By Aaron N
Kid Icarus: Uprising was one of the first games announced at E3 when Nintendo first unveiled the Nintendo 3DS. "Uprising" brought the main character Pit back to a title game for the first time since 1991. The young angel's popularity has skyrocketed since his appearance in the latest installment in the Super Smash Brothers series so it wasn't too surprising that a new Kid Icarus game would be made.
Graphics:
Kid Icarus: Uprising's graphics have a lot of layers to them. First you must talk about the obvious 3D aspect. I feel like the 3D in this game was left in the background. It was there to add depth and not to make things stand out. This type of approach was very successful for this game. But with this nature of 3D there came times while playing that the screen became blurred. Some times this would happen at bad times and it would affect the gameplay. The other layer of graphics is the styleization of the game. It stayed with the traditional cartoonish graphics that Nintendo has used frequently as of late but it also added in some realistic graphics. The space battles were very crisp while the on-foot battles always had a unique look to each level.
Story:
The story for "Uprising" was a convoluted one. But I still enjoyed it. The convoluted nature of the story overall did not take anything away from the gameplay. It starts with Pit, who is guided by his goddess Palutena, taking on a revived Medusa and her troops. You have to battle through her three main generals, along the way acquiring weapons and gear needed for the battle with Medusa. But this is where the game takes a crazy turn. In a neat surprise it is revealed after you defeat Medusa that Hades was the man behind her revival, he actually interrupts the end credits which was cool. But that is just where the craziness begins. You have to fight against the goddess of the Earth, Viridi, who has decided that she must destroy humanity. But then in the middle of stopping her, a mysterious alien armada threatens Earth and you must join forces with the forces of nature to stop them. But you can only defeat them after defeating the sun god who has fused with the alien forces. After defeating them the game jumps a few years into the future where an evil being was released from prison and took over Palutena's body. So you must use Viridi's help you save Pit's goddess. Trust me when you are playing the game it makes a little more sense than I can make it sound. After all these events occur you can finally take on Hades and save the world...right? Well not really. You do take on the evil bohemeth but after going inside his body and destroying his heart you must meet with an old sage who has the key to finally getting rid of Hades. After acquiring a giant mech you must pilot it against Hades and defeat him. And after you defeat him the end credits roll for real this time. I hope I did an adequate job of conveying the story but it would really take a whole article to explain it in depth and unfortunately I must move on to the gameplay.
Gameplay:
Each level had two parts, a flight battle and an on-foot battle. The controls for the game was a unique experience. You use the stylist to aim the weapons, the control stick to move, and the L-buttom to shoot your weapon. This configuration hurts your hand after a while but I can definitely see after playing the flight battles that they could use this for a unique way to play a Star Fox game in the future. A big part of the gameplay that I wanted to touch on briefly was the dialogue. While making it still kid friendly, the dialogue still would entertain the older audience. Pit comes off as a happy go lucky protagonist but he's not annoying in that sense. You want to root for him to win. Every character has a different way of talking and a different personality. They play off of each other very well. The only problem I came across with this was that they talk during the battles and sometimes I could not understand what they were saying because I had to pay attention to the battle.
Music:
Kid Icarus: Uprising had an amazing soundtrack. Every level had its own music that fit the atmosphere that was being projected. It made me get engrossed in the game and left me asking for more.
Overall:
I thoroughly enjoyed playing through Kid Icarus: Uprising. I enjoyed almost every aspect of the game and I was disappointed that I finished it. The atmosphere was reminiscent of some of the past Legend of Zelda games. They created a gigantic universe to play in with many fantastic characters that they can build so much off of. While I am told that they do not plan on making any sequels, I hope that they change their minds because it would be a shame to waste so much potential for a successful franchise.
Kid Icarus: Uprising gets a 9/10
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