In the months leading up to the Nintendo 3DS launch one of the most highly anticipated games was the return of Pit in Kid Icarus Uprising. The game for many felt like it took forever to come out. Thanks to its interesting control scheme, when it was first released it came with a special stand for your 3DS.
Story & Presentation
Kid Icarus Uprising has a pretty fun story that sees the evil Medusa returning and causing chaos with her Underworld Army. The Goddess Of Light called Palutena needs her most loyal servant Pit to take flight and put a stop to Medusa before she takes over the world. The story is actually really interesting and is very well written. One thing I got a kick out of was how the game would break the fourth wall on occasion.
This game is just pure eye candy. This really does show the power that the Nintendo 3DS has when it comes to visuals. There is just so much stuff going on at once that it makes your mind spin! The game manages to take many of the elements from the original NES game and make them look amazing, but at the same time keep that same classic style. It is very well done and I cannot applaud the game designers enough for this.
The sound in the game is great. It has a blood pumping soundtrack that is accompanied with some amazing voice acting as well. This game could be cheesy as hell given its premise, but the voice acting is done well enough that it never takes its self to serious and as a result it tells a great story with some great twists and turns.
Gameplay
Before I talk about the various game modes I want to talk about the games controls. Kid Icarus Uprising is one of those games that you either love to play or find it awkward. The game requires you to use the control pad, the touch screen and the L button. The idea is that you use the control pad to move Pit around the touch screen to aim and the L button to shoot. This is a interesting control scheme once you get used to it, but it can take a while to get the hang of it. The game even came with a stand to help you play it. As playing this with your 3DS on your lap can be very uncomfortable and some people even reported that their hand would cramp up. One cool thing the game does is cater for people who are lefties. Where they can use the face buttons instead of the circle pad to move Pit.
The levels are split into different parts, with the first part of a level seeing you control Pit as he is flying. Then you will go to a section with Pit on the ground and then lastly you will have a boss fight. For the most part all the levels follow this formal and it is a great deal of fun once you get the controls down. The story mode in the game is excellent and it is pretty long as well. I will say that this can be a tough game and it is one that will require you to stick with it in order to get the best out of it.
Kid Icarus Uprising does also have a really neat multi player mode. You can play solo trying to kill everyone in free for all or you can play team death match. The team death match is just so much fun it’s unreal. The idea is that you are either on team light or team dark and you need to make sure your team wins. These multi player modes may not be cutting edge, but they do offer hours and hours of game play.
Final Thoughts
Is Kid Icarus Uprising a perfect game? I would have to say no. While I get what they were going for in terms of the games control I can see many people selling this game or giving it to a buddy rather than sticking with the game and learning the controls. If you know going into this that it is a game that takes a while to get the hang of then you will have a much better time with it. Just know that Kid Icarus Uprising is not some kiddy Nintendo game that is for 5 year olds. This game is seriously tough, but if you stick with it and put in the time you will find it a really fun game.
