ICEY

ICEY is a rather short affair, running about 2-6 hours depending on how invested you personally are in the game, and how much you'd like to find every little secret. Whilst it may be short, it allows for you to find every little secret or explore anywhere that you may want to with ease in a short span of time. It's the perfect length for an action game with as many branching paths as this game, and doesn't start to wane on you in the same way something similar like NieR:Automata with its branching endings may in the end.
ICEY exists in the same vein as the game known as The Stanley Parable, however ICEY is a highly stylized side-scrolling hack 'n' slash experience with super tight controls and fluid-like motion. If you like consistent fourth-wall breaks and a multitude of other brain-teasing events, then ICEY is the right game for you, and it's at a stellar price point.
For this review and others like it, please check out my Steam Curator page if you'd like!
The Good:
- Incredibly tight controls and movement. No movements in ICEY feel as though they're extraneous or wasted, with the movements in combat or whilst exploring feeling fluid and tight. It's a blast just to play the game.
- Combat is incredibly impactful. With gorgeous visuals following the flow of your blade or just the abilities you possess whilst you play, combat is incredibly stunning and visually impactful.
- An interesting multi-pathed storyline. ICEY has many different endings, some of them being what you'd call "canonical", and some of them being extra little bonuses or "easter eggs", which were intended to be found for you to experience the branching storyline that they express.
- A beautifully crafted overworld, with various stunning backdrop designs. ICEY almost seems more like an artistic experiment than an actual game at times, with gorgeous background art for the areas you're going through. Even two years past when I last played, I still remember most of the areas quite clearly.
- An interesting assortment of various bosses. Whilst all of the boss designs aren't exactly winners, many of them are incredibly fun to fight against, with some of them truly designed to test your mettle.
- Sound design. ICEY has an incredible soundtrack, with almost all of the music fitting wherever you're exploring. To this day, I still listen to the soundtrack for the game whilst playing other games which are missing interesting soundtracks.
- Wonderful voice acting. I implore you to play with the games original voice narration present, rather than the English voice narration, as it's nowhere near as impactful or emotional. I feel as though many of the bad reviews for this game solely lie in the choice of using the alternative narrator, which is incredibly unfortunate.
- Free DLC and Soundtrack. I don't think these two need any sort of explanation.
The Bad:
- Poor attack telegraphing. This is particularly an issue with some of the bosses and specific enemies. Some enemies feel floaty in their designs and telegraphs, to the point where they're more annoying to fight against than anything, especially since most of the games enemies are enjoyable.
- Poor checkpoints. Some checkpoints within the game are just much too far away from where you may have once been, causing you to backtrack all the way through an entire area again if you unfortunately die.
- Stun-locking. Whilst the combat in this game is good, there are some enemies which can consistently attack, which results in you being locked into being hit repeatedly. Usually games have a grace period pertaining to whenever you've fallen, however this doesn't seem to be the case for ICEY as it seems as though you're supposed to beat the game before the enemies even have a chance to attack.
Final score: 7.5/10 (4/5 for mechanics and gameplay, 3.5/5 for storyline and writing).
Worth $10.99? Personally, I feel that it is, however the game does constantly go on deep sales so I'd suggest waiting if you're still on the fence.
Closing thoughts: Whilst ICEY does a lot really well and does have an interesting storyline and world design, it's marred by various small inconveniences and some various things which can overall break up the flow of the narrative. Combat is smooth and cinematic, to the point that it feels as though the game should've just left out the META-Game parts, rather than burying a large majority of the storyline behind it. If you pick up this game, I'd personally suggest going through the alternate branching paths at different intervals, rather than in a singular playthrough.

ICEY is basically a mix between the Stanley Parable and a Hack & Slash and I found the game executed both of these elements better than I expected. The basic gameplay consists of you navigating a 2D enviroment and destroying monsters with fun fast place action game combos, think a 2D Devil May Cry or Bayonetta.
While exploring the world you'll soon be introduced to the narrator who tries to guide you through the game, you're free to either listen to the narrator or ignore him and explore to your hearts content. While exploring you will find treasure rooms and rooms with other surprises which the narrator doesn't want you to see.
If you follow the narrators vision of the game you'll play through a short but fun action game. Enemies drop money you can use to level up your skills, these range from longer and new combo's to upgrades to your shield and health. However if you ignore the narrator you will get much more of the story of the game. The game has the simple narrators story which is to defeat the villain and the game has a much more meta story you discover from exploring. If you get a "bad" ending all you have to do to jump back in is select a level from the main menu and continue, so you'll never lose more than a couple of minutes progress.
The game has multiple difficulty options which you select at the start, i like how it gives you the option whether you want to focus on the story or the combat, the harder difficulty lets you have longer battles and string together more complex combo's and the easy difficulty makes it easier to explore and find all the secrets.
I'd highly suggest exploring every nook and cranny and trying to find every single ending and every achievement. You'll gradually learn more about what is going on and you'll find the meta story is much more interesting than it looks at first glance.
The narrator does a serviceable job for his role, I've seen a lot of people compare him to the Stanley Parable Narrator which i think is an understandable comparison however i find it a bit unfair. Even though both characters are narrators the narrator in this game has a much different personality and it's interesting seeing how he reacts to certain decisions you make.
You may be wondering what the DLC called "Ucey" is, it's basically a wave survival/boss rush mode. If you enjoy the combat or want some practice it's a great way to hone your skill. The soundtrack is also free and is included and the OST of this game is fantastic, just icing on the cake of an already brilliant game.
I bought this game on a whim and it was an absolutely fantastic experience, i'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fun action game or an interesting story to play through. The story won't be apparent at first but i promise you put the time in to explore this world and you'll be rewarded with a fantastic conclusion.

The game is only like 3 hours long and there's not much to complain about except for the stun locking and the check points, final boss kept doing half my health with one laser and every time I died I would spawn 3 rooms away from the boss which meant I had to listen to the narrator talking about Icey's final battle every single time. It's a very cute short game. 3/5

This is unlike any game I've played before. It's basically two games in one. On its own, ICEY is a fast and stylish sci-fi themed sidescrolling hack 'n slasher, and can certainly be enjoyed just as that.
But it's equal parts "The Stanley Parable." There is a narrator (not.....a great voice actor. Makes one appreciate Kevan Brighting all the more) who, much like Brighting in TSP, tells you what to do. And you can either follow his instructions and have a fairly straightforward journey to defeat the big bad Judas. Or you can be naughty, and look into the nooks and crannies he doesn't want you to. There's *loads* of secrets to find giving many an absurd scenario, though a lot of them involve simply standing around while the narrator talks.
First playthrough on the linear, narrator-directed path is maybe 2 hours. Seeing all the secrets (which pretty nicely corresponds with the Steam achievements) is maybe 7-8 hours (I have less because I followed a guide for some of it). Your call if the asking price is worth it given that much content. Personally, I say yes.

Before we start please know that this is by no means a glowing review of ICEY. You should only buy it when it is really on sale not just because of its <5-6 hours playtime in one playthrough because it has several pitfalls besides that.
I won't try and explain what ICEY is or review its fighting mechanics or whatever. It is a 2D action game that has the same story sequence as The Stanley Parable and that is essentially what you should know.
If you enjoy story driven games that have meta-narratives and cheesy "true ending"s than you should definitely chek the game out. This recommenddation however comes with a few caveats:
--The main selling point of the game being its characters and story moments, they are mostly "meh" except a few instances where they might make you feel something. I do not know why but the narrator is not as interesting as the one in The Stanley Parable for example, and the narrator is a major character in both games. It is not outright bad but it has its ups and downs.
--The final boss is outrageously difficult. I killed every other boss in less than 5-10 tries no problem, but I had to eventually drop my difficulty from Normal to Easy(Which is not a menu option, you need to go back to the first level and go through annoying self aware dialog to restart the first mission) just so I could defeat the final boss, and this is not some "True Ending" final boss bullcrap either, it is the smokescreen final boss the one where you should THINK is the last one before you get the true ending. Truly, whoever designed that boss needs a brick to be firmly planted in their groin area.
--A minor gripe, but the checkpoint for that annoying as fuck final boss? It is before the cutscene. An INTEREACTIVE cutscene. meaning that you have to press the same button every time you want to retry the fight and listen to the same spiel.
All in all it is a fun game you can finish in one sitting, but I suggest playing at normal difficulty until the top of the clocktower and then switching to easy mode for the bossfight, maybe you won't need it but I certainly did after tearing my hair out 25+ times and after unfair death after unfair death.
Also check out the steam guides for the achivements, they only direct you to where you will get the bonus endings and don't spoil anything so make sure you don't miss out on those, they are fun.

ICEY is a fantastic combination of a great action and intriguing story, with lovely narration. It's a great game, unique and engaging. I'm sure everyone can get surprises and happiness while you play ICEY.

I just beat this game 10 minutes ago and I want to give my immediate raw thoughts about my experience.
Overall, my experience with Icey is mostly positive. UI navigation could use work (like you can't quit the game in the Main Menu when you die, you have to load a level, Esc., exit to the menu, then exit the game), but the gameplay is very fun especially as you progress through the game. The game's bread-and-butter is the dodge and counterattack mechanism. When you get it right it could look like a symphony of destruction and it feels so gratifying when you link so many maneuvers together. However window of opportunity to dodge is so opaque and narrow that it often gets frustrating to execute especially when multiple enemies or bosses are on screen. The "meta" narrative going on in the background was kinda fun to discover, but I couldn't help sense there's some pettyness from someone on the dev side and I feel like it might have been better left out. I don't know, however.
This game is an intensive hand-eye coordination type of game. I had to stop playing on the TV and play on a computer monitor just to ensure I minimized latency as much as possible to execute successful dodges. I wouldn't recommend playing this game without a controller or arcade stick.
In closing, this is one of those games I really enjoyed playing. It's one I'd recommend to my hardcore fighting game fans because reacting to small timing windows is a niche fascination. While the story was minimal, it was fun and didn't overstay it's welcome. If you play this game, my most important tip to you is to change the voice acting to Japanese or Chinese.