Kid Icarus: Uprising: The Kotaku Review

Kid Icarus: Uprising eschews the lengthy cutscenes of its video game contemporaries, but it still has a whole lot of story to tell. It does so by having characters simply… talk over the action, babbling jokes, exposition, and one-liners across the 3DS’ bottom screen as frenetic action plays out on the top screen. At first, it’s off-putting and confusing, but as you get used to it, it becomes something of a familiar and enjoyable rhythm. This is a very well-written game, but it’s also, well, a very written one, with a ton of jabbering and babbling going on at most every moment of the game. I liked it, but it could be a turn-off for some. (Fortunately, you can mute the dialogue and just read the subtitles when you’re able.)

The people who worked the dialogue had a lot of fun coming up with jokes and references, and the dialogue is almost entirely charming and even chuckle-out-loud funny. The humor is often of the meta variety, with lots of references to the first Kid Icarus, along with plenty of more general video game jokes. One Nintendogs reference, in particular, made me guffaw.

Uprising is a real looker on the 3DS, as well. I first saw this game back before I owned a PlayStation Vita, and I have to say that some of the bloom is off the rose now that I’ve grown accustomed to Sony’s big, bright-screened device. But all the same, Kid Icarus: Uprising matches Resident Evil Revelations as one of the best-looking games on the system. It’s a color-explosion, with deep, rich starfields giving way to fireworks shows, pink futuristic labyrinths, and incredible space pirate-ships. It runs well, too—the 3D effect can be tiring after a while, but it’s used to its fullest potential, and there’s very little of the doubling that I’ve found in some other 3rd-person adventure games on the 3DS.

The enemy design in Kid Icarus: Uprising is second-to-none. That’s mostly due to the fact that the developers at Sora Games simply lightly re-imagined the enemies from the 1986 Kid Icarus. The video game enemies of the 80’s were a lot more bizarre than the humanoid lizards and aliens that we spend so much time fighting today. But seeing them painstakingly rendered into 3D creations feels like some kind of revelation—to go head-to-head with a huge multi-layered clam that shoots lightening, or a giant floating sheep-head that launches balls of wool until it goes bald… it feels like a revelation.

But as much as Uprising centers on flying, shooting, and fighting, it’s also about menus and unlockables. So, so many menus and unlockables. Kid Icarus: Uprising‘s currency system is hearts, which are earned every time you kill an enemy and are sometimes scattered throughout the level in hard-to-reach places. Hearts can be used for all sorts of things, and at the start of every level of single-player, you’ll have the option to gamble hearts on the game’s difficulty. Play at a higher difficulty, and you’ll win more hearts—but if you die, you’ll lose hearts from your own store. There are 90 (!!) levels of difficulty in the game—anything below level “20” and you’re actually paying in hearts to make the game easier. Past 20, you’re gambling hearts that you’re good enough to make it through the level without dying. It’s a fun and very involved system.

Hearts mostly come into play in Uprising‘s many menus, which are attractively laid out, and can even be moved and jumbled around if you grab them with the stylus. Outside of the game, here are but a few of the various options:

Go through what appears to be hundreds of weapons, comparing and contrasting them, and combining them into new weapons.

Create streetpass gems for weapons that allow you to share your arsenal with people you encounter on out in the world. Fuse the gems you’ve recieved with other gems to create new gems, just like you would with weapons.

The “Treasure Hunt” is a huge tiled mosaic in which each tile corresponds to an in-game challenge like killing a certain number of enemies or getting a certain kind of weapon. Getting all the achievements lets you… apparently, see the painting beneath?

The “Idol Toss” lets you take eggs that you’ve earned in the game and place them into a container that launches them into space, converting them into weapons and collectable idols. You can use your 3DS coins to buy more idols—I could buy hundreds of eggs if I wanted to.

In addition to weapons, you can lay out your powers, which are assignable to the D-pad. They run the gamut from useful (Health Recharge) to crazy (Launch a fireworks show!). They must be arranged like Tetris pieces in Pit’s inventory, something like Resident Evil 4. There are tons of powers, and new ones unlock all the time—it’s possible to have the computer arrange the powers for you to save time.

There’s a music gallery where you can listen to songs that you’ve unlocked.

Even the control-settings menus are odd and involved—what most games would have as a simple series of check-boxes Uprising makes into a whole colorful affair, complete with submenus and unique graphical elements.

My favorite feature is called “Offering,” mainly because I’m not yet sure what it does. Players can sacrifice hearts earned in the game to the Goddess Palutena. Doing so will “bring you closer to the Goddess.” Palutena stands off in the distance at first, and as you give hearts, she moves a little bit closer. To what end, you may ask? I don’t know! I haven’t earned nearly enough hearts to bring her close enough to ask her.

All of this noise under the hood can feel distracting at first, but after a while, it become an inextricable part of the overall game.

Light vs. Dark mode also features a type of gambling, in that the stronger the weaponry you bring into the field, the more of a chunk of your team’s life-bar will deplete if you are killed. So, if you’re going to bring that five-star bow into the fight, you better be good enough to use it. Winning multiplayer matches can net you some fabulous prizes—in my first multiplayer victory I won a staff that hugely outshines the paltry weaponry that I’ve won so far on my single-player adventure.

This isn’t a “If you like xxx kind of game, you’ll like this” type of situation.

Are you getting the sense that there’s a lot of game here? Because there is. So much that I haven’t yet finished the main storyline—though that was at least in part because I was deathly ill for the first four days I was playing the game (this is most assuredly not a fun game to play with a fever). It goes on and on, with revelations layered on top of other revelations, breathless chattering over shooting gallery after shooting gallery. The story never feels particularly vital or impactful, but it’s breezy and light and keeps things moving. I’ve spent a good chunk of time going through the menus alone, and feel like there are scads of hidden things that I haven’t yet seen. Better still, every aspect of the game is designed to be highly replayable—the huge range of difficulty modes and the treasure hunt challenges will keep completionist gamers playing for a long, long time.

Kid Icarus: Uprising is a distinctive, oddball piece of work. It’s not easy to recommend in the way that many other games are—this isn’t a “If you like xxx kind of game, you’ll like this” type of situation. Its controls are a headache, and it can be physically uncomfortable to play. Its goofy enthusiasm can get tiring, and at higher difficulties the camera issues can be maddening.

But it’s also full of joy, a whirling dervish of color, light and humor. It feels uncalculated in a way that very few games do anymore. It’s unlike any other game currently available for the 3DS, and is fundamentally fun to play despite its flaws. And so while the adage “Your mileage may vary” is particular true in this case, I have gotten a good number of miles out of Kid Icarus: Uprising, and when I look to the future, all I see are more miles, stretching out to the horizon.

What’s that blocking my view? Oh, it’s a giant flying nose-monster that shoots bombs from its nostrils.