Listen, I'll try to make this review shorter than this game's levels. The summary of the review is... cut the levels by half, and this could've been an infinitely better game.

As much as the upgrade systems were a little difficult to grasp (that's on me for not reading the manual...), I did enjoy the feeling of scaling my way up the vertical stages, and strategically taking down the enemies in my way. The dungeon-like levels and horizontal ones weren't too bad either.

My willingness to replay this game again however, is ruined by the exhausting length of each stage, its layout copy-pasted several times to pad things out. If they wanted Kid Icarus to feel like a grand adventure through how big it is, that's fine, but you're gonna have to do a lot more than this. As it stands, there's too much here for too little gain.

One of the very few genuinely awful Nintendo games. It is just frustrating to play. The enemies are vastly overpowered and you die in way too few hits. The dungeons are slogs to get through, and the fact that you are expected to grind an absurd amount of hearts just to get a freaking map is bull crap. Did I mention the bosses that take LITERALLY ONE HUNDRED hits to kill?! The Bosses also don't play fair, like the snake dragon boss that bounces around the room, making him not only hard to hit, hard to doge also, especially when you only have like three platforms above death lava below. Oh and how about those eggplant wizards who permanently leave you with no way to attack until you make an outrageously long hike to a doctor's room (which you may not even no where one is if your in a dungeon because of the ripoff map prices). I cannot recommend that you AVOID this game more. The soundtrack and unique style are the only things stopping this from being a half star rating.

Another Nintendo classic to tick off, Kid Icarus stars Pit as he travels through Angel Land to rescue the Queen Palutena from Medusa. While the story is minimal, I’ll give them honest credit for the presentation, the character sprites are a cut above what you may expect on the NES. The game mostly runs well and the enemy designs really delve into the Greek mythology the story runs with.

The game is like a mixture of Metroid and Zelda, there’s 3 main worlds, and each have 3 normal levels, then a dungeon. The main levels aren’t too bad, they go by pretty fast and challenge your platforming and shooting skills. The dungeons are more complex and honestly just confusing, and that sums up a lot of the experience. Confusing.

There’s a few crucial yet unexplained systems that are going to make things hell. This game is hard when you start with a single health bar, low damage and no items. You need to essentially grind to stand a chance. You can unlock power ups for Pit to make him extremely powerful, but you can’t use them in the dungeons.. which is where the bosses are.. it’s a weird balance that never quite hits right.

There’s a bit of fun to be had with the gameplay, it controls well, but the structure is like oil and water clashing.

The music’s pretty catchy, and the game goes by fast when you get going. But overall, I’m just abit confused with this one - 5/10

While I played the original Kid Icarus on the NES, most of my tenure was spent playing it on the Wii virtual console. Often maligned as Metroid's deformed cousin, Kid Icarus is hard. Especially the first world, which was often a common breaking point that people failed to get past. God knows I stubbornly grinded my face against it for hours until I got to 1-4 and the game opened up. Figuratively and literally, the 4th levels of each world are dungeons where the Metroid comparisons come into play. Also the power curve of Pit through the game bears some similarities with Metroid.

Truth be told? I like Kid Icarus more than the original Metroid. It's linear, sure, but the tightness of the controls makes it feel good to play and unlike Metroid you won't spend the entire game getting lost. They really aren't comparable though. I think as far as platformers go on the NES, you can do a lot worse than Kid Icarus. I'd even call it "good".