Ultra's Reviews: Kid Icarus Uprising (3DS)

Lets Walk back to the Year 1986, The NES was the Most Popular System at the Time with Many Games Released on it. However one Stands out, a Small Gem known as Kid Icarus. dispite the Game being Popular and Loved it did not get an official Sequel for 25 Years.

And that Sequel is what I'm reviewing today, Kid Icarus Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS. Developed by Sora ltd and Directed by Masahiro Sakurai.

North Amarican Box Art

PLOT

25 Years after the events of the Original Kid Icarus, Medusa and the Underworld Army has Returned and Seeks to Wipe out Mankind and Seek Revenge on the Angel Named Pit, Who is our Protagonist, and Palutena, the Goddess of Light.

And so its up to Pit and Palutena to Stop Medusa and Save Mankind.

So, Bad Guy Returns, Good guys stop them, Pretty Bare Bones.

Ok I know the Game is like 6 years old at this point, and EVERYONE knows the Twists and Turns of this game's Story, But I still refuse to Spoil any of them.

Yea not much to say without Spoilers, Which I Try to Avoid in my Reviews so yea...

So Instead im going to Talk about this Game's Writing.

HOLE...LEE...POOP This Game's Writing is GLORIOUS

Seriously, the Game's Writing ALONE is Worth Full Price, It's THAT good.

So the Writing Takes the Direction of "Mostly not Serious at all, but Gets Serious when Needed"

The Characters Break the Fourth Wall often, to the Point where it doesn't Exist anymore, Examples of this being Pit saying the "Dark Lord" Trope is done to Death, Pit saying a Certain Enemy looks like Metroids, One of the One-Off Villains saying Pit has been Talking for the whole Game. There is plenty of Fourth Wall Breaks here.

All of the Characters in this Game are Likable, Yes, Even the one-off Villains are Well Written.

Pit is a Likable and Relatable Protagonist who has his Funny Moments and Serious Moments, and the Other Characters are either Really Likable or Really Funny, sometimes Both.

The only Character that I'm not too Fond of is Dark Pit, But he is literally making fun of the "Edgy Clone" Stereotype, so he gets a Pass. Being Just that...Literally.

GAMEPLAY

The Weirdest Part of this Game is how it's Controlled....yea This is the one thing that a ton of People Hate, Strangely You move Pit with the Circle Pad, Aim your shots with the Touch Screen, Shoot with the L button, And Select and use Powers with the D-Pad.

Not only does this Method of Control Puts the Middle Finger to Left-Handed people, But its also Prone to giving people Hand Pain.

Ok I know there is an Option to Move pit with the Face Buttons and Attack with the R button, But Moving a Character with Buttons instead of a Stick, or D-pad is Really Weird. (I done it Before on the Switch, but on a 3D game on a 3DS? it's Weird.)

Am I forgetting something? Oh yea, the Actual Game.

Kid Icarus Uprising's Levels are Split into 2 Separate Styles, Air Sections which are 3D Shootem-up Style(or a Shmup as some people call them), and Land Sections, Which are Played like a Third Person Shooter.

The Main Difference is Air Sections Always Usually Last around 5 Minutes, For Plot Reasons, and Land Sections, While are Linear, to Reward Exploration with New Weapons and Powers.

One thing that this game done is the Fiend's Cauldron. Before you Start a Level you can Pay Hearts to the Fiend's Cauldron to Raise the Difficulty of the Level. If you Beat the Stage in that Difficulty you get a ton of Rewards. You can Also Pay Hearts to Lower the Difficulty as well if you want an Easy time with the Game. This is a Really Well Made system. So Good that it got Reused for Smash 4's Classic Mode.

The Main Things you can Collect are Weapons, Powers, Hearts, Power-ups, and Health Recovery Items.

Hearts are Currency, Weapons are Kept, and you can use these Weapons in Later Stages, Powers are Similar to Equipment, The Power System is Hard to Explain, the Game Explains it better then I can, Finally Power ups and Health Recovery Items do what you would Expect them to do.

there are two Major Power-ups, The Happy Trigger, and the Power-up Drop. The Happy Trigger Decreases the time you have to wait for Charge Shots, and the Power-up Drop is Plain Old Invincibility.

As for Weapons, There are Twelve different weapons are available for each category, and with 9 categories, Adding to a total of 108 different weapons you can use, and no Two Weapons are the Same, Two of the Same Kind of Weapon May have Different Attack Stats and Different Modifiers(Getting a Good Damaging Weapon and Good Modifiers Depends on how High you set the Fiend's Cauldron to). You can Also Buy Weapons with Hearts.

In addition to these weapons and abilities, Pit is able to utilize armed vehicles in battle and for transportation, which include a mech-like armor known as the Cherubot, a sphere-shaped vehicle known as the Aether Ring, and a beetle-like vehicle known as the Exo Tank.

Another Thing are Intensity Gates, There are Special Challenge Rooms/Routes that only Open at a Certain Difficulty or Higher, These can Yield great Rewards.

The game also features compatibility with the Kid Icarus AR Cards, But Nobody Cares about them.

There is also Streetpass, While your 3ds is in Sleep Mode and If you pass by someone who also has their 3ds is in Sleep Mode, the two will Exchange data, In Uprising's Case, it Trades a Copy of a Weapon of your choice.

Finally there is Online Multiplayer, there are Two Main Modes, Light vs Dark which is a 3v3 Team Death Match, To win you must get the enemy's Meter down to 0, and Defeat the enemy team's Angel. The Other Mode is Free-for-all, Which is a 6 Player Death match, the one with the Most Kills at the end of the Time Limit Wins.

You can Actually Get Weapons and Powers from Playing Online Multiplayer, and these Weapons and Powers can be used in Single player and Vice-versa.

Whoo, there is a ton of Stuff to talk about here.

PRESENTATION

This Game Looks Gorgeous for an Early 3ds title. While the Character Models are not too much to Write Home about, the Environments are Really Pretty, even if the Resolution is low, it Still looks good.

AND WHY IS THE MUSIC SO AWESOME?!?!?

Overall, the Presentation is Good.

OVERALL

Kid Icarus Uprising is a good game, I spent well over 100 Hours in this game, The Multiplayer mode is Really Fun, the Writing and Music is AMAZING, and the Single player is Really fun too and Rewards you for Deliberately Raising the Difficulty.

The only things holding this game back is the Controls and Gamecube Quality Character Models.

But if you can Get past that, its a Fantastic game.
4/5
Great Game Despite the Major Problems.