The second favourite NES game of mine, it’s so good. Fuck the haters.
What would a lot of people consider this game as a classic, this game is average when it comes to gameplay.
Graphically , this game looks decent. The Enemies sprites looks good, the main characters as well. However, the background is kind of basic. A black background with obstacles in the middle is average to the other games that I played so far.
This game is a platformer that you go from bottom to the top of the screen. The screen will follow the character. However, you can't go back. Once the screens goes up, you cannot go down again. This is present in most of the game. You also have some doors that have some shops in them or simply some bonus rooms. The bonus rooms are really unclear on what to do.
Your main character can shoot tiny arrows and jumps all around. This game have also a health bar system. The character can level up when completing a stage or in bonus rooms. Like I said previously, it is really unclear on what you need before entering the room. Once you exit that room, you lose the ability to go back in. That means you can lose some upgrade along the run.
There are some dungeons setting that you can pass through doors and the screen is still until you cross a door. Those dungeon are really easy to get lost in them. The enemy spawns in certain rooms can also be really annoying at some time.
One part that is really nice to do is at the end when it is a side scrolling part where your character flies and becomes a side shooter style game. That part was a nice change to the pacing. However, it only occurs at the end of the game.
Even though I have my complains about the game, the controls are good and the shooting part is kind of fun. However, I still don't understand why so many people adore this game when I only found it decent. Maybe it's simply because I don't have the nostalgia for it.
Game #45 of my challenge.
Graphically , this game looks decent. The Enemies sprites looks good, the main characters as well. However, the background is kind of basic. A black background with obstacles in the middle is average to the other games that I played so far.
This game is a platformer that you go from bottom to the top of the screen. The screen will follow the character. However, you can't go back. Once the screens goes up, you cannot go down again. This is present in most of the game. You also have some doors that have some shops in them or simply some bonus rooms. The bonus rooms are really unclear on what to do.
Your main character can shoot tiny arrows and jumps all around. This game have also a health bar system. The character can level up when completing a stage or in bonus rooms. Like I said previously, it is really unclear on what you need before entering the room. Once you exit that room, you lose the ability to go back in. That means you can lose some upgrade along the run.
There are some dungeons setting that you can pass through doors and the screen is still until you cross a door. Those dungeon are really easy to get lost in them. The enemy spawns in certain rooms can also be really annoying at some time.
One part that is really nice to do is at the end when it is a side scrolling part where your character flies and becomes a side shooter style game. That part was a nice change to the pacing. However, it only occurs at the end of the game.
Even though I have my complains about the game, the controls are good and the shooting part is kind of fun. However, I still don't understand why so many people adore this game when I only found it decent. Maybe it's simply because I don't have the nostalgia for it.
Game #45 of my challenge.
fun to play in five minute intervals
I speedran this game for a little bit and its really good once you dont suck ass at it like most people who gave it a low score. The skill ceiling is high with a good challenge being presented. The controls can be a lil slippery and the later dungeons can be confusing. But hey, this is one of the more playable early nes games and has aged a lot better than its sister game Metroid. Check it out, its either be there or be square.
a game that has more than 3 decades the first of the franchise even though it is difficult is a very remarkable game!
I adore how mysterious this game is.
if you gave this to your kid as a gift that should count as abuse
Nintendo front loads their most popular franchises with a new slab of entries so frequently that one can forget about the other selections they offer. Japan’s richest company could probably still subsist from Mario and Zelda (and maybe Kirby) alone, which is why we mainly see fresh releases from these franchises as opposed to offering a smorgasbord of their properties per release schedule. As impressive as this is, I think the true testament to Nintendo’s monolithic presence in the gaming world is its vast catalog of IPs. Just use the success of Super Smash Bros. as a point of reference: every single character from Nintendo’s roster, no matter how old or how popular, elicits at least a respectable amount of excitement from most of their fans. Nintendo’s fans still remember their failures and burnt-out relics even if the company tries its best to sweep them up in a dustpan and dispose of them in the refuse of time. Nintendo kicked this process into overdrive in recent generations with several of their properties, but they’ve been doing this since their heyday on the NES. Kid Icarus used to be the poster boy of forsaken Nintendo franchises, debuting on the company’s first console with one title before being abandoned completely. Given that the game was released alongside generation-defining titans like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, it seemed like Kid Icarus was destined for success. However, upon playing Kid Icarus, it’s not hard to imagine why Kid Icarus didn’t catch on like its contemporaries.
But why was Kid Icarus reduced to a one-hit wonder when it was propped up amongst the architects of Nintendo’s legacy? Certainly, Kid Icarus is more inspired and offers more content to extrapolate on compared to its fellow NES stalemates like Ice Climber and Clu Clu Land. If one’s high school education needs dusting off, the game’s title alludes to the Greek myth of Icarus, the young man who infamously flew too close to the sun and fatally dipped into the ocean from the sky and drowned. Whether or not one sees this story from ancient times as a sympathetic tragedy or a fable poking at the hubris of man, Icarus has ostensibly resonated in popular culture from centuries onward. However, Kid Icarus is not an 8-bit rendering of the morality tale. Hell, the winged, cherublike protagonist of the game isn’t even named Icarus–but the blunt-sounding nickname of Pit. No matter, for the game can still borrow plenty from the gilded Greek mythos to sculpt something of substance. Kid Icarus presents itself as the same respectable tribute to the entirety of Greek mythology that Castlevania does with the golden age of horror films.
Then again, refusing to commit to a single source of inspiration might be the root cause of Kid Icarus’s downfall (no pun intended). Kid Icarus’s gameplay is cemented in the 2D platformer genre, but the game insists on warping the perspective for every level. The game begins as a vertical platformer, hopping upward on a series of clouds and Corinthian architecture to eventually reach the goal at the zenith point of the climb. The NES was no stranger to these sections spliced into the action of other 2D platformers, and their inclusion was a tense, thrilling mixup of the standard side-scrolling action. In Kid Icarus, however, prolonging these sections to the length of an entire level makes the ascent a hefty endurance test. Slipping down the cavernous pratfalls created by the scrolling screen devouring the level will obviously kill Pit instantly, which makes him channel his inner Daniel Plainview and scream “I’m finished!” as he is transported back to the beginning of the level. A one-life penalty seems harsh, but at least a password system is implemented instead of sending the player back to the start of the game upon dying. Still, these vertical levels feature far too many hazards, especially at the beginning of the game. The levels in the second act of the game adopt a more traditional trek to the right side of the screen, and the difference in difficulty between the opposing level axes is clear as day. Technically, Kid Icarus only offers 3 levels, but they are divided into four sections that extend those levels significantly. The sublevels are already lengthy enough as is, so the player has to endure an onslaught of hazards before they are victorious. The fourth sublevel will always remain constant: a labyrinth stage where the player must navigate through a series of rooms and find the correct path to the boss. These sublevels are intended to ape the dungeons in Zelda, but not even the hidden bomb passage in the first Zelda is as cryptic and circuitous as these befuddling excursions. Also, finding the dungeon map in Zelda would uncover the entire layout as opposed to putting a blank board on the screen shaped like a waffle with one glowing dot to indicate Pit’s location. Why do these levels punish the player so swiftly without them warranting it?
If the inflexible level design doesn’t crush the player’s spirit, the droves of mythical enemies definitely will. They complement each level’s challenge effectively, but more like an axis of evil and torment than anything. Snakes with wings will fall from the ceiling without little notice, and the piles of sludge that form from the ground are short enough to only scrape their heads with Pit’s arrows and piss me off. A particularly irksome enemy type is the reapers. These scythe-wielding phantoms go apeshit when they are aware of Pit’s presence, signaling four minions to swoop down on Pit and distract him from his trajectory. They also tend to be situated on the slimmest of platforms along the path, making them especially difficult to avoid. Really, the one enemy from Kid Icarus that is so notoriously vexing is the Eggplant Wizards. Where in the Greco-Roman texts do these robed cyclopses stem from? Probably none of them, but they’ve earned their spot in the Kid Icarus canon. They’ll lob their namesake fruit at Pit and if he comes in contact with one, their black magic will reduce him to nothing but an eggplant with legs. Being that eggplants are soft and squishy, Pit cannot fight in this handicapped state. The only solution is to visit a sectioned-off block of any fourth level dedicated to a doctor who’ll cure Pit’s ailment. Considering all the player has to reference is a rectangular pastry to find this specific area, pray to the Gods of Olympus if you stumble upon these purple bastards. Surprisingly, each boss at the end of every fourth level is relatively undemanding, even if Pit doesn’t free the petrified soldiers with the hammer items.
Only having the poor excuse for a map the game offers isn’t entirely accurate, I must admit. The player can purchase a pencil from one of the merchants, but the player would be better off saving their heart currency for other items. The saving grace of Kid Icarus is that the game becomes far less stressful once the player acquires all of the upgrades, permanently boosting their maximum health and damage output for the duration of the game. Other nifty tools to purchase are fire arrows, magic rods, and a glass of wine that restores a fair bit of health. How bohemian. While all of these upgrades seem like a practical solution to beating this game, none of them come cheap. I mean this quite literally as buying any of these items will break the bank, so the player will have to make an entrepreneurial decision on which item will be the best for them. If the game still proves to be excruciating with this frugal system, the other option is to farm hearts with a maximum quantity of ten. The player is forced to engage in several forced grinding sessions to make the game tolerable, and that aspect is absolutely unforgivable.
Also, the amount of items the player has on hand coincides with the ending the player receives. Kid Icarus already flirts around with different interpretations of the 2D platformer, so why not add a space shooter section as the final one for good measure? At the end of this overlong flight, Pit will take down Medusa, the prime mythical Greek figure who serves as the game’s main antagonist, by shooting the eye of the monstrous vegetation she’s hiding beneath. Paulutena, the damsel in distress, rewards Pit the same way a boss would. Depending on the player's diligence, Pit’s future will range from a lowly farmer to a prestigious role as a knight in her army. As far as I’m concerned, she can demote Pit to a shoe shiner because the qualifications needed to put Pit in a more lucrative position isn’t worth meeting. Sorry, Pit.
The main issue with Kid Icarus is that its gameplay identity wasn’t worth giving further attention to. The game isn’t any more cruel and cryptic than its peers at Nintendo, frustrating the player to no end and leaving them as lost as a gerbil in a test chamber. However, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid pioneered a fresh outlook on game design that the world would’ve been bereft of if Nintendo decided not to expand upon, despite their myriad of gameplay flaws. Pit throws every conceivable method of platforming in a 2D space at the wall and executes them all very poorly. I’m forgiving its rudimentary foundation to some extent like every NES game, but Kid Icarus simply doesn’t offer any visionary concepts. No wonder why Nintendo left Kid Icarus at the front steps of the gaming orphanage. Nintendo was only producing game changers at the time, and Kid Icarus didn’t quite cut it.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
But why was Kid Icarus reduced to a one-hit wonder when it was propped up amongst the architects of Nintendo’s legacy? Certainly, Kid Icarus is more inspired and offers more content to extrapolate on compared to its fellow NES stalemates like Ice Climber and Clu Clu Land. If one’s high school education needs dusting off, the game’s title alludes to the Greek myth of Icarus, the young man who infamously flew too close to the sun and fatally dipped into the ocean from the sky and drowned. Whether or not one sees this story from ancient times as a sympathetic tragedy or a fable poking at the hubris of man, Icarus has ostensibly resonated in popular culture from centuries onward. However, Kid Icarus is not an 8-bit rendering of the morality tale. Hell, the winged, cherublike protagonist of the game isn’t even named Icarus–but the blunt-sounding nickname of Pit. No matter, for the game can still borrow plenty from the gilded Greek mythos to sculpt something of substance. Kid Icarus presents itself as the same respectable tribute to the entirety of Greek mythology that Castlevania does with the golden age of horror films.
Then again, refusing to commit to a single source of inspiration might be the root cause of Kid Icarus’s downfall (no pun intended). Kid Icarus’s gameplay is cemented in the 2D platformer genre, but the game insists on warping the perspective for every level. The game begins as a vertical platformer, hopping upward on a series of clouds and Corinthian architecture to eventually reach the goal at the zenith point of the climb. The NES was no stranger to these sections spliced into the action of other 2D platformers, and their inclusion was a tense, thrilling mixup of the standard side-scrolling action. In Kid Icarus, however, prolonging these sections to the length of an entire level makes the ascent a hefty endurance test. Slipping down the cavernous pratfalls created by the scrolling screen devouring the level will obviously kill Pit instantly, which makes him channel his inner Daniel Plainview and scream “I’m finished!” as he is transported back to the beginning of the level. A one-life penalty seems harsh, but at least a password system is implemented instead of sending the player back to the start of the game upon dying. Still, these vertical levels feature far too many hazards, especially at the beginning of the game. The levels in the second act of the game adopt a more traditional trek to the right side of the screen, and the difference in difficulty between the opposing level axes is clear as day. Technically, Kid Icarus only offers 3 levels, but they are divided into four sections that extend those levels significantly. The sublevels are already lengthy enough as is, so the player has to endure an onslaught of hazards before they are victorious. The fourth sublevel will always remain constant: a labyrinth stage where the player must navigate through a series of rooms and find the correct path to the boss. These sublevels are intended to ape the dungeons in Zelda, but not even the hidden bomb passage in the first Zelda is as cryptic and circuitous as these befuddling excursions. Also, finding the dungeon map in Zelda would uncover the entire layout as opposed to putting a blank board on the screen shaped like a waffle with one glowing dot to indicate Pit’s location. Why do these levels punish the player so swiftly without them warranting it?
If the inflexible level design doesn’t crush the player’s spirit, the droves of mythical enemies definitely will. They complement each level’s challenge effectively, but more like an axis of evil and torment than anything. Snakes with wings will fall from the ceiling without little notice, and the piles of sludge that form from the ground are short enough to only scrape their heads with Pit’s arrows and piss me off. A particularly irksome enemy type is the reapers. These scythe-wielding phantoms go apeshit when they are aware of Pit’s presence, signaling four minions to swoop down on Pit and distract him from his trajectory. They also tend to be situated on the slimmest of platforms along the path, making them especially difficult to avoid. Really, the one enemy from Kid Icarus that is so notoriously vexing is the Eggplant Wizards. Where in the Greco-Roman texts do these robed cyclopses stem from? Probably none of them, but they’ve earned their spot in the Kid Icarus canon. They’ll lob their namesake fruit at Pit and if he comes in contact with one, their black magic will reduce him to nothing but an eggplant with legs. Being that eggplants are soft and squishy, Pit cannot fight in this handicapped state. The only solution is to visit a sectioned-off block of any fourth level dedicated to a doctor who’ll cure Pit’s ailment. Considering all the player has to reference is a rectangular pastry to find this specific area, pray to the Gods of Olympus if you stumble upon these purple bastards. Surprisingly, each boss at the end of every fourth level is relatively undemanding, even if Pit doesn’t free the petrified soldiers with the hammer items.
Only having the poor excuse for a map the game offers isn’t entirely accurate, I must admit. The player can purchase a pencil from one of the merchants, but the player would be better off saving their heart currency for other items. The saving grace of Kid Icarus is that the game becomes far less stressful once the player acquires all of the upgrades, permanently boosting their maximum health and damage output for the duration of the game. Other nifty tools to purchase are fire arrows, magic rods, and a glass of wine that restores a fair bit of health. How bohemian. While all of these upgrades seem like a practical solution to beating this game, none of them come cheap. I mean this quite literally as buying any of these items will break the bank, so the player will have to make an entrepreneurial decision on which item will be the best for them. If the game still proves to be excruciating with this frugal system, the other option is to farm hearts with a maximum quantity of ten. The player is forced to engage in several forced grinding sessions to make the game tolerable, and that aspect is absolutely unforgivable.
Also, the amount of items the player has on hand coincides with the ending the player receives. Kid Icarus already flirts around with different interpretations of the 2D platformer, so why not add a space shooter section as the final one for good measure? At the end of this overlong flight, Pit will take down Medusa, the prime mythical Greek figure who serves as the game’s main antagonist, by shooting the eye of the monstrous vegetation she’s hiding beneath. Paulutena, the damsel in distress, rewards Pit the same way a boss would. Depending on the player's diligence, Pit’s future will range from a lowly farmer to a prestigious role as a knight in her army. As far as I’m concerned, she can demote Pit to a shoe shiner because the qualifications needed to put Pit in a more lucrative position isn’t worth meeting. Sorry, Pit.
The main issue with Kid Icarus is that its gameplay identity wasn’t worth giving further attention to. The game isn’t any more cruel and cryptic than its peers at Nintendo, frustrating the player to no end and leaving them as lost as a gerbil in a test chamber. However, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid pioneered a fresh outlook on game design that the world would’ve been bereft of if Nintendo decided not to expand upon, despite their myriad of gameplay flaws. Pit throws every conceivable method of platforming in a 2D space at the wall and executes them all very poorly. I’m forgiving its rudimentary foundation to some extent like every NES game, but Kid Icarus simply doesn’t offer any visionary concepts. No wonder why Nintendo left Kid Icarus at the front steps of the gaming orphanage. Nintendo was only producing game changers at the time, and Kid Icarus didn’t quite cut it.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
One of my favorite NES titles, honestly. It can be a bit frustrating at times, but I still love the hell out of it.
I didn't play this until much later. I wonder what people thought back in the day. Clearly enough if the main character was in Captain N.
eggplant.
This is an absolutely gorgeous game with a fantastic, almost vaporwave atmosphere of crumbling Greek temples bursting through clouds and 8-bit neon Venus de Milo statues. Also the Eggplant Wizards, as annoying as they are, are some of my favorite enemy designs in any game I've played. (Between Kid Icarus and Ice Climbers, what's the deal with the Eggplant as iconic video game fruit?)
That being said, there are some major flaws with accessibility and difficulty in this which are impossible to overlook- health is hard to come by, and very expensive to buy considering how little the potions heal you. This is one game where having the Switch rewind button comes in really handy, but the fortresses are doable without it, as getting back to the hot springs or Eggplant hospital is perfectly manageable, if a good challenge.
I feel like there is a world where a brilliant SNES sequel to this was produced where this became one of the truly iconic Nintendo series.
That being said, there are some major flaws with accessibility and difficulty in this which are impossible to overlook- health is hard to come by, and very expensive to buy considering how little the potions heal you. This is one game where having the Switch rewind button comes in really handy, but the fortresses are doable without it, as getting back to the hot springs or Eggplant hospital is perfectly manageable, if a good challenge.
I feel like there is a world where a brilliant SNES sequel to this was produced where this became one of the truly iconic Nintendo series.
Kid Icarus has a very rough start for the series with this game. As a fan who loved Kid Icarus Uprising, I wanted to see how the series had really developed from its roots. And I can see why it went dormant until 2012. Kid Icarus is a really hard game to start out with, but with the upgrades you get later on, some of the levels become a little easier.
The bosses were all rather easy with Twinbellows being extremely exploitable. The only one that gave me trouble was Medusa, the final boss of the game, needing a strict 50 enemies slain to get to her. But other than that, the game was okay.
The bosses were all rather easy with Twinbellows being extremely exploitable. The only one that gave me trouble was Medusa, the final boss of the game, needing a strict 50 enemies slain to get to her. But other than that, the game was okay.
Too vertical.
Also once I found out that if you miss shots some hidden value decreases I became to scared in my owm skin to play this game.
Also once I found out that if you miss shots some hidden value decreases I became to scared in my owm skin to play this game.
don't remember where I first played this. Obviously reskinned Metroid 1 which I already didn't like
this game is such absolute horeshit dogpiss fuckass but the eggplant cool!
Pretty ambitious for the time, though it's definitely surpassed by Zelda 1 and Metroid 1 from the same year. Interesting mix of 2d platforming, a Contra-style run-and-gun, light RPG mechanics, and some Zelda-like dungeons. Unfortunately it does feel held back by the limitations of the NES and archaic game designs of the era. A Kid Icarus sequel on the SNES probably would've gone so hard.
Just not good
fine
wish there was some backgrounds
Fun but not fun enough to make me want to complete it, like most NES games.
Anjo analfabeto engraçado
omg rick he turned into an eggplant funniest shit i've ever heard
[a very decent platformer with it's only main caveat being the fact that it is an authentic NES experience]
[a very decent platformer with it's only main caveat being the fact that it is an authentic NES experience]
Surprisingly unique, creative and enjoyable game, still suffers from a lot of NES quirks but it's playable
I almost certainly love this game more than you will, but this was the first NES game that I decided to grind out until I could beat it. The first few levels are intense, but it gets easier as it goes on, so stick with it.
Really awkward difficulty curve, worlds 1 and 3 are far harder than worlds 2 and 4 due to vertical platforming being incredibly tricky. Should have allowed the screen to scroll down but Pit takes fall damage after a certain height or something.
Dungeons are really confusing and maze-like, and are far harder to navigate than they should. The music being a droning really short loop doesn't help. The bosses should have done more as well.
World 2's a highlight while the final level is just really boring, and Pit's a pretty fun character to upgrade and use.
Dungeons are really confusing and maze-like, and are far harder to navigate than they should. The music being a droning really short loop doesn't help. The bosses should have done more as well.
World 2's a highlight while the final level is just really boring, and Pit's a pretty fun character to upgrade and use.
No
I think Kid Icarus occupies a similar place in Nintendo's library as Vampire Killer did for Castlevania. It's more obscure than Metroid, but both games were designed with the same engine. While Metroid was an attempt at a more open-ended design, Kid Icarus is more linear. On top of that, I think Metroid focuses slightly more on enemy designs to flush out its stages while Kid Icarus is a more difficult platformer. All in all I prefer Metroid to Kid Icarus, but despite some tedium, you can see that just as much effort went into this game.
It gets good after you finally go through that hellish first level.
good music