Nintendo’s franchises manage to kick around longer than any other in existence. Mario, Kirby, Link have all had appearances in every generation of consoles for the past twenty years, but one had disappeared from memory… or at least until a few years ago. Kid Icarus brings Pit, the angel with a bad ass bow, back to the consoles in his first game in more than two decades. So, is this game worth the wait or is this game one best left in the past?
Kid Icarus puts you in the role of Pit, an angel and guardian of the goddess Palutena. When Medusa returns after she was thought to be vanquished way back yonder it is up to Pit to stop the evil demon and her demonic forces. However it would appear there’s larger forces at work, but I‘ll let you find out more about that for yourself. The game does play off of its roots by eluding to the past games with pixel art form which does result in some laughs and a touch of nostalgia.
The gameplay of Uprising is a lot like a lovechild between Starfox and a third person shooter. So, much like Star Fox: Assault for Gamecube… but with angels and demons. Unfortunately the game is hindered by it‘s reliance of the stylus for targeting and moving about in the different sections. While it does allow for the circle pad pro (the cure all for the 3DS), it merely shifts the primary moving controls from the left side to the right. This is a game that would’ve truly benefited from the dual analog sticks.
The missions only take about 10 or so minutes a go and you can replay them with increasing difficulting using hearts collected in game. Also, there is a wide variety of weapons you can find in game, purchase in store, or forge them by combining weapons together. It does allow you to fine tune and choose the way you play the game while building up your collection of badass weapons that any angel would kill to get their hands on.
The multiplayer is a nice feature, but it really does suffer if you don‘t know anyone else with the game. In my case I wasn‘t able to find another colleague to play with so I didn‘t get a good chance to try this out.
Final Verdict
Gameplay 7.5 /10
Graphics 6.0 / 10
Controls 5.5 / 10
Replayability 7.0 / 10
Overall 7 / 10
Kid Icarus: Uprising is a good start to a new series from Nintendo, but the controls and similarity to Star Fox sets it back a bit in my books. I’d like to see how the series develops, but Kid Icarus didn’t live up to the hype and development time behind it. I’d recommend trying this one out, but I would hold out on buying it.