Game Review: Kid Icarus Uprising
Pit and Palutena are back, Medusa is also back and the darkness is among humans. Fly, fight and beat the Final Boss! Make it lots and lots of times… but plot twist… It will never EVER bore you!
If you have been a Nintendo fan, you may have already played Kid Icarus(1987) or Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters(1991), two games that have been converted in classics for its gameplay rather than its story. Kid Icarus appeared as a risky option for Nintendo, taking in count that the last release was almost 20 years ago.
When Super Smash Brawl Appeared, it was surprising for everyone that there appeared Palutena an Pit, both with a new look, style, abilities and in a modern way. The moment they appeared a huge hype created around the future of the saga.
Finally on 2010 Nintendo announced that Sakurai was the main head of the project, if you don’t know Sakurai is nowadays the golden boy of Nintendo’s projects since he is the master behind Kirby and Super Smash Bros., in other words… a creator of blockbusters.
Kid Icarus Uprising centers on Palutena, the goddess of light, a strong female character that brought peace and favors to humans but that found a strong rival in Medusa, a dark and evil goddess that was after the happiness of humans. In the past Palutena beaten Medusa with the help of Pit, a young Icarius that commands her troops. Now Medusa is back, stronger than ever thanks to her commanders and evil monsters that came back… in stunning 3D.
Each chapter has 3 modes: Fly, fight and final Boss. In the flight mode, you will control the shooting and moves of Pit while Palutena gives you for 5 minutes the gift of fly. ‘Cause Pit isn't able to fly by it’s own, so you will depend entirely on her, but don't worry for; your real challenge is in shoot, and on avoiding or beating enemies and their attacks, notice that everytime you beat an enemy you will be rewarded with hearts. Keep this in mind.
The Game introduced a pretty simple and great way of establishing difficulties setting 0 as the easiest and 9 as the hardest; but as in SSB the harder the level the bigger the prize, so you must choose the right level according to your skills and weapons.
While you fly you will notice that the weapon that you choose is powerful, but when you touch the surface for the fight mode, it loses power, well that is thanks to Palutena’s gift of fly. Nevertheless, you still can do pretty powerful attacks if you combine your hits with dashes. Use this with the final Bosses and you will beat them pretty fast.
The weapons are items that you will find along the game opening chest and via streetpass exchanging gems, combining weapons and of course Palutena will have some to exchange you for hearts; The better the weapon the more expensive it will be, so there will be times when you have repeated weapons but look at the carefully because they may have a different level and skills, like poisonous or grant you higher speed.
Beating enemies on the ground is not an easy task because some of the enemies are fast, strong and respond to your attacks converting them in a huge headache, this and the awkward controls can make you have a bad time passing a level.
The controls are really hard to get used to; the combination of touch screen, pad and L stick are not a good choice, nevertheless if you buy the physic version of the game you will have a nice plastic stand, that will make the job easier.
The graphics are stunning but if you are a gamer that moves a lot during the game the 3D will confuse you, and to be honest, the 3D is one of the strongest points in this game, so I think the Ultimate experience will be better in the New Nintendo 3DS. For now, we recommend you the use of 3D only if you will use the included Stand.
One more thing… As this is centered in fighting and beating bosses you will be truly impressed to discover that the story is actually fun, interesting and with a lot of twists (more gods? strange alliances? aliens? nature bombs? badass weapons!!), a really humoristic and hilarious relationship between Pit and Palutena and a fantastic soundtrack that will make every level enjoyable and fluid.
The Nice: Tons of weapons, funny moments, really nice graphics, magnificent soundtrack, many mysteries in the game and the story.
The Not so nice: Awkward controls, the 3D won’t be a great idea all the time.
The Detail: Sometimes you will have images that show you how the villains were in the past versions of the game, so seeing the there and now is actually fun.
