Overall 9.4 Graphics 9.3 Sound 9 Addictive 9.8 Story 8.8 Depth 10 Difficulty 5.8
9.7
Kid Icarus Uprising - Soaring to New Heights Zircron Swift
Kid Icarus was one of those games back in the days. It was fun, challenging and surprisingly funny. Its sequel, however, was pretty much the same, adding very little to the series. Any more sequels like that and we would have something similar to Megaman. And so Pit was lost in time, remembered by those who played the original 25 years ago. However with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Pit made a playable character appearance, with a completely new look. He looked awesome, and there’s something about an angel with brown hair and blue eyes that makes it even cooler that I can’t understand. I was wondering then, wouldn’t it be great if there was a new game about Pit, with his new 3D style? I hoped, and my prayers were answered when I first heard of Kid ICarus: Uprising for the 3DS.
Looking at the trailers, it looked amazing, but no amount of trailers or screen shots or pages of information could prepare you for just how amazing the game really is. This game is good, like Ocarina of Time good. It makes you think why aren’t games made like this nowadays? It’s one of those rare games. It’s from the creator of Super Smash Bros., so this will be hard to hate. I mean, if you were to play any one game for the 3DS, it would be this. Why? I’m going to tell you. This is Kid Icarus: Uprising, the sequel people never thought would happen.
As you start up the game, you are greeted with a loading screen with the Dreamcast symbol spinning around. On the title screen, there’s a long scene on the top screen showing what’s in store for the game. I like how they added this in as if they expect you to watch this instead of playing the game itself. I was watching this and thought after a minute “Why am I not playing the game already?” As soon as you start up one of the three save files, you go straight into the game.
Wait? No cut-scenes? No back story? Nothing to tell us of the past of the games history? Just go straight into the game and.... have Palutena explain to Pit as to what is going on as you play the game? I like that. Instead of having a cut scene to explain everything, Palutena tells Pit the mission plan as you play. This is also an informal conversation, leaving rooms to leave witty remarks and jokes all over the place. They also use 8-bit graphics on the bottom screen to reference parts from the old games, such as Medusa and Reapers. Using snippets of the old graphics will bring a sense of nostalgia to those that played the original game, and will have a lot to relate to as they play. This gives the sense that the game isn’t caught up in its own little world, and is willing to be open and accept what it is. It’s very loose and doesn’t care that it needs to use the best of everything, but rather, what they think the players will find best.
This game is meant to enjoy and entertain people as they play, as well as what they are playing, rather than limiting it to just what they are playing. It really gives a sense of you being there with them in this crazy little world, without having to resort to using the 3D to make you feel that way. Be prepared to hear plenty of banter, and yes, most of the banter is of the upmost quality of amusement. Think you found a plot hole? The game exploits that and makes fun of it. Found something that doesn’t make sense? The game makes fun of that as well. Found a little reference? The game will probably make fun of that as well. Ever heard of the rumour that Kid Icarus was like the brother of Metriod due to its similar game play? Yeah, well the game makes a loose reference to that as well. They also enjoy to murder the forth wall rather than just break it. After completing the game, the forth wall will just be a pile of bricks.
So anyway, the story is you simply have to take down Medusa before she wipes out humanity. This works over a series of chapters, each one getting you one step closer to Medusa herself as you finish off her commanders and retrieve the Underworld key required to enter the Underworld and with it, to enter Medusa’s castle. The story gets more interesting after Chapter 5, I can assure that. The story is simple enough, but it’s the way it is told that makes it so great. Each and every boss has their own unique personality. No two characters are the same. You have the kind hearted Goddess who wants to protect everyone, the brave yet innocent angel as your saviour, the threatening evil villain, the group that quail all the time, the calm yet sharp tongued ball of vapour, the stern God who has a short temper…if there is a personality, you can bet that it’s in this game. They also don’t skip on their personalities as well. They exploit who the person is to the nth degree. They develop these characters really well, especially within one chapter. You know that Lady Palutena likes to mess with Pit a lot, and Pit himself, although quite young and innocent looking, might have some…”other”….thoughts in his mind, as hinted in Chapter 2. He also loves Hot Springs with a passion. Even after 140 hours of game play, these conversations bring a smile to my face, which goes to show how well they constructed this game.
Another thing I want to look at is the difficulty. As I’ve said before, games these days sometimes have fail safes which could essentially keep you going despite how much damage you have taken, just so long as you don’t take damage when your health is low. This game, however, will gently hit gamers today with a slap they all need. Those that play retro games will know back then it was hard. This game is hard, but only if you want it to be. You can
select anything from a difficulty of 0.0 (Effortlessly easy) to 9.0 (insanely hard), but you can pick anything in the middle. 2.0 is your standard normal difficulty, but I found my difficulty to begin with was 5.0 (maybe 5.5).
You bet hearts into the Fiend Cauldron as you up the difficulty, so there will be more enemies that hit harder, but rewards skilled players with more hearts per kill and chests to open, gaining more hearts than lower difficulties. Or you can spend hearts to down the difficulty, but this also lowers the hearts you can receive. It doesn’t cost any hearts to use 2.0. If you get finished, you are met with that classic game over theme from the original Kid Icarus game, and a classic themes game over screen. About half the hearts in the cauldron het spilled and are lost, and the difficulty goes down 1.0 points. If you want to finish a level on 9.0, you need to not die once, something easier said than done. Being able to complete any chapter on 9.0 is very tricky. Pat yourself on the back if you’ve done it.
The game offers nine different types of weapons to suit all fighting styles, including blades, staffs, cannons, orbitars and, my personal favourite type of weapon, claws. Each weapon type has 12 unique weapons to choose from, giving a total of 108 different weapons. You can fuse weapons you don’t need to make completely different weapons. At first, you can’t fuse many weapons, but in time, you’ll be able to fuse anything with everything. Each weapon also can have stat modifiers, which can be anything from increasing your health, to freezing your opponent, to increasing your charge shots attacks, and can even adds heart bonuses. This means that no two weapons are ever the same. Each weapon has a value and the higher the value, the stronger the weapon is. To get stronger weapons, you need to play on higher intensities. The game tells you all these little hints during the loading screen, plus more.
There are also things called powers, which are separate to your weapon. Each power is oddly shaped and there is a grid for you to place powers in. You know what this means? Tetris! If you haven’t played Tetris, you’ve missed out on a life skill. But in the “how to play” videos regarding powers, Pit refers to Dr. Mario when he uses his skills to place the powers in the blocks, not Tetris. Why? Tetris has odd shaped blocks, but Dr. Mario always has a 1x2 block. Maybe they wanted to relate it to a legendary Nintendo character. These powers allow you to do certain things, anything from recovering health, to making meteors land, to becoming temporarily invincible, to even jumping.
There are sort of achievements you can do to gain weapons, idles, powers and even hearts. At first, there might not seem as many, but as you progress throughout the game, you’ll unlock more panels. Some of these are fairly easy, such as getting finished 5 times and what not, some are really challenging, such as clearing a stage with a club on intensity 9.0, and some are completely unreasonable, such as clearing certain chapters without getting hit. I hate these challenges with a loathing. But that’s ok, because you get feathers from time to time which allow you to unlock a panel without doing the challenge. These show a feather on the panel, but if you can do the challenge anyway, then that feather disappears from he panel. It doesn’t get refunded, but at least you can prove you did it. I have one challenge left, which is to collect all powers. I just need Warp, but that appear at complete random in multi-player. I hate it when challenges require total luck to complete. I’m not complaining about multi-player, it’s awesome, but the fact I need to be lucky to clear this final panel is just an insult.
Each level has three parts to it. The flying stage, which is a very polished on rails shooter, where you can move as well as aim. It lasts for no more than five minutes, as the Power of Flight will only last that long. Any longer and Pit’s wings will burn up. These tests your dodging abilities as well as trying to kill as many underworld troops as you can. It’s something you need to keep an eye on, but looking at the 8-bit graphics that appear sometimes on the lower screen can be so tempting….
The next part after that is the ground stage. Here, you go on foot as the Power of Flight wears off, going the last distance to get to the boss room. These also require dodging skills, but at the same time using powers and items you pick up to good use. You’ll come across something known as an Intensity Gate. If you are on that level on a certain intensity, then you can pass that gate for extra goodies, as well as more enemies to fight in general.
The final part of the level is the Boss Fight. Here, you face the boss of that level in a one on one battle. These bosses are a load of fun, and each one is unique to their own. Each boss has their own fighting style and all have different weaknesses. Most of these bosses encourage you to use your dodging abilities to the fullest, especially on the higher intensities. Defeating these bosses on 9.0 really leaves you satisfied not only in defeating them, but knowing you were able to dodge their attacks and work around them. Not one boss fight is a drag, and are all intensely fun and challenging at the same time.
The graphics are very detailed, bright, and well done. The animations are smooth (95% of the time, there are very few spots where the animations jag a bit, and it’s always in the same spots) and all effects applied are amazing. I love the 3D effect in this game, as the little effects come into big focus. A thing I like is that during the ground stage, when Pit talks, his mouth moves as well. This just goes to show he looks like he’s talking to himself, but is communicating with the Gods with oral intent. That must be odd if you were hanging out with Pit, and then suddenly Lady Palutena talks to him and it looks like he’s having, as Magnus would put it, “a private conversation with himself”. The cut scenes after you defeat a boss are a joy to watch. They took the time to make the mouth movement sync with the English voice actors during these scenes, instead of just dubbing them.
The music is astounding. My favourite music is when you are fighting a boss. It just sets the mood for fighting. Every piece of music suits their level perfectly. It’s amazing how well it goes together. The flying stages have the music matching the events of the level, which allows them to use the right type of tone when something is happening, which is a really nice effect for hem to put all this trouble into timing the music correctly. That’s all I can say.
The controls…when this game came out, loads of people complained about the controls being weird and such, but to be honest, when I first started playing, the controls were perfect. I can’t imagine playing this game in any other way. The fact you need to think 360 degrees on the battle field, and spinning round to check if there is an enemy behind you is a great feeling. I got a little paranoid in real life though, spinning round every now and then to see if anyone was following me. I must have looked weird. Dodging is perfect and the running system is well balanced. My hands do get a little sore when playing like this, but I adapted and got used to it, using my right pinkie finger to support the 3DS so I could play more comfortably.
Multi-player is by far the best multi-player I’ve seen yet for the system. For a starter, online multi-player is live, instead of turn based or using the CPU of how well you played or stuff like that. It’s fairly rare for the 3DS to hold live on-line game play. You get to choose between two fighting games. Free-for-all, which as the name implies, you fight everyone and try and get the highest score possible, and Light vs Dark, which splits you up into two teams of three, one Light, the other Dark. You fight each other until one of the life gages is empty. When that happens, the person to die last in hat team becomes an angel. They are given a completely random weapon, with increased health and strength. The first team to defeat their opponent’s angel wins. I like Light vs Dark because I like the idea of being the one to defeat the angel, but in Free-for-All, I like it when I meet someone that’s slightly better than me, and I take it personally and pick on him and spar out. The feeling for meeting some of your skill level, and then just beating them is more satisfying than winning the match itself, which is why I love this multi-player.
Overall, I give this game a 9.7/10 This game was far more awesome that I expected it to be. It just blew my mind. The times it made my laugh, and at times I swore when dying on 9.0. This is a game worthy of any gaming collection of the 3DS. This had a lot of time spent on it during development, and what came out was of the highest quality. I’ll gladly wait 25 years for its next addition to the series.
Graphics 10 Sound 10 Addictive 10 Story 10 Depth 10 Difficulty 7
Review Rating: 5/5
Submitted: 09-24-13
Review Replies: 2
10
Here I come to save the day! supernerd117
3DS Series...Kid Icarus: Uprising.
Wait, who is this “Kid Icarus”? Why in the world did we wait 25 years for his return? Well for one, he was never very popular with the ladies. They thought he was a bottomless pit. He was known for eating ice cream, even off the floor. When asked why he’d do this, he’d simply shout, “Floor ice cream gives you health!”. Two girls respected him: Palutena and Medusa. But while he worked for one, the other kept trying to kill him!
If you haven’t guessed it yet, Kid Icarus: Uprising is pretty much a parody, to large extent. It mocks video game tropes, such as passing through items to gain health and breaks the fourth wall...often. And wow do I love that. It’s also a Sakurai product, so it’s loaded with achievements.
Story:
The game starts off with Pit, the brave angelic hero going to face off against Medusa’s forces after her resurrection. He faces off against her forces as he prepares himself to face off against her once again. The story is paper-thin, but is loaded with jokes and references to previous games in the series. After he defeats her, the day is saved! But really, stay after the credits roll.
Gameplay:
I could write a huge paper on this. The gameplay is quite deep and the controls can be hard to grasp. I’ll start with the basics.
Each level is split into two parts: Air Battle and Land Battle. Each Air Battle is basically a rail shooter (think Panzer Dragoon). You fly through the air destroying and dodging enemies as you prepare for a battle on land. The L button fires or does melee attacks at close range, your finger controls where you shoot, and circle pad controls general position on the screen (although not flight path, except when there is a branching path). Flicking the circle pad left to right or right to left quickly will allow you to perform a barrel roll. Yes, that’s right...but Peppy Hare is nowhere to be found. Not shooting for five seconds will allow Pit to glide. While gliding, he moves faster and can narrowly dodge shots in a sort of “bullet time”. The slowdown is very slight, and a sound will occur as Pit does this. It is advisable to be careful with this, as on higher difficulties enemy fire is more intense and wider, and dodging a shot may put you in the path of another.
Land Battles are a bit more difficult to get used to. L button still fires and performs melee attacks, and circle pad controls the direction you move, but now your finger controls the camera AND where you fire. Basically, you must learn to move and control the camera/reticle at once. It is absolutely vital. I got used to it after 4 missions or so, and loved it quite a bit afterwards. Your milage may vary. In addition, flicking the circle pad in a direction will allow you to dash. Flicking it while shooting will allow you to dodge left or right, even through certain enemy attacks. In addition, different dash attack directions have different strength values. The forward dash attacks are the most powerful, in general.
In both battles, not firing for a while will cause the reticle to charge. Attacking while this is charged results in a more powerful shot. The sort of shot will vary by weapon. Every weapon has a different sort of shot. And in Land Battles, the importance of this is magnified. Dashing in a direction and firing may lead to different effects. It is vital to know these to succeed.
Intensity:
The hearts you gain from defeating enemies can be used to raise or even lower the intensity (difficulty) of a level at the start. Higher intensities means more hearts from beating enemies, but these cost more. If you die, you will be able to continue, but at the cost of many hearts.
Changing the intensity in certain levels unlocks “Intensity gates” that often have treasure hidden in them. Lasting long enough to find these can be very rewarding.
Weapons:
Weapons are split into 9 classes, each with varying attributes and abilities. There are around 108 weapons in all, if I remember correctly. The classes are Blade, Staff, Claws, Bow, Palm, Club, Cannon, Orbitars, and Arm. My favorite in general are claws. And I won’t give a detailed explanation of how they all work. Suffice it to say that bows and arms are highly different.
Also, weapons may have certain modifications. These may increase or even decrease its power or apply modifications to Pit. The higher the intensity you play on, the more powerful the modifications of weapons you pick up will likely be.
Weapons can also be fused. Fusing two weapons creates a different weapon that takes on some of the strengths of the previous two weapons. Fusing two weapons may not necessarily make a better weapon or a worse one. But it is a good mechanic that proves useful as you rack up weapons and learn your style.
Powers:
There are power-ups that can be used to attack, defend or even heal Pit! If you’ve played Megaman Battle Network 3 or later, you probably know how this works. You fit powers into a grid (although you aren’t punished for putting blocks of the same color together), and try to optimally fill it to suit your needs for a level. These powers are usable a certain number of times in a level. You can only gain them back by dying.
Zodiac Chambers:
These are special chambers contained only in certain levels. They are generally more difficult to find, but they contain specific weapons or powers, among the most powerful in the game.
Graphics:
The 3D effect in this game is spectacular at times. When the game was made, it was perhaps the most breathtaking 3D game made to date on the 3DS. The rest of the graphics serve their purpose nicely, and are wonderful to look at. Perhaps not the most jaw-dropping game ever made, but it looks just fine.
Music:
The “Skyworld theme” and “Wrath of the Reset Bomb” are perhaps the two biggest standouts here. Not the greatest soundtrack ever, but it will appeal to a good audience that likes VGM. Pit even sings at the beginning of a chapter. And for that, I give this a 10...ok not really…
Multiplayer:
The game even has two multiplayer modes, Light vs. Dark and Free-for-All.
In Light vs. Dark, you are a member of two 3-man groups that duke it out. As players are “killed” and respawn, their team’s life gauge reduces towards 0 according to the weapon value of the player that was defeated. When that happens, the final player to be defeated becomes Pit or Dark Pit and tries to survive while his/her team tries to take down the opposite angel. Defeat Pit/Dark Pit and you win!
“I fight for my friends!”...not. In Free-for-All, you fight for yourself! You try to eliminate all your opponents, and receive points according to the weapon value of the players you defeat. Have the highest point value at the end, and you win!
In each mode, a weapon/power “drops” for a random player, and you might receive an item from time to time whether or not this happens (I’m not sure how that works).
Overall:
The gameplay of this game will likely keep you coming back again and again to unlock achievements. I played for the story, but keep enjoying multiplayer and getting achievements. I will likely keep playing this for years to come.
It doesn’t do everything perfectly, but there are few matches for this game out there. I give it a 10.
Review Rating: 4/5
Submitted: 03-15-15
Updated: 05-22-15
Review Replies: 1
9
"One's returns to gods above, after 25 years of Hiatus!" sonicthehedgeho..
Gods....Legends have always talked about their journey's of scavenging and taking over others lands, others dealing with certain gods trying to make peace with other to create a world of harmony. Fighting to protect one's land while maintaining peace in the world, the one thing that you could never hope to accomplish, working together with a god! *flashes 25 years into future* It's been so long since the battle against Medusa and the young Angel Pit has extinguished and it seems as though peace may have finally once come under way for the land of Skyworld after the fight in the palace, one can only imagine what our Angel hero could be doing with his time from now on? *shows Sonic training up and carrying food package* Haaa I wonder why Palutena is thinking about all of this, I mean...Skyworld just seems a little too peaceful like something is really off. *See's explosions hit main town* ...W What...Is the place under attack by human forces? Oh no...this can't be good *Unsheathes Bow and heavenly quills* I've got to hurry up an see if lady Palutena is alright! LADY PALUTENA!!! *Dark figure with snake head looms in background* Poor Pitty Pat doesn't even know what's lurking behind him, guess you better gives this angel a "prayer".
|---) Bringing our heroic angel into stunning 3D, with wonderful art to compliment its style (---|
*looks back at NES* ahh my how games have sure grown on from you buddy, how we loved your simplistic yet very enjoyable look and how we can see games grow more realistic with following releases on newer platforms. The only question is how much did this one change from its normal 8-bit 2D side scrolling adventure style and how far apart to the graphics look in comparison? Ohhh boy it's definitely one of the biggest changes you'll ever see from a game series at least to my beliefs, as much like "Zelda: A Link to the past" going from 2D to 3D with "Ocarina of Time" it caused a drastic change in the looks of the game as well as the gameplay itself while still managing to stick to the roots it laid down on the NES. This game takes that shocking turn like the Zelda universe; however, it also alters its gameplay style and makes it vastly different when compared to the original 2 games it started out with, and the graphics have been turned into the 3D perspective many games now rely on for their scenery and characters, I'm sure now you're wondering how well do the areas look in comparison to the older games and do they live up well for it's time in 2013? Or would the gods simply look down in disgust for what was created. There's only one way that we can understand that and it's to define some areas in the game that give a good perspective for our audience with how the game looks and feels! Let's go soldiers *shoots arrow at screen*
!!/_!!Return of Palutena!!/_!!
*Kicks open door and flies across sky* Haaaa the beautiful blue skies of this area never seem to fail in making me smile and feel refreshed after 25 years it's nice to see some fresh air against this Skyworld land; < 3 but, I have to keep my wits about me there are enemies from the underworld lurking everywhere in the sky and within only minutes we get to see the snakehead herself, but we're not here to drag things down with her eyeball monsters. When flying around these skies it's almost as if I can just touch and hug the clouds as we see the greenlands of below start to expand upon us, it just really makes you feel alive and your heart rise as the little angel that we are! And if you think the journey just stops there in the air oh hoho you haven't seen anything yet, we get to come upon the town that is being attacked by the Medusa blues from her last defeat. Which brings us into land battle and the ground scenery of this place and my gosssh does it look pretty for what it's trying to represent, seriously I feel like I want to become an archaeologist just from looking at this place and its references to Greek and European mythology just AHH soo good or should I say soo god? ....ok yeah...I'll just end this off here and say it's a great looking for area...let's move on.
Ooo~~**Space Pirate Ship**~~oOo
Yes everyone, live out your fantasies and become an angel INNN SPAAACE!! Now you're probably asking yourself what the heck does SPACE have to do with anything goddess related or why would a game about stopping an evil god coming back with Aztec/Greek kind of themes need to have a level take place in space?! Well...nothing but c'mon you're really going to hate that there's a space level in this game < 3 do you know how awesome space has been shown in games! *shakes feathered crown on quills* Ugh...just getting caught up with my fantasies I guess, sorry. This area you start out rushing through those beautiful doors as usual and HAHA time to head for the under...um why are we up near the stars?! Yeah originally you're planning on going to the Underworld; sadly though, looks like you'll have to enjoy the sights of the sea above ;) which to be honest I'D TAKE GALAXIAN WONDER'S ANYDAY compared to a world of the dead, I mean within just a few seconds of entering the atmosphere we see the roaring blue..."waves?" surfing and swirling all around this outer space land. If you think it doesn't get any prettier than that ohhh feel dead wrong as once you reach the constellations you'll die of beauty and be the first recorded death of it from being so happy. The inside looks like what you would expect of a typical ship very mechanical and clunky; and yet, strangely with this one it looks...shiny and all shell like inside? Either way if you weren't singing your captain tails from one "piece" of the ship then you'll probably love it in here.
I would really really love to tell you more about how the game appeals in the visual department but I'm about to head into the boss chamber right now so it'll have to be the end here, the game to me looks really brilliant in it's visual department and even if it's not a realistic looking game I love the way all the characters and environments bind together in this game to create such beautiful scenery there are some spots like many games where if you look deeply you can see some pixelation but it's not that big of a deal here since you're usually always constantly moving. Putting everything together I'd say that this game earns a
9 out of 10 for graphics and due to that one slip up I mentioned that's why it's lowered down to a 9. Onto the next fight! *screen goes white and boss growls*
~~=-{Soundtrack and voices that'll have you entertained}-=~~
*Shots start firing off towards entrance* WOAH!! Haven't even begun the stage much and this is already taking a toll on me, now what can I do, I don't want AFW wings! (sad emotion, AFW = Angel Fried Wings) So how does this games soundtrack compare to other 3DS games or the original games in this series? Oh boy! This game has a TON of music that you can listen to and each song fits so nicely for each area that you're surrounded in, for example the space area having an adventurous styled theme alongside a mystery filled melody to create such a unique and beautiful theme. Probably the second most attractive thing that has been added to this game is as you can tell from my writing, the voice acting that has been added to the characters of this game and how well they all work out! I'll describe more about it below when we go and talk about the soundtrack for Uprising, let's go Vizzturions to the following facts!
``=XX_Lightning Battle Theme_XX=``
Probably the most renowned and favored theme in this game is the Lightning Battle that plays during a certain chapter at the flying portion, let's just say the person you'll be meeting up with is quite "shocking" with the whole level revolving around electricity and powered transports. If you mean to tell me that those odds aren't creepy/dangerous enough for you to play through then just take a listen to the music, don't even bother with this section anymore. *tries pushing away* No NO just go search it up right now and go see! *sighs* Fine I guess I'll explain it to you, basically right as soon as that door kicks open with almost a fiery backdrop the music picks up with some heavy guitar playing action that's just like yelling to you HEY! You gotta move, hurry the heck up and shoot everyone! There's NO time to waste! If you think that Super Smash Bros music is able to get you pumped up and ready for a fight, well protect your smash balls because Kid Icarus's Lightning theme does that double over that game.
Always dodging from left to right of enemy fire while having that guitar and electronic keyboard in the background pumping you up for anything that comes ahead it's just amazing and makes you feel like you're in "Super Pit" mode because you're blazing through foes and items left and right. Just as you are near the end of the level you think the music would start to die off; and yet it only seems to grow stronger and stronger before finally ending off with a peaceful harp like instrument and a final guitar solo. I just....like I said you need to look this up even if you don't think you'd be a huge fan of the game. *Wings build up electricity* Time to zap ourself onto the next example
*Zips by in an electric stream*
|=={ Magnus's Theme }==|
Sadly it's one theme I don't think is elaborated on to well or is really acknowledged as much as other themes inside the game, as well as the fact I don't think he was as much of an enlightened character as he should've been and was more of a fill in the blank spot. With the name of this man you may not think much of the person; however, when compared to a person in some little green hood and boots it's obvious that appearances don't matter with names or outfits it's about skill and actions. I believe his theme fits these words to a tee and gives you the exact image of how you'd expect a warrior like him to be: "strong willed, determined, and tough as nails". With a beat of sarcasm and adventure it's obvious to see that just like a certain "Hylian knight" their themes definitely live up to how great one can be in battle! Though his personality may seem a little rusty around the edges much like his theme at first, if you give it time to grow just like giving him time as an ally to help out you'll see he's well worth putting up with and is a reliable and trustworthy character. Definitely an interesting theme you'll possibly grow onto after some time.
(...)(.!!) Voice Acting (???) (...?!)
This will just be an added portion to the sound segment, as a little side note for you viewers as this game believe or not actually has voice acting something that you'd probably never have seen or imagined happening to a game series like this. Every character in the game has a unique voice which you may think would get annoying after a while but with how well done the voices were an the animations that follow it, it just sells the game even more than it would've already with the sights and sounds. If the voices aren't enough for you the lines that they'll spout out can certainly make you smirk at least a tiny laugh with some of my favorites being when Pit tells Viridi that the Kamato enemies look like Metroids and she responds with the falling "Quiet down! HMHMHMH I'm not listening! The problem is this universe and that universe are ENTIRELY different don't go mixing them up!" as like a response to companies or things shutting people down for copied ideas. Or what about this one from a certain little hell-raiser themselves I think it fits perfectly for the whole reviewing scene check it out when Viridi says if that's true the underworld army couldn't ever lose: "Ugh...Spoiler Alert!" That just killed me that the game spoiled something then complained about it....you know that does remind me of reviews actually.
*Sighs* and just like the goddess directions that I have to follow, I've went way off track for some of you now. So before she gets mad at me and threatens to take off my power of flight and you threaten to leave the audience I'll just end this segment off here and I must say the sound of this game is superb and I think deserves the rare and unanimous
10+ out of 10! *jumps off ramp and flies to next segment in a hurry*
??==00XX/Bringing a new style of fighting, to this heavenly imbued gameXX00==??
If any of you were fans of Kid Icarus back when it first came out and are worried as to how this game plays, if it's the same as the NES and Gameboy versions...I can easily tell you it's VASTLY different. The original games was a typical side-scroller where you had to shoot and avoid enemies similar to...Metroid haha yeah you'll be seeing that comparison a lot in both my review and the actual game itself. While this game has gravitated towards a more Star Fox X Zelda aspect from the different gameplay elements that it chooses to feature, as I stated above; although, not as clearly is that you have an Air Battle mode and Ground Battle mode in which you might switch between the two or stay in one of them for most of the chapter or the whole chapter depends on how the story is going along so far. I've already mentioned how the addictiveness value is really gained from the sound and looks, but I don't want to repeat myself so instead let's go more in depth upon the actual gameplay sections like I said above as other parts of the game will be save for a much later segment, let's roll out :D!
__--~~Air Battle~~--__
This is usually how most of your Chapter will start off as shown with the Chapter 1 insight I gave on the graphics section, in this mode you're place in a fixed box and are allowed to move all around the screen; however, you can't move past the section of the screen that it's scrolling through and while in this mode it's as if you're like the Arwing from Star Fox 64 wherein you shoot all the enemies that appear on screen with whatever weapon your angel Pit is holding at the current time. Your basic goal in most of these levels is just to burst through the foes that will try to stop you in your tracks as you try to survive for the ground portion of the chapter (if there is one, otherwise you most likely have to defeat a final enemy).
What I find addictive about these segments is just how much of the outer area you get to see before heading into the base or town as it really gives a nice sense of adventure and just a great view of the scenery around you that you may not get to experience from the inside when you're on foot, the combat can also be a little easier in this mode for the fact that you only really have to worry about dodging out of the way while holding down the fire button and blasting away any troubles that may be in your path ala space invaders and such. You also have an attack bar that fills up and does devastating damage to enemy's over the screen and it changes depending on the type of weapon you have as well, really leading to a lot of fun that can be had in this mode.
....:::___Ground Battle___:::....
Now onto the second and final gameplay mode that you'll experience in this game, the one that is mostly critiqued for not being as enjoyable as the air battles which sure you DO have to be more tactical on the ground than in the air; but, I don't really see that as an issue with the gameplay and more with taste and patience of the players. Funny enough I actually prefer this mode more because of how you're able to trick out foes easier by quickly sideshooting and ducking behind cover right after jumping out to shoot. I just prefer the challenge on the ground compared to the air as it feels more fair to me when I get hit in the ground because I can see all the enemies ahead of time while in the air one might just pop out of the corner. Usually at the end of these levels you'll come up with an end of level boss that you'll have to defeat and you'll need every bit of skill that you can acquire from fighting against the average enemies throughout the main level. Again a lot of fun to be had here if you're open to challenge and variety!
I know I'm leaving things out like how many levels or what other options they included; although, if you look at this the segment is becoming quite extensive so it's better to save that for the later part like I said beforehand. The score I'm going to give this section may seem a little clunky for the time being having only really talked about 1 major thing in this segment; yet, I promise you later it'll all make sense. The score I'd give for addictiveness from what we've seen and will see is a
9 out of 10!
{(|___A terrifying story of revenge, twist and folded to cover a greater darkness___|)}
Decades of stories have been passed down from timeline to timeline, with darkness consuming almost every part of a tribe's background with very few survivors remaining if even...any survivors at all. A long time ago Medusa's reign ran over to the land of Skyworld leaving the Goddess immobilized and all her guards incapacitated, and yet with a single remaining angel she was able to be put out of her madness invoking conquest and the world was soon returning back to peace for all time....or at least that's what we had always thought... *pendulum swings 25 years into the future* Our story is once again set in the land of Skyworld where everything is still bright and happy, relieved from all past occurrence's and it seemed as though things were going to stay this way for a long time until a nightmare stuck the area once more.
The vile creature Medusa had returned with her undead army and came back with a strong bloodlust for the one that had sealed her away for so long, our young angel hero Pit was shocked and petrified by the scene confused by what could've possibly happened to cause this. So our hero heads out to confront the evil and psychotic monster once again and put a stop to whatever it is she might be trying to plan! Yeah!! *jumps out of door and flies out of Skyworld* ....the only thing to note is that maybe there is more going on this time than our hero or readers can even know...how would Medusa have been able to be revived in the first place? Seems like this story is more open to imagination that our simple minded hero may think.
It is an interesting story to continue off from the previous entries in the series especially after so long of having another game released, and it makes you wonder like stated above if there really is more than just Medusa planning everything out here cause that would leave a lot of questions involved. Unfortunately I can't delve into anymore of the story than just that for 1 reason and 2 people will be angry over it as that certain little hell-raiser said before it would cause "ugh...SPOILERS" to happen and I don't think you readers would enjoy that much either. So I'll leave my story score here as an
8 out of 10 for "certain" reasons later on ;) .
/__Giving a lot of content to offer players, after such a long waiting period__////
Alright so we've heard a ton of information on how much this game has changed and what it offers you in some categories correct? Especially for the price of the games these days you want a good game with enough to feed off of from the Skyworld "<3's" that you have to pony up, and I can tell you for certain that this game definitely delivers in the depth category as this game offers many different options and features that you can unlock or just play through normally. I'll get the basic one out of the way and say how long this game is which to some people's surprise is actually quite large for these kind of games standards. Kid Icarus Uprising is split into 25 different chapters (26 if you wanna be technical) that you'll venture through all the way to the final boss at the end and usually these chapters depending on the player and what it involves it could take anywhere from 5 min to 11 min to even 25-30min at times so you take that times 25 on a normal run and hoooo angel, you're going to have a long and venturous time. That's all that there is to basic things in terms of depth out of the way so why don't we get on to more pressing things that you can do from playing the game or unlocking secrets shall we?
X+/x/ Fusing Weapons /x/+X
Yeah you didn't hear me wrong, you can FUSE and create new weapons for yourself this is a wonderful addition to the game as when you play through levels in order to either beat the story or you're just replaying to get more hearts as backup for trying to go on a higher difficulty level and you run by chests with weapons you've gotten before and unlike other games, they're not just useless or received to just be turned around and sold for little price. I LOVE this because name to me how many games you play wherein you get items that are not that great for you and you end up having to run back to a merchant or something just to sell it for little to no profit. It's also neat for putting together some beneficial weapons and seeing if you can make something even better by having more range or strength in melee, also if you're wondering NO it doesn't cost anything to fuse weapons together so *cha-ching money eyes in pit*. It's honestly a great feature that I wish was implemented more in other games as you can see it's also very helpful at times too. Bringing me to the last point I wanna bring up....
|??| Unlockables/Achievements |$$|
Believe it or not; but, yes there are achievements in this game alongside normal unlockables that you'd expect in most modern games. Normal unlockables would be defined as unlocking a certain menu theme after a certain "event" passes by in the main story mode or unlocking a certain path that you can go through in another level or an additional chapter from beating the game. The "achievement" gifts could be things such as unlocking more music to play inside the jukebox that you'll find in the menu's, could be additional and special weapons that you'll unlock from doing that achievement, or just plain and simple...hearts (money). Be wary though as not every achievement that you accomplish will gain you something as with most games...it's more so just for completionists or people whom just want to brag about completing a certain "challenge" in the list. So that's all there is to this little inventory mention how about we wrap this up now like wrapping up those achievements and weapons?
I didn't mention evvverything about the game; however, as we said before we can't exactly reveal everything to you guys otherwise what would be the point of playing the game for your own at all? All in all from what you read in read in the addictiveness part (which partly adds for this section as well) this game does have very much to offer and you'll definitely be able to play this game for at least a little to a long while before putting it down as mainly completed, that makes me give the score of this game for its depth factor, a
10 out of 10.
__ _
|_|???xXx Unset difficulty relying on the user's tenacity xXx???|_|
The difficulty of this game....is similar to Smash Bros in terms of how you can almost basically set exactly how hard you want the game to be and basically making the difficulty segment be completely different with each game you play or just with other people's review in general, this game though takes that formula into an even more extreme method and literally let's you choose how hard you want it and not just give you an average lower chance like the previous mentioned game. In Kid Icarus uprising you're allowed to switch your difficulty from 0.0 all the way to 9.0 (can be any decimal point or direct number like 4.5, 4.3 or 6.0) so as stated you can basically make the game be as hard as you so "heavenly" please; although, this does come with its own caveat which I'll mention right now. To raise the difficulty level really high you have to make sure you have enough hearts to bet (you don't lose any right when you bet unless you quit) and if you lower the difficulty you'll end up having to pay to lower it. (have to pay if it's anywhere below 2.0) So there is something you need to do in order to raise or lower it; yet, besides that one single fact it's pretty much a free-for-all in terms of difficulty settings so I guess that's all you can really say about it.
There really isn't much else to say about this games difficulty besides the fact that you can do as you please, which means I'd have to leave my score for difficulty as 1 out of 10 since even if you were to say the game does have moderate difficulty...you can just lower it all the way down to 0.0 and then move on which means there won't be any issues at all. So
1 out of 10 is the score I have to leave this game with in terms of challenge. *Pit thinks in head* (I'm coming Lady Palutena, I'm almost at the end, I'll stop this fighting! For Skyworld and all the humans!)
We've finally reached the end of our path it's time to bring the true darkness down! *Eirinn steps out as Dark Pit* Yeah...we can't have the whole world destroyed by one's asinine bloodlust...that's just sick. *Both Pit's look at one another and nod, drawing bows* Filth of the server! See our rules and fear our actions! I'm Sonic57, server of the Vizzed website owner! And I'm Eirinn server to no other than my own lifestyle! We're going to rain justice upon you, so anyone who wants to face the light step up to the site! And anyone whom doesn't want to justify the site...too bad! RAHHH *charges towards darkness, as dark laugh echoes behind*
Sonic57+Pokefreak219tm 2015
Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 9 Story 8 Depth 10 Difficulty 1
Review Rating: 4/5
Submitted: 04-30-15
Review Replies: 6
9.8
Kid Icarus Uprising PokemonKeldeo
This game was my favorite for a long time I first played the Classic Kid Icarus then I jumped to Kid Icarus Uprising and the jump in look and feeling to the game was immense. I think that the instant someone gets on the game there are different modes and intensity levels. You can bet hearts (the games currency) to make it harder or easier. The place where you bet is called the Fiends Cauldron which is brought up before a level begins. The standard level of the Fiends Cauldron is 2.0 which bets no hearts. The range of intensity levels is from 0.0 (Peaceful) to 9.0 (Nothing Harder).
Graphics: 9
The graphics are very good in the Solo and Multiplayer modes. The graphics may surprise you like they did me the first time I played this as they look realistic while trying to display the near impossible!
Sound: 8
The sound in the game is good to like the music which pulls you in and the sound effects that boost the depth of the game. The shots make a noise as if you really were handling that weapon. The way Pit tires out sounds like as if you were the one running and catching your breath.
Addictiveness: 10
The addictiveness of the game is amazing in both Solo and Multiplayer mode. In Solo mode there is a lot of replay ability in the chapters then a boss mode with 3 difficulties Easy,Medium,and Hard. In multiplayer mode you can battle against different players with different Weapons in different arenas. You can play one of two Multiplayer modes one is Light vs. Dark where two teams battle till the team bar goes out then the angel appears defeat the angel to win. In Free-for-all there is no angel but you do have a respawn feature that puts you back in any place in the map area K.O. Players to earn points. So I always come back for more!
Story: 9
The story is in depth and even extends toward the past games then takes a darker turn when you get an evil twin named Dark Pit who tries to destroy you until you find him again after the Chaos Kin takes Palatuna's (Goddess of Light) soul. This is only a tiny portion of the cake.
Depth: 10
The game offers replay ability in every mode and level. The higher the intensity the more places you have access to and the harder the enemies are. It has 25 chapters and 3 boss mode levels.
Difficulty: 7
The difficulty isn't bad but it is harder the higher you get in intensity and less when you lower the intensity levels of the game. You can get better rewards when you have a higher intensity level. Intensity gates show a specific intensity level needed to open that area up to you.
In conclusion I think this is one of the best 3ds games I have ever played. The game has a bunch of cool features that unlock or give you cool prizes. Streetpass allows you to trade gems with others while you can use play coins to get a bunch of mini idols of monsters, people, places, events, animations, items, and a lot more! Use your QR scanner to scan AR cards of idols to get them then place more than one under the camera facing each other for an interesting battle between friends, enemies, and unaffiliated things.
Graphics 9 Sound 8 Addictive 10 Story 9 Depth 10 Difficulty 7
Review Rating: 4/5
Submitted: 11-26-14
Review Replies: 2
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