Column: Kid Icarus: One of the Most Challenging Games Ever Played

In 1987 Kid Icarus came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System. I bought the game and I would have to say it was one of the most challenging games that I had played for the NES.

You played as a character named Pit and your quest was to find the three sacred weapons and use them to defeat the evil Medusa. It was cool because it featured a new password system and the game had three different endings. I played the game for many months before I did finally beat Medusa and got the best ending.

Last week I went out and bought “Kid Icarus: Uprising” for the Nintendo 3DS and I have to say it is a lot of fun. It brings back a lot of great memories of playing the first game on the NES.

You play as the character Pit and you have to try and stop Medusa again from destroying mankind. With the help of a goddess named “Palutena” you go on a quest to try and defeat Medusa and her “Underworld Army.

You play the game flying in the air or on the ground searching for treasure, weapons and enemies. I really liked how there were a ton of new weapons and also a combination of new and original characters.

I thought the story was very interesting and I also like that a lot of the characters from the first Kid Icarus make an appearance in this game.

Kid Icarus’s graphics are impressive. The background graphics were stunning and very detailed. The characters moved very smoothly. There are a lot of times where there are many different creatures and images on the screen at one time and everything still moved smoothly.

The 3D graphics are amazing and worked really well. I felt it made the game really exciting to play. You could really see the depth of the game when you were flying in the air and enemies were shooting at you. I swear the projectiles were going to hit me.

One cool thing is that while you are playing the game, Pit and Palutena talk to each other. You can see their pictures on the bottom screen and when there are cut scenes you also see pictures and images of the people who are talking.

The controls of the game are really great. In the air, you use the circle pad to move Pit around and the L-trigger is used to shoot. You can hold it down and you will fire repeatedly or if you let go and push the trigger it fires a bigger and more powerful shot. To aim and shoot enemies in the air, you move the stylus on the bottom screen and a target appears on the top screen. You just move the stylus to where you want to shoot. This was very smooth and the target always appeared where I pointed it.

On the ground the controls are pretty much the same. You move Pit with the circle pad and the “L-trigger” is used to shoot or use your close melee weapon. However, the only thing that took me a little while to get used to is that when you want to turn, you have to flick the bottom screen with the stylus. After a short time it got pretty easy.

One nice thing is that there a bunch of videos that you can watch that explain and show you how to play the game. The videos are very detailed and show you to do things like dodge or how to use all of the weapons. I felt they were well done and I wish all games had this feature.

There are tons of things to do in the game that will keep me playing this for a long time. 
You can get Augmented Reality (AR) cards and if you put them together the characters will pop up in 3D and fight. The game comes with a few cards and you can other cards by attending different Nintendo events. I was sent a few packs of cards from Nintendo for review purposes and they were really cool. I’m not sure how many cards are in the set, but there are a lot. Once you scan the card, they appear in a menu in the game. You can take the cards and play against friends to see who has the stronger characters. I thought that this was really fun and the characters looked great.

You can also take the weapons that you find in the game and sell them, or buy new ones.  You can even take your weapons and combine them to make more powerful weapons.  The combinations seem endless, because there are so many different weapons hidden in the game.

You can play online against other people in a “Light vs. Dark” match. I did not get a chance to play this mode yet, but from what I’ve heard, is that you fight on land against each other and you have to drain the other team’s health meter. This sounds like a lot of fun and I cannot wait to try it.

There is a music gallery where you can listen to all of the music in the game. As you beat levels, the music from that level unlocks and you can go back and listen to it.

I think that my favorite special feature is the treasure hunts. When you beat a level, or do a specific thing in a level you unlock special items in the game. It could be hearts to buy things or it could be a picture of a character in the game. You unlock these items by doing something like defeating 100 enemies in the level or finding a certain item. As you unlock the items, different pieces of a picture are revealed and they will eventually reveal a big picture.  You can also click on the many different tiles and they tell you what you need to do in a specific level to open it up. 

The box for the game is larger than the other 3DS games, because it comes with a stand that you can rest the 3DS on. I really liked this and thought that it was very helpful when playing the game. I could sit at my desk or at a table and play the game comfortably.  I’m sure the new 3DS XL will also easily fit on the stand. It folds together very nicely for storage when not in use.

Overall, I really like “Kid Icarus: Uprising” and I think it is a lot of fun. The graphics are amazing and the controls are really easy to learn. Especially with all of the in game videos.  With all of the different special features and game modes, I know that I will be playing this game a lot.

Aaron Chalich is a columnist for KSTP.com blogging about the latest entertainment news.