Hello fellow painters! Today I will be reviewing Kid Icarus Uprising, a game you could classify as a "third person action adventure role playing game", but this is too faint description for this extremely peculiar game.

Yes its true Nintendo has not released too many IPs recently, aside Pilotwings Resort and Steel Diver, but even thought Kid Icarus is not an IP I think we can consider it a very fresh experience, since no Kid Icarus games were released in the past 25 years. They do take some time to make new games...but Oh boy, when they do, they are so unique and incredible that the wait is always worth it, and Kid Icarus is a living proof of that.

Ok, enough with introductions! Lets start this.

This review might contain light spoilers (story and gameplay wise), nothing that will deeply hurt your gameplay experience

Gameplay Mechanics

The game has 2 main modes of progression, land and air battles. In air battles your flight path is controlled by Palutena meaning you don't control where you are going, you job is to dodge enemy attacks and shoot them (or hit), the sight is controlled by the touchscreen, the position of Pit is controlled by the slide-pad and for attacking you use the L button.

Land battles use the same system, but this time you obviously walk with the slide pad and the camera is controlled by the touchscreen, at first it might feel weird but the game offers many options to customize the sensitivity, the default controls felt horrible for me but once I found the right setup for my taste the game felt entirely natural, and I have to admit the touch screen is always extremely precise and quick, which is needed for the brutal nature of enemies in this game. The controls might also be a legacy of the beginning of the development, which started on the Wii, before 3DS kits were available, 4 years before the game release. The controls might seem too simplistic at first, but in reality its very diverse, in the sense that you can perform many different actions with only 3 control inputs.

The only thing that hurt the controls in this game is how power ups (aka skills) are used and positioned. They are in the inferior left corner of the screen, each icon corresponds to a skill, the problem is that there is a scrolling "compartment" and only 3 skills can be seen at the time, you need to slide the pick skills that are not displaying and that costs very precious seconds, in multiplayer and at harder levels its very frustrating to pick the wrong skills while you were looking for a power up that was hidden, for me it has cost many in-game deaths.

That could be solved if all available skills were located in the inferior part of the screen at once, too bad.

The game comes with a stand to help you if you uncomfortable with the controls, it doesn't help that much in my opinion, but I liked the stand! Its pretty fancy. I don't use it for gaming thought.

Visuals, 3D and Performance

This definitely is one of the most beautiful, if not THE most beautiful 3DS game out there. The environments are huge and extremely detailed, everything from ground texture to clouds and sunlight effects are as beautiful as they can be. The visuals represent a very stylized fantasy world, character models are very detailed too, and have precise body movements, even the multiplayer mode which clearly has slightly downgraded character models has very big and detailed environments, the 3D is very deep, there are no volume ("pop-out") effects besides some projectiles and light effects, models don't come out of the screen because there is a filter who avoids that, it is probably for viewing comfort due to the nature of the 3D in this game. Without a doubt the 3D effects helps you judge the distance between targets and enhances the visuals, what makes us think this game was made to be played in 3D, but of course it is still entirely optional.

The game runs at constant 60 FPS, although there were approximately 3 barely noticeable frame drops throughout the story/solo mode its impressive a game with these visuals and so many action going on runs without major problems, and I'm quite sure these slightly drops will not even be noticed by most players, unless you are a tech nerd...

Now I've seen regular frame drops in the multiplayer mode, nothing that hurts gameplay. It doesn't happen often, only when everybody at once decides to use large area skills to promote chaos. Characters in multiplayer are displayed at slower frame rates when in large distances, surely to give more space to the strain of multiplayer, you will also see this technique in action in F1 2011 3DS and Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D.

Lasting appeal and Public

This game is surely a gift to the Nintendo core gamer, but the game also has a clever difficulty system and assist options (auto-aim and shot), who is not a fan of extremely hard games can pick a lower intensity of gameplay and even chose to use automated assistance. Besides the easy gameplay options for younger players, the game is clearly oriented for the hardcore public. Higher intensities (goes from 0.1 to 9.0) of 7.5, 8.0 are absolutely brutal and merciless, enemies come in a much larger number, with more health and fire power without mentioning shots are at times nearly impossible to dodge. I have around 25 hours of gameplay and I was able to clear only the first level in the 9.0 mode, that with much sacrifice and a very good weapon, higher intensities also give you more hearts which is the game currency and better weapons, weapons in the weapon store also become better (and more expensive).

The higher difficulty options, "treasure hunts" which is a kind of achievements system, 6 player online multiplayer mode and a large amount of unlockables and collectible items will make this game last many and many hours, even if you don't like to play multiplayer.

Weapons Ar, Multiplayer and Story

There is just so much to talk about this game that I don't know where this will end!

The game has a total of 108 weapons, 9 weapon types, and several stat modifiers. The strength (ranged and physical) of each weapons as well as what kind and how good its modifier are will depend of when and how you get them, you can get weapons via multiplayer awards, weapon store (which are quite expensive) story mode chests (higher intensity, better weapons), streetpass exchanges and weapon fusing. The "type" of the weapon itself only influences in the appearance and performance aspects, the status themselves are always different. Finding the right weapon for you is crucial both in multiplayer and single player.

The game comes with 7 collectible cards which you can obtain trough events and Nintendo magazines, shame they don't sell these separately! But its a cool feature.

Multiplayer has 2 modes, light versus dark which is a team-based game. Each death takes a little health out of your team health bar, the more powerful your weapon, the bigger is the health taken away if you die. The first team to have its bar hit 0 will have the player whose death depleted the health bar turned into an angel (Pit, or Dark Pit), angels have improved HP, speed, attack and defense, but also comes with a problem: The weapon you will fight with is completely random, so if you are not used to a certain kind of weapon you are certainly doomed. And of course free for all mode, where you will usually die every 20 seconds, or less.

The story of the game is extremely diverse, the voice acting is fishy and funny, nothing seems to be serious in the voice acting of this game, what I find extremely charming about Kid Icarus. There are about 25 bosses (or more) which is an impressive amount of bosses, they all have a very peculiar personality and you will surely find a favorite. The game is so diverse that it even hurts a little bit. With so many unique bosses its impossible to remember them all accurately, when you actually do remember them all! It comes to the point where some bosses are a little bit forgotten because of the fame of other bosses. The story is not necessarily linear, but it is very interesting. I took approximately maximum of 15 hours to finish story mode (died a lot and tried higher intensities), but I am no where near of completing all achievements and weapons! This is game that will last as much as Mario Kart 7 if you ask me, and I still play Mario Kart 7 after all this time!

Sound

I haven't played any other games with this incredible soundtrack that weren't Zelda or Final Fantasy. The game is fully orchestrated, the music translates the feeling of each part with accuracy and specially in air battles, sum that with the awesomeness of visuals and it will surely give you regular chills in the spine. Action effects are very good too, the only problem is... if you use headphones who prioritize bass effects you will have occasional headaches because of the massive amount of explosive sounds, I recommend turning the FX volume down in the menu just in case.

Verdict

Kid Icarus Uprising is worth a try for every 3DS owner who is fan of action games, even if the controls might feel awkward or even painful at first, with a little bit of customization and holding the system the right way will provide you precise controls and let you enjoy an amazing gaming experience, it is fair to say this game borders the perfection.

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Gameplay: 8.7, Some people might have problems with the controls, enabling the circle pad pro to control the sight would solve this but all it does is change the position of the circle pad so left-handed players can use the touch screen to aim without having to use ABXY to move.

Story: 9.7, Absolutely amazing. But some little details went unexplained during the story... or its just me nitpicking.

Lasting Appeal: 10, achievements, multiplayer, brutally hard levels, streetpass, spotpass, 25 different and unique solo mode levels, 108 weapons and Much more to do. You really can't ask for more.

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Thank you for reading!

If you play Kid Icarus, or is planning to get Kid Icarus, is concerned about controls or have problems with them like wrist aches or discomfort, I will at request make a blog teaching my way of playing touch-screen shooting games. I have played games like Metroid Prime Hunters (DS), Moon (DS) and the Call of duty games for the DS which all use controls similar to Kid Icarus, and I learned a nice amount of tips and ways to play long hours without hurting your hands, once you play like that you won't have problems with this kind of control ever again. Comment your experiences please!

Related: Zen Pinball 3D (3DS, eShop) Review

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