Kid Icarus: Uprising

More like Kid Icarus: Uprising to My Top 5 Games List!

Look, I know the joke was bad, but throwing things is only going to get your monitor dirty, not mine.

Really, though, Kid Icarus: Uprising is a very, very good game, and I'm surprised I haven't heard a lot about it.  I didn't even get it because I had heard any strong recommendations or anything. I was just looking up a sale Best Buy was having because I heard Paper Mario: Sticker Star was on sale.  I checked the website and noticed that Kid Icarus was only $15, so I picked up both games.

When I booted up the game, my first impression of the game was, "Why am I playing Super Smash Bros Brawl on my 3DS?"

Masahiro Sakurai, director of Super Smash Bros Brawl, was the head of Project Sora, the development team for Uprising.  The menu definitely takes a cue from Super Smash Bros Brawl, but in no way do I mean that in a bad way, because if you copy anything from a Smash Bros game, you're doing it right.

...maybe

So I played the single-player portion of the game first, because if I ever play online multiplayer, I need to have every move and control mastered beforehand, lest I bring shame upon my family.  I was ready for a strange control scheme, because that was what I had read in many of the reviews for the game (and don't get me wrong, flicking the stylus across the touch screen to rotate the camera does feel a bit strange), but everything actually flowed very nicely for an adventure game with only one control stick.

The game has two main modes, a flying mode and a ground mode.  The flying mode actually plays a bit like Starfox 64; the goddess Palutena controls your flight path, since Pit seems to be the only character who is unable to fly on his own in this game, and only for five minutes at a time.  You fly on a preset path through surprisingly diverse environments and fight with a ton of different weapons, each with different abilities as far as close- vs long-range combat.  Visually, it's kind of beautiful, and this is where the gameplay shines the most, but mostly if you're using a long-range weapon.  The close-range ones can reflect incoming fire and do massive melee damage, but have very little ability to hurt any enemies sniping from afar.

On the ground things get more complex.  The gameplay can get muddled here, because there is a lot of exploration to be done in every level.  Pit's base stats are pretty low, so a good amount of your chances for survival depend on the weapon you choose.  Each weapon has unique stats that increase things like your health, speed, and power, and sometimes getting as specific as only aiding certain kinds of attacks or walking speed vs running speed.

What surprised me most about the game was the story, though.  The ads for this game depicted Pit as a generic angelic hero, which is more or less forgivable, but I'll be damned if I wan't bothered by Pit's generic "PREPARE TO MEET THE LIGHT!" line.  You kind of have to remember that this universe had not existed for a couple decades, and those decades happened to be the most crucial ones in forming voice acting and dialogue as we know it today.  With that awful commercial in mind, I was  very surprised to see that when they named one of the first bosses of the game, Hewdraw, they showed a picture of him in 8-bit form from the original Kid Icarus!  Then when the three-headed Hydra shows up, each one of them (with a unique voice and personality) just bickers at one another about who gets to attack Pit first and in what way in goofy voices (one has a British accent!).  I think that's about the moment I had this reaction.

And it just got better and better.  The music is incredible, ranging from your typical Battle-of-the-Gods orchestral fare to the Spanish guitar theme of one of the main characters.  Every level is memorable in its own way, and I don't think I noticed any environments recycled at all.  This is especially noteworthy in regards to the game's length; I was stunned that there was more and more story to play through.  The voice acting is above and beyond what I thought I would encounter, too.  I swear that Thanatos, the god of death, sounded like Choose Goose from Adventure Time.

The online multiplayer is pretty cool, too.  It always takes place on the ground, which is slightly unfortunate, but multiplayer would be difficult with fixed-rail shooter.  There are two main modes: Dark Vs Light and Free-For-All.  You get to use the weapons you unlock in single-player in this mode, but the more powerful they are, the more points the other team or individual gets for beating you.  It's an interesting take on balance; you want to use those weapons you worked so hard for, but you better know how to use them!

Things can get hectic on the small screen, but for the most part it's a nice kind of hectic.

If you're looking for critique on the downsides of this game, you have to understand that this is one of my favorite games.  I wasn't prepared for it in the same way I wasn't prepared for Chrono Trigger.  And I love it in the same way.  Seriously, if you have a 3DS, I will loan it to you. I'm not even kidding.  This is a game that I want everyone to play, because I enjoyed it that much.  The ground portions can be difficult to get used to, and I often took more damage from the environment than the enemies, but I love this game.  It's flawed, but it has so much character that I have no problem looking past them.  Get a 3DS and buy the game, or at least let me loan it to you.  I am honestly very surprised that I don't see this on more "Top Games" lists.