Kid Icarus: Uprising Review! (Finally!)

Okay, so, it's taken awhile, but here's my review of Kid Icarus: Uprising! Just scroll to the bottom to get the final verdict if thee dost not desire to read mine words of knowledge.

It's been ages since the last Kid Icarus game. More than a decade, in fact. So you can imagine that many, many people were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Kid Icarus: Uprising this year. Indeed, I was one of those people. But did it let us down? No. No it did not.

To start off, let's talk about gameplay. The original Kid Icarus is famous for being notoriously difficult. Sakurai has found a great way of dealing with that pedigree when it comes to newbie players for this game. It's called the "intensity system". If you've been keeping up with the news, you'll know that this is a pretty damn cool system. You'll bet "hearts", the in-game currency, that you can complete courses at higher difficulties. When playing on these higher difficulties, you'll gain more hearts by killing enemies than you would on the default difficulty, and the treasures you get (powers, weapons, etc.) will be much more worth your while (that pathetic "Royal Blade" with no attributes and one star in ranged that you got on intensity 2.0? Yeah, that could've been a badass "Royal Blade" with poison damage, increased speed, better dodging, more firepower, and six stars in both ranged and melee slots on intensity 9.0!). Once you're in a level however, how does it play? While at first you'll be cursing the clunky aiming mechanics and the cramps you may be getting in your hand, you'll eventually get used to how the game controls. While it may take awhile, it's not a huge problem. The bigger problem here is the game's focus on ground levels as opposed to the aerial levels. Each level follows the same basic format; an aerial level and a ground level. About 90% of the time, the ground levels take much longer to complete. The problem? They're not as fun as the aerial levels. Sure, they're still a blast, they're just not as much of a blast. All in all, though, the game is entertaining through and through on the solo mission, and you'll definitely want to get into the multiplayer, but more on that later.

The game has some pretty nice graphics going for it. Character models look nice, there's quite a large variety of monsters, environments have a nice "sheen" to them, water refracts lights as it should. Everything looks nice, but it could look better. The big thing I noticed when travelling through some of the environments is the lack of filtering on any of the textures. This makes the lower resolution of certain texture much more apparent. While generally I like having a sharper image, when the textures don't boast ultra-high resolutions, it's just too noticeable. That being said, however, the game still looks pretty good. It's no Resident Evil: Revelations, but you know... it's "nice".

The sound is pretty good all in all. The sound effects are nice and can make it feel really satisfying when coupled with the shaking effect of the screen on melee hits, and the heart collection sound makes you feel like you're always getting somewhere. The voice acting is always good. There wasn't a single moment where I cringed and said "This is awful!", which, believe it or not, is something I say at least once when playing almost any game. Sure, it can be pretty cheesy sometimes, and characters seem to yammer on forever, but the comedy is generally pretty good, and there are some especially nice fourth-wall-breaking moments. Once again, it's very good, better than the efforts made on the graphics, but it's still nothing absolutely amazing.

Let's talk replayability, and believe me when I say there is a lot of it. There are hundreds and hundreds of unlockables, and I simply cannot tell you how awesome it feels to overcome a particularly nasty level on a high intensity, only to see those unlock screens bursting open to reveal the content you just won. It's so great, and there's so much to do. While it's a blast replaying old SOLO levels for more items, hearts, and unlocks, it's much more fun to jump online with a few friends and just start beating the shit out of each other. It's also fun when teaming up with random opponents, although I unfortunately found a lack of challenge as most people are not very good it seems. You'll quickly start racking up kills and unlocking even more goodies and maps as you play online, as well, so that's another plus. Weapons and hearts can also be won online, so look forward to that. All in all, there's a ton of content for you to sink your teeth into here, and you'll want to experience every bit of it.

In conclusion, Kid Icarus: Uprising is a great game with it's own fair share of annoying little problems. But the gameplay and unlockables definitely counter any problems one may experience here. This is a must-have game for anyone with a Nintendo 3DS.

Graphics: 80/100
Sound: 83/100
Gameplay: 90/100
Replayability: 95/100

Overall: 91/100


Oh, yeah, and happy 200th post everyone! Go out and celebrate. :)