work for me.

It's not really a spoiler that the game is a meta-narrative with the developer pretty blatantly screaming at you when you don't follow instructions within the first 15 minutes. This is very much in the vein of something like Pony Island where the fourth wall breaks are the content. But IMO this is a far less interesting and more banal version of this genre. It's not saying anything more than "oh making games is hard" and "I'm an asshole". It's also made pretty weak with the narrator in English clearly not delivering his lines that well and sounding like he's reading from a script. Something like "The Beginner's Guide" is far more engaging and actually has a lot to say. Maybe this was unique at the time cause the game is 7 years old but right now, the genre is fairly crowded.

Spent about 3 hours in this game and still have no idea what it's about. The story is nonexistent because it's trying to be meta? Ok but the only 'meta' I've seen so far are shitty narrator jokes and me getting teleported to the home screen. The combat is not terrible but it's nothing to write home about. Not to mention the enemies are scaled super weird, they all seem to have absurdly high amounts of HP and barely recoil from most of your attacks. Icey can do some pretty cool combos though. Anyways a boring story carried by it's fairly average hack-and-slash combat is not a good fit for me. I may or may not finish this game.


This game may be below average but good lord the Icey fanart...

This is a very interesting game to say the least... i don't really get what it was trying to say in the end but it was fun playing through it, and surprisingly for me, i did 100% it really easily. The gameplay is very fluid overall, there isn't anything super amazing about it, but it plays really well, the graphics and the music are pretty good too. But the main point about this game is about you trying to find ways to mess around with the narrator, it reminds me a lot of Stanley Parable, but with a more sci-fi theme, and the dialogue is pretty spot on. The only problem is that some enemies can be really infuriating some times, but with a couple of tries you can beat anything. Pretty great game overall definitely recommend.

On its face, Icey seems like the most Cameroncore video game ever made. A 2D beat em up that takes clear design cues from all kinds of 3D action games, AND has a cute anime girl? I mean, hell yeah! Throw in a bit of unexpected meta insanity for good measure, cause why not, and you'd have a game that I'd look at and say, "Oh yeah, that's an all timer!" in a better world. Yeah, I'm starting this review complaining I only liked a video game, woe is me.

But what's the deal with Icey? Well, stripped of the sudden meta narrative, that's really the most interesting thing the narrative really has going for itself, it's exactly as I decribed! A 2D beat-em-up that takes cues from the plethora of 3D action titans; Devil May Cry's emphasis on juggling enemies, Metal Gear Rising's Zandatsu, Ninja Gaiden's ultimate techniques, some real cool stuff, and the combat feels really good! It's great, even! You can hammer in on enemies as stylishly as possible, juggling for as long as you can keep it up, or go for frame-perfect dodges into critical hits. I wish there was a better upgrade system; the game only offers buffs to the damage of attacks, rather than a wide array of new ones, and either I did something wrong by not exploring enough, or the game is mad stingy with actually giving you currency. But all in all, on a base level? Icey is damn solid to play! Combined with the enemies and bosses being generally fun, it's got all the hallmarks of what I love in a game like this! Like I said, it'd be an all-time favourite contender for me if a few things were just ironed out.

And that's just the thing, because when Icey's fun, it's really fun! But when it isn't, it's pretty dire. A lot of the enemies have some pretty annoying quirks, ranging from command-grabbers who I swear grab you frame 1, to the laser motherfuckers who are some of the most annoying, tiny bastards I've had to experience in a video game in some time. If an enemy has lasers, you either solo in on those fuckers, or you can get comboed to death by them with barely any chance to break out, leading to half your health, or more, vanishing in the blink of an eye. That stuff really makes the final boss, who has multiple different laser patterns as you chip away at his 5 health bars, feel like a complete gamble as to whether you'll sweep the floor with him, or get absolutely shat on. A couple of other enemies and bosses really rubbed me wrong, but the final boss stuck out the most because it means the game has to end on such a sour note, and that bites. A game that HLTB pegged at 2.5 hours and my 5 hour playthrough probably had at least a quarter playtime spent on that fucker.

But you know what really gets on my balls? Icey's narrator. I mean no disrespect to the actor themselves; I'd assume their native language isn't English, which leads to a lot of stilted line delivery. Understandable, but it's the general tone of the voice used, combined with the intense frequency and how quickly you'll get barked at for daring to go off the beaten path, that make me groan whenever it happened. Just a simple option to turn it off would go massively appreciated, sometimes it's better to let the game speak for itself, rather than trying the whole narrator shtick because I guess The Stanley Parable did it and it was the cool thing to do?

Man, that's the biggest bitch of it all. I was genuinely really impressed by Icey's combat and non-existent fourth wall. Like, damn, this is an indie game? It's just a shame that the game's flaws are so glaring, because there's some delicious stuff right down in the core of the game. It looks pretty slick, there's some good music in there, but the limp upgrade system, narrator and sometimes aggrivating enemy design bring it down a few pegs. I'd kill to see the game's positives get expanded on in a sequel or something, but I doubt that's happening anytime soon. Still, in spite of how negative this review probably sounds, Icey's got enough good just based in its pure combat sytem that I'd at least give it a recommendation for those curious, or just itching for a new 2D beat-em-up to try. I mean, it's hard to go wrong if you can grab it on sale; since it goes on sale for dirt cheap and isn't too terribly long assuming the final boss isn't buttfucking you raw for ages.

Holy guacamole this game is abysmal from start to finish. Like nothing in this game is enjoyable, the writing and narrators speech is laughably bad, the game itself contradict with gameplay with wanting you to combo enemies but the enemies have the same goal and can spam you into oblivion and the meta narrative aspects are so ham fisted and garbage, its like they took a look at Stanley Parable or Neir and decided to copy spark notes of what they did correctly, so its narrative makes 0 sense. Genuinely got baited with the positive reviews what do people see in this game?

Basit bir hack&slash platform oyunudur diyerek almıştım ICEY’i zamanında. Keşke okusaymışım açıklamasını. Yani öyle ama ICEY aslında kendini tanıttığı üzere Stanley Parable tarzı meta bir oyun. Oyunda ilerlerken ve robot mob keserken bir anlatıcı hikayeyi anlatıyor, uygulamanız gereken eylemleri belirtiyor. Dinlemezseniz anlatıcıyı kızdırıyor, dördüncü duvarı delen şakalarla karşılaşıyorsunuz. ICEY bunlardan ibaret sadece. Bunları da iyi yaptığı da söylenemez.

Stanley Parable dahil bu konsepti işleyen bayağı bir oyun var ama bu konsept ya bu tarz platform-hack&slash oyunlarına pek gitmiyor ya da ICEY bunu beceremiyor. Daha oyunun başındayım, anlatıcının anlatığı şekilde ilerliyorum. Ancak girdiğim bir binada çıkmaza geldim ve geri dönecekken açık bir dolap kapısı dikkatimi çekti. Alışkanlıktan belki para kutusu falan vardır diye bakayım derken anlatıcı “Icey, ben ne dersem dinlemiyorsun, bu oyuna ben bu kadar uğraştım” diye söylenmeye başladı ve alternatif bir son aldım. Ya ben orada ne var diye merak etmiştim sadece. Oraya gitme diye bir şey de demedi anlatıcı. Sırf bir odaya baktım diye beni kendisini dinlememekle suçlamasın.

Daha önce herhangi bir platform veya metroidvania oyunu oynadıysanız bilirsiniz, hasar aldığınızda karakteriniz kısa bir süre boyunca hasar almaz bir duruma geçer. Bu hem tekrar toparlanabilmenizi sağlar hem de küçük bir hatadan dolayı karakterinizin ekstra hasar almanızı engeller. ICEY'de olmayan şey ise tam olarak bu. Bir tane robot tutup sizi havaya fırlatıyor. Hasar aldığınızda sersemleyip hareket edemiyorsunuz. O sırada ekranın dışından lazer atan bir drone yüzünden ekstra hasar alıyorsunuz, o sırada art arta sürekli saldırabilen diğer robotlar ise takla atarak size çarpıyor ve yere düşene kadar bütün canınız bitiyor. Elinde olmayan bir sebepten dolayı ölmek müthiş bir durum, değil mi? Bu yüzden "Hard" zorlukta oynarken ve oyunun neredeyse sonuna gelmişken bu sıçtığımın şeyi yüzünden üzerine düşmanlar akın eden bir asansör sekansını geçemedim yahu! 1 saat boyunca denedim, tam bırakacakken hadi bir de “Easy” zorlukta deneyeyim diyerek oyuna tekrardan başladım ve güç bela geçebildim. (Easy zorlukta da yaşandı aynı olay merak etmeyin) 1987'de çıkan Mega Man'de bile var lan bu özellik ve o oyun çok daha kazık olduğu halde onda ICEY'de yaşadığım şu olaydan dolayı küfrettiğim kadar küfretmedim be! ICEY, bir meta oyun olmaya çalışacağına önce mekaniklerini aldığı türün özelliklerini becerseydi keşke.

Anlatıcıyı dinlediğinizde çok sıradan bir aksiyon hack&slash; dinlemediğinizde ise birkaç şakaya maruz kaldığınız; günün sonunda ise “Niye oynadım ben bunu” dediğiniz, kendini hatırlatacak hiçbir şeyi bulunmayan bir oyun ICEY. Yorumlarda Stanley Parable ile karşılaştıran olmuş, yanlış karşılaştırmak ama ben karşılaştıracak kadar başarılı bile bulmadım. Ama anlatıcının Japonca seslendirmeni gayet iyiydi bak. Oyunu resmen o seslendiren abi ve oyunda çalan birkaç parça taşıdı benim için.