Homestyle Flashback: Kid Icarus

February is upon us, the shortest month of the year and also the “most romantic.” That’s right, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so what better way to celebrate the day of love than by talking about shooting things in the face with arrows, battling snakes, demons, and Medusa herself. Those things just scream “I Heart You,” and with that, ladies and gentleman, allow me to present “Kid Icarus” for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Let me just admit something right off the bat – I had never played this game before I decided to review it. In fact, my knowledge of the kid called Icarus was solely based on Captain N, the old Nintendo merchandising cartoon. I felt like I knew everything there was to know about this guy. He was small, he was some kind of Cupid/Angel/original X-Man, and he shot arrows. Also, he ended most of his words with –icus, to show how old school he was. So with that admission out of the way, let’s get started.

The first thing I want to mention about the game is that it doesn’t give a crap whether you see the above screenshot. In fact, as soon as you start it up, all it says is “Press Start.” Only the patient get to see the above illustration, which shows that this game doesn’t care what you think. That’s a lesson that the game keeps trying to teach, because it is freaking brutal, but more on that in a second.

There’s an option to enter a password, but the game doesn’t call them passwords; they’re called “Sacred Words.” Not really knowing what to expect, I entered a few sacred words to see if they yielded any bonuses:

It didn’t really go as I had hoped. In fact, there’s no way to back out of this screen, so I had to reset the system. Serves me right, I guess.

The best part about a lot of Nintendo games is that they almost never included the story in the game. The actual raison d’etre for the game was usually nestled in the instruction manual, which wasn’t so bad back then, provided you bought the game, but as a kid, a majority of my game playing was from rentals, so I was usually in the dark in terms of what the hell was going on. It wasn’t a huge problem, since for the majority of games, the plot was second only to the gameplay. It didn’t matter why Mario was running from left to right - at the end of the day, you find out it’s to save a princess. It’s a similar thing here. I had no idea why Pit (who I originally thought was named Kid Icarus – who knew?) was in these dungeons - there’s nothing to even help me figure it out. I just knew that everything in this world was pissed at him, save for the few people who want to sell him pencils and stuff, but even then, I’m pretty sure they jacked up the price of a #2 pencil. Supply and demand, I guess.

Pit comes armed with arrows and the uncanny ability to be a vertically scrolling platform protagonist. Not content to move from left to right, this guy moves up for the majority of the first world. Take that, all other NES heroes!

Speaking of other NES heroes, Pit is like the bastard child of Mario, Samus, and Link. Don’t believe me? I’ll let the photos prove it.

Anyway, you start off battling snakes, which are pretty much the staple video game villain. They just run at you, which is pretty par for the course as far as video game snakes are concerned. Unless they have 3 heads (like in Mario 2), they’re just going come at you and be a minor pain. But then you’ve got this floaty eye thing that swirls around and generally gives you a hard time. Oh, and Death himself.

That’s right, Death makes an appearance as a stock enemy. He’s usually on a ledge just walking back and forth, but when he sees you, he flips his shit and sends baby Deaths after you. This is probably one of the earliest examples of stealth gameplay, because really, Death is bad enough, but then he sends his next of kin after you while he’s flipping out and screaming, so you’re going to want to avoid him. By the time I hit a section of the game where there were 2 Deaths on screen simultaneously, I pretty much came up with my own story for the game, which was pretty generic – Pit’s trying to save his girlfriend. I mean, honestly, no one in their right mind would put themselves through all this unless it was for a girl. Sidenote: did anyone else notice that the game plays a little riff of “Here Comes the Bride” whenever you die? Lesson learned - marriage = death.

Speaking of Death, it comes so quickly in this game. It’s one of the oldest games I can think of that actually has a health bar, but it’s almost unnecessary because this game is brutal. Not only do you have platforming elements to worry about, but there’s also respawning enemies, endless snakes, Metroids, Cerberus…it never ends! I thought I’d get some reprieve after making it to the next level, but they didn’t even refill my health. Give a guy a break.

After every 3rd level, you’re taken to some kind of maze, and HOLY SHIT I’M DODGING EVERYTHING! Spikes, snakes, some weird purple things…and this is only the first world! Double you tee eff. There’s also a boss at the end of this thing, who has a ton of health and I’ve just got my lame bow. Ugh, there’s no end.

As with my Comix Zone review, I wound up finding a lot more about gameplay mechanics after playing the game and doing some research. Example, the hammers that I’ve been collecting for the entire game actually serve a purpose other than “Worst Mario Impression” tool. You can actually free some blocked up soldiers and they come and help you fight the boss for that stage. These are the kinds of things I’m glad more recent games explicitly state within the game, because it would’ve been really handy to know about mid-Cerberus. Also, I just figured once Eggplant Wizard turned me into an eggplant, I was screwed, but au contraire bon jour, there’s a room with a magic nurse who can remedy that. Once again, something that would’ve been nice to know sooner.

Speaking of Eggplant Wizard, it’s nice to know that Captain N got something fairly accurate. He actually kinda looks like the character from the show. On a show that couldn’t even really get Gameboy to look right, it’s weird that the closest game counterpart is the Eggplant Wizard. I mean, seriously, why was King Hippo blue?

The game has some appropriately adventurey music, but nothing I found myself humming after playing it. And while the characters are vivid and well animated for an 8-bit system, none of them really stuck with me once the game was done. There’s nothing here as bold or memorable as Ganon or Donkey Kong – if it wasn’t for the difficulty of this game, it would just be another generic platformer. Well designed, tight controls, but nothing that is a must play. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I played it – it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve played to completion (that honor goes to Batman: Dark Tomorrow) - but with all the top notch platformers that the NES produced, this one kinda floats between greatness and mediocrity. It’s the game version of oatmeal - awesome if you’re hungry, but if there’s something better to eat, grab that.

Also, does Pit turn into Boba Fett at the end? This game is weird all the way to the end…

Technorati Tags: Boba Fett, Kid Icarus, Metroid, NES, Pit

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