Developer: FantaBlade

Publisher: X.D. Network, Inc.

A while back on Twitter, I ran a poll asking “who is best sword girl?” and listed four options: 2B from NieR: Automata, Baiken from Guilty Gear, Rapthalia from Rise of the Shield Hero, and Motoko Aoyama from Love Hina. 2B was the clear winner, but my personal choice is someone who wasn’t even listed: a girl you’ve probably never heard of named Icey, who stars in one of the best action games you’ve probably never played.

Into the Metagame

Icey is an artificially-created humanoid who was grown in a tank and created for one purpose: to kill a villain named Judas. Judas is Icey’s arch enemy and the reason the world is broken, corrupt, dangerous, and overrun with evil robots. Icey’s only goal in life is to destroy Judas and make things right again, and you know all this because there is a narrator present to tell you so.

In fact, the narrator tells you lots of things. He tells you to follow the arrows that he’s so thoughtfully laid out for you, and points out – over and over again – that things would be best if you would just follow the arrows and do exactly as he says.

So of course, the real fun is doing the exact opposite.

Another Parable

ICEY is similar to the PC hit “The Stanley Parable”, where an invisible narrator tells you to do certain things and gets very angry when you don’t. In both that game and this one, ignoring (or flat-out disobeying) the narrator leads to hidden areas, secrets, and some absolutely hilarious dialogue.

Disobeying the narrator also helps you earn some of the game’s dozens of trophies, all of which you will need in order to see the game’s true ending. ICEY is interesting in that you have to play it two different ways in order to get the real ending; you have to play it straight (i.e., get to the end and kill Judas) and then try to break everything you can as the narrator begins tearing his hair out.

This dual approach is one of the things that makes ICEY special. It may not be original, but it’s fun, as you find new ways to spar with your unseen nemesis. And make no mistake: the narrator isn’t yelling at Icey, he’s yelling at you. He’s perfectly aware that this is a video game (you’ll learn quickly that the narrator is actually the game’s director), and he’s mad that you’re not controlling Icey the way he wants you to. Brilliant stuff.

Hack ‘n Slash

Of course, if the metagame was all there was to it, then ICEY would quickly become a boring, one-gimmick game. Thankfully, it’s much more than that. ICEY is, in my opinion, one of the best 2-D action games ever.

It’s important to understand what that means. This is not a platformer; yes, you do some occasional jumping from one platform to another, but at its core, this game is all about combat. It’s a 2D version of Devil May Cry or Bayonetta; you face down a swarm of enemies, and you defeat them using stylish combos. When you defeat certain enemies, they release energy crystals, which both replenish your health and enable you to execute an attack that damages everything on the screen. With a little practice, you learn to chain your attacks so that one full-screen attack leads into another one. It’s an absolute joy when it clicks.

Icey herself is a blast to control. Her movement is fast and fluid, and her dash move allows you to dodge, jump, and otherwise outmaneuver the bad guys. Controlling her quickly becomes second nature.

In fact, the combat is so much fun that I honestly think this game could have been a hit without any metagame at all. You can blindly obey the narrator and still have a blast with this game.

Beauty on a Budget

I often joke that ICEY was made on a budget of five US dollars and a box of animal crackers, but the fact is, the developers did a great job of making a great-looking game on a razor-thin budget.

How do I know the budget was small? Because the devs pulled out every trick in the book to make the game look good without breaking the bank. For example, most of the backgrounds are pre-rendered, which means that even though Icey looks like she’s in a 2.5D environment, she’s basically jumping around a fancy painting.

Pre-rendered backgrounds tend to make for lifeless environments (just check out the pic above, where Icey stands in a puddle of water but the water doesn’t move at all), but the action is so frenetic that you’ll hardly notice.

Another example is the enemies:

Every single enemy in the game is a robot of some kind, all of whom are split up into segments and animated using something like Adobe After Effects. After Effects (and similar programs) tend to produce animation that looks awkward and unnatural in humanoids but suits machines and robots very well.

And of course there’s the metagame, which allows for environments to be reused while keeping the game feeling fresh. It’s brilliant design.

Ice, Ice Baby

That said, Icey is the star of the show and she is very well animated. Her running is fast and fluid, and her (holographic) ponytail always flows behind her, enhancing the feeling of movement. Her attacks flow well from one to the other and her dash and jump animations are very well done. In fact, her animations are so smooth that for a while I was convinced the developers had built her in 3D and used that to create her in-game animations (which may still be the case).

On a side note, I own two different versions of the game (PS4 and Switch) and the Switch version looks better, mostly because the Switch’s lower-resolution screen hides some of the game’s graphical imperfections. I’ve never played the Switch version on the big screen but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had the same effect as the PS4 version.

Surround Sound

One area where the devs absolutely cut no corners was the music. ICEY has one of the best game soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a video game. Whichever version of ICEY you play, make sure that you get the best possible headphones and crank them up to eleven. Then get ready to hear music that will stay in your head for the rest of your life. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I can’t get the soundtrack on iTunes as it’s only available on Steam.

The sound design, however, falls a little short. The sound effects are fine, but the default English-voice narrator just isn’t a very good voice actor (this apparently really is the game’s director). His performance and the quality of the recording are both subpar, and they take away from the game somewhat. Luckily, you can select a different narrator; I found the Japanese voice actor quite entertaining.

Final Cut

ICEY is a hidden gem that’s been around for years but is just as worth playing now as it was when first released. This is one of the best and most unique action games you’ll ever play, backed by one of the best soundtracks you’ll ever hear. Spend the money and download the game. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

Therefore, I give ICEY by FantaBlade and X.D Network my score of

What did you think of Musume’s ICEY Switch Review? Will you be picking up this hidden hack n slash gem? Let us know over on Twitter or come and join the SIF Discord server.

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