Kid Icarus: Uprising (2012)

Sakurai really fucking knocked this one out of the park. It's crazy that this game is really this good and flew so under the radar. This absolute brainchild is an excellent combination of TPS and Rail Shooter and manages to do both mixes extraordinarily well. Featuring some excellent enemy design that never falters and solid rail levels that really push the stylus-point combat well, all wrapped up in a excellently written package due in no small part to the wonderful voice cast who perform so well here, creating a rather elegant package that is exemplified by the beautiful aesthetic and music it runs with.

It's not perfect of course, there's quite a few level parts that felt disgustingly brutal as a difficulty spike, and the system for health could've been made a lot more interesting. But even still, the completely in-your-hands difficulty setting and great replayability mitigates these issues. For something that isn't entirely 'my thing' in terms of how combat works (the arena combat doesn't really satisfy me in ways I assume will satisfy most others, and that's very much a main appeal) I can't recommend it enough. (8.5/10)

First Impressions - Kid Icarus: Uprising

5 Chapters in, it's really great. It doesn't exactly seem to be my aesthetic, but the charm and writing of the game is slowly winning me over. There's a strong energy permeating through the whole game in terms of like how every joke is delivered and going from encounter to encounter causing the next quip or musical sting to play. The gameplay itself is very good although I'm still not really used to the controls. Sometimes there's certain parts where dodging with the stylus while keeping track of enemies on screen while shooting with your left hand on the L button gets really left brain right brain. The adjustable difficulty is super cool and an absolute godsend. So far it's situated me around 6.1 at the "try it here" so i guess i'm decent at the game. It's great so far, I plan on finishing it by week's end.

Man, i can't believe this game came out 7 years ago already. I remember being so excited to see my favourite smash bros character finally get his own game ! (I didn't know about the original kid icarus).

The AR cards... The black plastic stand thingy to hold your 3ds so you don't hurt your arm too badly... I couldn't wait to get my hands on the special edition.

The game radiates personnality and charm, yeah the combat can be a little iffy and awkward but it never really bothered me.

5 out of 5.

(Ps : Please give us a port on the switch ;v;)

Sorry Pit

Do you like rail shooters or Star Fox 64 like flight sims? How about brawler combat? How about cute little cartoon characters? And collecting a bunch of weapons? It has all of that my friend and it fails at everything in totality.

Most levels in this game are 1/2 flying section with Star Fox like play and 1/2 ground section that's basically a brawler. The flight sections suck because the enemy fire patterns are chaotic nonsense, where it seems like you just move in a circle pattern and hope for the best. The DS touchscreen was also not designed for intense twitch aiming making it mildly painful to play. The ground sections suck because the camera is so busted you can't even see infront of Pit half the time: in order to make the ground sections not impossible they just throw hardly any enemies at you and make them very unaggressive, which does make the stages beatable, just very boring.

As for all the weapons you get. Since most enemies move very fast but have little health, the slower weapons are not needed (and the melee weapons are a just bad joke since you have to bring them into the flying levels where they are considerably less effective). So the list of good weapons gets limited to a handful of ultra fast firing weapons and the homing ones. You can get passive bonuses to the weapons, which consist of incredibly bizarre stats like "more damage while dashing left" or something stupid.

And I don't care how much you like the characters. Having them constantly talk during the stages gets annoying, especially when you replay the stages.

My last bit of tolerance for the game ended with how it handles difficulty. Rather than creating a well balanced difficulty or a handful of well-balanced difficulty settings it just gives you a difficulty slider and asks you to figure the damn thing out. The idea is you're supposed be on a loot treadmill where you to get better weapons for attempting harder difficulties but when 'better weapons' means 'the exact same weapon you are already using but with more damage' it has no appeal to me.

If ever there was a game to truly warrant the creation of a 3DS, this would be it. As a rail-shooter, Kid Icarus goes above and beyond what anyone could imagine for the system.

Graphical prowess? Kid Icarus has gorgeous and incredibly action-packed set pieces across its 25 stages, each with very original looks that never overstay their welcome. Gameplay-wise it brings back the refreshing use of the touch screen and an aiming system that makes good use of the stylus and the Circle Pad.

The story is also quite stellar, filled with action and twists alongside plenty of humor and tongue-in-cheek references delivered by a strong voice cast. You'll be laughing and in awe at what the plot has planned next.

Mechanically, on top of making an unprecedented change for Kid Icarus, the design (from the UI to the difficulty meter) also heavily inspired the fantastic Super Smash Bros. 4, creating systems that are flexible and fun to play.

Overall, the game has an incredible amount of meat on some very sturdy bones; it's a crime if you have a 3DS and haven't played this gorgeous wonder.