Kid Icarus Uprising is a Third-Person Shooter only for 3DS, was developed by by Project Sora and Sora Ltd, and published by Nintendo. It is a third installiment in the series since Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for Game Boy in 1991 and the original game titled as Kid Icarus for NES in 1986.
The original game on NES started out as a 2D action-platformer where you take control of heroic angel named Pit set out his quest to rescue the Greek-inspired fantasy world known as Angel Land and its ruler, the goddess Palutena.
While it received mixed response from gaming press, the game did become a cult-following title of NES libraries which was praised for its music and its mixture of gameplay elements from different genres, but criticized its graphics and high difficulty level.
The original game did receive a sequel on GB which received slightly positive overall than the predecessor has to offer, but it still remained as a forgotten title that didn't get much of attention it deserves.
Then finally the series makes the returning of the franchise with another installiment for the 3DS titled as Kid Icarus Uprising in 2012 which is a game mixes with two different playstyles such as Rail-Shooter and On-foot Shooter making a huge departure of the 2D Action-Platformer from the previous two installiment had gained mostly positive reviews and sold over a million copies worldwide.
First of all, I did manage to enjoy the original Kid Icarus when I had NES Classic Mini pre-loaded with 30 games for last 3 years which is a fun cult-classic title that didn't get a attention what it deserved, and I also wanted to point out that I never played the second installiment for GB, but don't get me wrong because I also heard a good feedback from the fans alike who has managed to enjoy the game pretty well.
When I had 3DS for 2 years since I have played many of great 3DS libraries that I've previously covered on this blog, I was looking forward to reviewing a third-person shooter that plays really well on the 3DS system which is Kid Icarus Uprising because we all acknowledge that the 3DS itself was not highly designed for shooters which is a troublesome for those who owns the 3DS console, so this game is the best way to play it on the 3DS which features many great things that the game itself has to offer such as over-the-top gameplay, lengthy single-player action, strong overall story with humorous lines and memorable characters, and solid overall design which I will discuss further more on this review.
So without go further do, Let's start the review.
Presentation
The story takes place in a world loosely based on Greek mythology and is set 25 years after the events of the first game. It follows heroic angel named Pit, who is the servant of the Goddess of Light named Palutena, set off his quest to battle against the twos such as Medusa the Goddess of Darkness and Hades the Lord of the Underworld are threaten to destroy humanity.
The game itself does have an interesting plot that involves the war conflict between the light and dark forces due to Goddess of Darkness has fully makes return to destroy a peaceful home of Earth once again thanks to Lord of the Underworld has resurrected her to join forces with him.
Then you have an angel fighting off against them to save the world with the full support of Goddess of Light who is the ruler of the Angel Land.
Incase you wanted to know what's history behind these characters is that from the first game that been said on the instruction manual involving two goddess such as Palutena and Medusa who became the ruler of the Earth as Palutena shines her light to human nature leading into happiness which opposes Medusa hated the idea and decides to destroy mankind which causing Palutena angerly thrown her into the underworld leading Medusa seeks out for her revenge by plotting to steal the three sacred treasures and attempting to capture Palutena which is the reason why Pit was chosen to rescue not only just Goddess of Light, but also saving the mankind's homeland from Medusa's wicked power that harms the nation.
Aside with the story presentation, I find the cast of characters are quite memorable for most part, so you have Pit welding with the angelic bow and arrow is not just about being an hero, but he also has an comedic personality with almost-like humorous lines mostly on in-game action which kinda reminds me of how Tom Holland's main role loves to talk a lot and made a cool jokes during the fight scenes mostly in later two Spider-Man movies.
Then you had supportive characters like Palutena which I am glad she not like another typical damsel in distress like Princess Peach from Super Mario series, so looks like Goddess of Light hasn't been captured since 25 years after the first game events. I say Viridi is one sassy blonde girl with intelligent attitude started out as an antagonist, but decides to join forces with Pit which I got to say she is definitely one of the cleverest in this game.
The Dark Pit (A.K.A Pittoo) is the darker version of the Pit which is kinda much like saying Shadow the Hedgehog is the darker version of Sonic which I liked the idea of having two same guys with different personas.
The villain in the game is actually pretty decent especially with twos like Medusa from the first game which I really liked her appearances with squiggly hair and haunting face, while Hades is quite an villainous character who is gigantic dude with disturbing smile on his face is just a imitation of Tim Curry impression which is the reason why I liked them.
I also liked the conversation between the characters putting out with funny dialogue and has cool gaming pop culture that really adds the sense of humour which made the whole story presentation quite entertaining.
I got to say I liked the Greek mythology in the game filled with sky palaces, historic statues, water fountains, and the ancient settings of both overworld and underworld which is well made for its presentation design to give the game a mixed with light and dark atmosphere, so you have the specific locations such as town, temple, forest, sea, and castle which I finding it quite appealing for most of the in-game levels.
Overall, it has interesting plot, entertaining characters, and very good presentation design.
Gameplay
You take control of Pit in third-person perspective as your mission is to fight the enemies through out the levels before reaching to boss battle in order to complete the stage.
The game has two different segments where you will start off with the rail-shooter style similar to SEGA's Space Harrier, while later switching to free-roaming third-person shooter.
Pushing the circle pad will control Pit, while using 4-buttons or touchscreen stylus for aiming. You will shoot the enemy by pressing the L shoulder button which I've changed it to R shoulder button as my preference, so you can able to re-map the controls through option menus to suit your preferred playstyle.
You can perform melee attack by tapping the attack button in close range, while tapping the circle pad lets you sprint around the stage as well as evading the enemy's projectiles.
The d-pad button are used for switching and using the item icons which each of these icons that are used for such as healing your health, performing counter, confuses enemy, and etc.
Each of the weapons has 9 types of different combats under the category such as Blades are good for balance between melee and ranged, Staff is effective for longer range but has poor melee system, Claws has better speed melee, Bows can perform decent amount of damage with fast homing arrows, Palms uses as shock waves followed by rapid-fire capabilities, Clubs has powerful melee as well with charged shots, Cannons can bounce off walls and floors, Orbitars has very high shot rate allowing to shoot multiples of enemies, and Arms has impressive amount of melee damage.
You have an option to spend hearts currency at the shops to choose which weapon are best for your combat and then you can also fuse two weapons into new singular weapon from Arms Altar resulting with different attributes to create which benefits the weapon's overall melee and range levels making it easier to kill enemies faster.
So far the combat in the game is pretty solid thanks to having a choice of available weapons and ability to fuse twos together which is the reason it's easier for enemies to take damage from the player's weapons with highest level as well as having a large range of combat including stuff like charged shots, rapid-fire, shock waves and etc.
The item icons are also comes in handy which you can add and customise at the Arms Altar, so these are the icons that worked effectively on mostly enemies and bosses as well as benefiting the player's health and unique ability.
The controls is pretty playable which the game gives you a choice of customising the control preferences such as camera sensitivity, invert look, and button layouts making a suitable accessibility for those who mostly played third-person shooters in general. The touchscreen is better for aiming at the enemies quicker, but I'm much preferred aiming and looking with the 4-buttons instead.
The game also works well with the circle-pad pro attachment for old model 3DS as well as the pointing stick for New model 3DS which seems to be more flexible and precised than just the regular 4-buttons.
The character's movements and attack system worked absolutely flawless with no issue with evading, dodging, and attacking during the gameplay which feels quite smooth for most part of the game except the annoying part where you sprint around the level too hard causing Pit getting out of breath for 5 seconds to recover is not an necessary for player to slow down their pace, so don't let the tiresome gets to you during the in-game action.
Most of the chapters in the game is genuinely fun that keeps the overall impact quite astonishing to play especially fighting with the bunch of enemies and bosses, the overall difficulties, the length of the whole campaign, and playing on two gameplay segments is what made the game quite special.
The game also has 6 players multiplayer mode on both online and local play where you can complete against the players or even computer bots in two deathmatch modes such as team-based and free-for-all which I got to say this is pretty neat for Nintendo's shooter titles.
Overall, it has customisable controls, solid combat, choices of weapons, epic campaign, and fun multiplayer.
Graphics
The graphics in the game is visually impressive as a 3DS standards which the game developers were hoping for the quality design running on small portable system.
The character's model is well structured with great use of facial animations and body figure looked pretty good in both cutscenes and in-game action, and the level environments is looking solid for its posh textures details, use of special effects for lighting, crispy visuals backgrounds, stable frame-rate, and showing many enemies on the screen at one time which took the development team a long time to being able to fit the whole game's design into limited 3DS cartridge as well as utilising the hardware capabilities resulting a ambitious development cycle that can leads into the most technically advanced game that they ever done on the 3DS console.
The 3D stereoscopic effects does look fine for the cutscenes sequences, but it's not highly designed for the combat play which can get distracting during the gameplay action which is better off without having 3D effects on all the time because the whole game looked absolutely fine without it.
Overall, it has great character's model, posh textures details, use of special effects for lighting, crispy visuals backgrounds, stable frame-rate, and showing many enemies on the screen.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack in the game is sounds fantastic with the Greek-style orchestrated music which really fits the game's personality. It was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, Yuzo Koshiro, and Yasunori Mitsuda did a tremendous job of making the finest score of the series.
The sound effects in the game is pretty good for most of the parts with ambient sounds, atmospheric effects and overall sound design just about right for the 3DS game, and I was really surprised with the choice of the voice role for the characters especially with the cast like Antony Del Rio as Pit, Ali Hillis as Palutena, Hynden Walch as Viridi, Troy Baker as Arlon, Cree Summer as Medusa, and S.Scott Bullock as Hades had nailed their performance really well in the game.
Overall, it has fantastic soundtrack, fine sound design, and magnificent voice role.
Special Features
The physical copy comes with AR cards where you can able to scan them into additional NPCs devices which lets you play AR card game where you have the Idol displays able to fight each other with battles revolving around a stat-based rock-paper-scissors mechanic which is cool features.
It also has unlockable treasure hunt section such as idols, powers, hearts, music, and more, and then you have idol toss at the Arms Altar where you can place the eggs into bowl and launch them in the air will reward you with the new idol item.
The game also has new mode called boss rush mode where you need to fight out many bosses as possible.
Overall, a great features.
Advantages
Interesting plot
Entertaining characters
Great game modes
Customisable controls
Solid combat
Impressive graphics
Fantastic soundtrack
Magnificent voice cast
Disadvantages
Unnecessary out of breath when sprinting too long
3D effects may distract gameplay action
Final Verdict
Presentation 8/10 - interesting plot, entertaining characters, and very good presentation design.
Gameplay 8/10 - customisable controls, solid combat, choices of weapons, epic campaign, and fun multiplayer.
Graphics 9/10 - great character's model, posh textures details, use of special effects for lighting, crispy visuals backgrounds, stable frame-rate, and showing many enemies on the screen.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - fantastic soundtrack, fine sound design, and magnificent voice role.
Special Features 8/10 - AR Cards mini-games, Idol toss, unlockables treasure hunt section, and additional game mode.
Overall 8/10 - Despite the previous two games had struggled to gain success from the past, Kid Icarus Uprising is genuinely a much more impactful and engaging than it was before thanks to lengthy single-player action, two different styles of gameplay, additional game modes including boss rush and multiplayer, overall visuals and presentation had stepped up in the right direction making it the finest third-person shooter that you can find on your 3DS libraries.
I am so glad that Nintendo finally brings the series as a comeback since the previous installiment and being able to give Kid Icarus a newly treatment for the 3DS is what made the game so good to play.
I say the game is cost around over £25 is likely becoming very pricey in later years, so grab it while you can because it is an obscure title that is harder for the 3DS owner to get a hands on with the game unless you're rich enough to afford it or you're lucky enough to being able to find it on random stall market for less than £25.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Skip it
Rent it
Buy it
If you like my recent blog, please hit like and comment below for further questions.
This is Zeeshan Mirza's Blog and I'll see you next time, happy blogging everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment