When it comes to game criticism, one of the most important criteria a game needs in order to succeed in my eyes, is Identity.

If a game does not have a concrete and unique identity that makes it stand out from its contemporaries (or in the case of a franchise, its predecessors), then the game has failed in truly gripping me on a deeper level.

A personal example of this for me is Sonic Mania. A perfectly solid game, one that I do absolutely adore, but never a 5 star because the game reuses so many ideas from the previous entries in its franchise that it never truly comes into its own at any point.

Such is the case with ICEY, the tenth game reviewed on my obscure games recommendation list. This game was recommended to me by FrozenRoy, thank you very much for the recommendation.

ICEY is a game that mashes up three different games that are all great on their own, but when put together results in a product that's less than the sum of its parts. It has combat akin to Mega Man X or rather, playing as Zero in Mega Man X (you could argue its combat also takes a few nods from Devil May Cry.), the explorative aspect of it could be compared to that of a standard Metroidvania, though a tad more linear, so along the lines of Metroid Fusion, and the narrative aspect is ripped straight from Stanley Parable.

While on the surface it would seem that a combination like this would be a match made in heaven... it's honestly not, and those problems start with the narrative... or rather, the narrator.

Unlike Stanley Parable's narrator, the narrator of ICEY is not pedantically British or endearingly snarky. They're a whiny manchild who constantly complains about everything you do. If I had to compare it to something in real life, I would say it would be dealing with a backseat gamer named Matthias who constantly whines that you're going the wrong way in a Metroid game.

I know full well that this is intentional, and that there is also lore reason for why this narrator sounds and acts the way he does. I also know that this game is at least two and a half hours long and that it only takes about 15 minutes for his voice to become grating and obnoxious. It also doesn't help that the line delivery is just off. It's not god awful, but as someone who has aspirations to be a voice actor, I have the ear to tell when lines are being fumbled.

I'm not going to blame the actor or the voice director as this game is not natively in English, it's a Chinese developed game, and a lot of the dialogue had to be translated. But I will say it makes the experience more irritating than endearing. There's also a variety of spelling errors and lines that are written one way and spoken another, and at one point I noticed a piece of audio that loops twice.

I know in the grand scheme of things, this stuff is super minor, but it's just stuff I couldn't help but notice.

Gameplay wise is where I think the game has the most potential. It's a 2D Hack and Slash where you unlock more abilities with the money you earn. Standard stuff, and the combat is relatively fun. I say relatively because I played on Easy Mode (not really by choice, I'll explain later.) for most of my playthrough. On Hard or even Normal Mode it feels like enemies just never stop in certain areas, and that they just have more health to compensate for the difficulty change. My recommendation, play the game however you want.

But yeah, you'll be creating massive combo chains, juggling enemies up into the air for some meaty air combos, and then pressing B for the finishers. It's a pretty engaging gameplay loop that is also helped by the fact that like Mega Man X, you have a dash. Not just a dash, but an octo-directional air dash that you only need to hold down the button and move the analog stick to perform. Regardless of anything else I say about ICEY, the air dash is easily the best gameplay feature and I love it.

Exploration is hit or miss honestly, because doing so has you dealing with the narrators complaints for most of the time. A good bunch of the exploration will lead you to interesting pieces of lore, as well as various endings to the game. Some exploration though just leads to jokes, which is fine, but the lore is probably more interesting.

Speaking of, the plot of ICEY, or rather the one the narrator wants you to follow involves you making your way up to a tower to confront a madman named Judas who is a danger to all life on... whatever planet this is. Of course, as you will inevitably diverge from the path, the plot also diverges.

The game has a tendency to get very meta at points, and the fourth wall is borderline non-existent.

I would talk about the various routes you'll wind up taking, but I think experiencing them blind (or mostly blind, I used a guide to get the last remaining stuff I had left to do just to cut down on time.), will have a larger impact.

The game though just doesn't feel like it lives up to its full potential in any of the three types of game that it contains. Narrative wise it's not as humorous or engaging as something like Stanley Parable, Gameplay wise it's no Devil May Cry, and it constantly limits your exploration while complaining at you for exploring. It ultimately results in a game that just doesn't have a true identity of its own, just feeling like a cardboard cutout of those other titles.

Does that make ICEY a terrible game? No. At least fundamentally while I think the narrative is the weakest part of the game, the satisfying gameplay loop is more than enough to make up for it.

I just wish that the devs had focused more on at least one of the aspects that makes up this game so that it could truly stand out and feel like its own title. Alas, ICEY is a solid game, but it could have been so much more.