Kid Icarus Uprising Review

Masahiro Sakurai is a great video game developer. I take a great deal of inspiration from him, more than Miyamoto believe it or not. He’s made Kirby, Smash Bros., and the game I am reviewing, Kid Icarus Uprising. Kid Icarus was a long forgotten game franchise from Nintendo that goes as far back as the NES. Another game came out on the Gameboy, but people didn’t think much of Kid Icarus back in those days. It was one of Nintendo’s lesser-known IPs. That all changed when Brawl came out with Pit, the main protagonist of Kid Icarus, was made playable. He was given a totally new design along with Palutena, who wasn’t playable but was rather just there in the background. It seems like there was more demand for a new Kid Icarus game after Pit’s inclusion in Brawl, and in E3 of 2010 when the 3DS was announced, Kid Icarus Uprising was revealed to many people’s surprise. It featured beautiful 3D environments, voice acting, and a ton of potential. Then in 2012 the game came out as has gone on to become a cult classic. It was a gigantic step up in every possible way for the series and today I’m here to take a look at how this game has opened the door for so many more possibilities for Pit and Palutena’s army.

Graphics

Oh man this game’s visuals are something else. These are hands down some of, if not the best graphics I’ve ever seen on a handheld game. Everything is detailed and colorful and flying feels great because of the great feel you get when flying through large and beautiful environments. It looks great on the ground too but it just looks even nicer when you’re flying.  The enemies and characters blend in perfectly with the world too. Graphics get a 10.

Plot

[SPOILERS!] This game has an amazing plot. It has tons of twists and turns that you will never see coming if it’s your first time playing. The basic plot is that Medusa and her underworld army have returned and Pit must stop her. Palutena grants Pit the gift of flight since he cannot fly on his own, but he can only fly for 5 minutes.  Once Pit defeats Medusa and the credits start to roll, you think you’re all done but then the credits are torn away and Hades reveals himself as the true bad guy. Hades is a great villain, with funny dialogue, witty remarks, and a great personality.  A war between the Earth and the underworld breaks loose. Eventually Pit is knocked unconscious for 3 years and Palutena’s army goes missing. Pit is for some reason a ring that takes control of whoever picks it up. Magnus ends up getting him back to his old body, only to find that Palutena has been corrupted by the Chaos Kin and he must snap her out of it. Luckily he is still able to fly due to Viridi, the goddess of nature, being able to fill in for Palutena. Pit snaps Palutena out of her corruption and eventually finds out that in order to defeat Hades he must collect the 3 sacred treasures to create an awesome suit that he uses to take down Hades in an epic and climactic showdown. The characters are great in this game and have very witty remarks, which can sometimes distract me from the gameplay part. They also break the 4^th wall a lot. The voice acting is some of the best I’ve ever heard in a video game too .My favorite chapters have to be the one where Pit becomes a ring, the one where Pit fights Palutena, and the final chapter. Plot gets a 10.

Gameplay

While this game has great visuals and a great narrative, the gameplay falls a little short. I’m mostly talking about on the ground gameplay here when I say that though. Pit controls perfectly fine when in the air and it feels great to shoot at a bunch of enemies while flying through many different kinds of environments, and in this game the places you’ll be flying at change quite often. The huge variety of weapons is great. It makes me wanna replay levels with different weapons to see which ones I like and which ones I don’t. You can also fuse weapons, how cool is that? You select the difficulty you wish to play a level at for a sacrifice of hearts that you collect from defeating enemies. The higher the difficulty setting, the more hearts you will need to sacrifice. Some hearts you collect restore your health bar, which if it goes out, you’re given a few more hits before you go down. If you die, then the difficulty you play at decreases and you have no choice but to play at a lower difficulty. I don’t really mind that. It sometimes stops me from spending too many hearts and makes the game slightly less frustrating. You can pick between 2 different control settings; using the R button to shoot, the touch screen to toggle the camera view on the ground and to aim for targets on the sky, and the circle pad to move around. This is the default setting by the way. The alternative, which is my preference, is using the ABXY buttons to move around, the R button to shoot, and either the touch screen or D-pad to toggle the view or aim. There’s a stand that comes with every physical copy of the game to make it easier on you to control the game. Lots of people complain about these controls and personally I feel rather indifferent to them since you have the ability to switch them, albeit not necessarily to your liking, but still able to switch to an alternative that may or may not be better for you. I wish Skyward Sword and other Wii games that are motion control-focused had this. Now on the ground it feels pretty clunky. Having to constantly change your view can be annoying and I might accidentally dash into something that I take a hit from that I didn’t mean to dash into. If you run for a certain amount of time, which is done by double tapping because this is a Sakurai game, you will tire out and will need to walk. I don’t like that and I wish I could just run indefinitely. This game has some of the same problems that Skyward Sword does. However it does do most of them better like the controls. You can either attack from afar, which is called a ranged attack, but on the ground you can also get up close to an enemy and use melee attacks. Sometimes it quite honestly feels like I’m just mashing the R button when doing melee attacks. I tend to feel a little dizzy after playing this game, but it doesn’t make me feel that nauseous so I’ll give it a pass. You progress through the game’s story via chapters, and each chapter has a boss at the end of it. Most bosses are complete pushovers, but most of them are pretty fun. The final boss battle is especially awesome and feels legitimately difficult without being cheap. After defeating Hades once and for all you unlock a boss rush mode, which is exactly, what it sounds like. Because this is a Sakurai game, there’s a break room between each boss with health replenishing items.  This game really does have that Kirby/ Smash Bros. like feel to it with all the extra content and things like the boss rush. The menu screen even resembles Brawl’s menu screen! Sometimes in levels you can get into vehicles or mechs and go through the level in that way, which is mandatory. The vehicles for the most part control well and feel great to be in. My only problem is with the car where backing up and getting on the right track can be a pain in the ass. AR cards come with every physical copy of the game. You can use them in an AR viewer. There’s also an idol viewer very similar to that of the trophy collection from Smash Bros.. I assume you unlock an idol from using an AR card. There’s a collection factor to these cards. Personally, I don’t really care much for the AR viewer.  There’s also an online mode where you either go against other players in teams of dark and light or a free-for all where you try and beat the shit out of other players to the best of your ability. It’s good for what it is. So the gameplay gets an 8. For the most part this game plays perfectly fine but in some places it feels clunky.

Music

This game has very good music. While it is a bit difficult to hear over all the commentary, it sounds really good for what it’s worth. There are some great remixes of themes from past Kid Icarus games as well as great original themes. The soundtrack gets 9.

Overall

In conclusion, Kid Icarus is a great game. It took a not very popular IP and breathed a ton of life into it. It has opened so many doors for possibilities for the Kid Icarus franchise and it is such a huge step up from what we had previously. It’s a beautiful game with tons of charm, loveable characters good and evil alike, tons of options for the combat, great replay value, and good music. It’s an overall fun time and one of the best games on the 3DS right now. I recommend that you pick this game up if you have a 3DS and you like rail shooters or any game made by Sakurai. Kid Icarus Uprising gets a 37/40 and an average 9/10. After seeing the Smash direct earlier this week, I am more hyped than ever for the next game Sakurai is making, which is Super Smash Bros. 4.

Announcement!

Speaking of which, I’m announcing here and now that I am gonna dedicate an entire month to Smash Bros. eventually. It depends on which month the 3DS version comes out. I might do another one for the Wii U version but I’m not sure. What I have planned for Smash month so far is a review for the original game, Melee, Brawl, and the 3DS version of Smash 4, characters that are requested that I don’t think will be in, top 10 Smash characters, 5 characters I want in the game, and impressions from already confirmed characters. I might do some of it a month earlier or later so I have more time, but needless to say, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I will probably do other months of/marathons for other franchises but for now I just have Smash planned. I hope you look forward to Super Smash month!