Kid Icarus Uprising Is Painfully Good

It hurts to play, but all the funnest things do, right?

While playing through the demo for Kid Icarus Uprising at Nintendo's 3DS event in New York City, I started having flashbacks to another Nintendo DS game: Metroid: Prime Hunters. Remember how much it hurt to play? I nearly gave myself carpal tunnel. My hands protested in much the same way during my short time with Kid Icarus. The only difference was that this time I was enjoying myself too much to care.

It's hard to explain to younger gamers why they should be excited for a new Kid Icarus game. So I'm going to skip all the rhetoric about the glory days of 8-bits and eggplant wizards. Besides, this isn't the same kind of game at all, so the comparison is invalid.

Simply put, Kid Icarus is a shooter. Sometimes it pretends to be a close combat action game, but it is always a shooter. You control Pit – an angel with a big sword – with the analog stick, you control where he aims with the stylus, and you shoot with the L button.

The two levels shown off were comprised of both a flying portion and a ground section. There is so much going on in the flying sections that you have to constantly move Pit around to dodge, while you move the cursor to aim. Maybe I was gripping the stylus too hard as I tried desperately not to die, or maybe my muscles forgot how to play hardcore DS games after the drought in recent years, but this game is already giving me hand cramps.

Not that it's a bad thing. In fact it's not even going to stop me from going back and playing it some more. It's actually kind of refreshing to have to play a game that requires so much constant input that it's going to force me to develop some hand strength.

The flying sections are definitely the highlight so far. Pit zips down through canyons and tunnels. Enemies fly all around you. Lasers try to shoot you down. There are flyover shots of huge cities and a coliseum. The 3D adds a level of depth and panic to the chaotic game. Getting hit with an energy ball has a much more disastrous feel to it.



Pit has a very birdlike feel to him. So much so that when he lands for the ground sections, he feels awkward. He hops around like he's not used to walking on the ground, and he's far less agile. The gameplay still works the same. You move around, and aim at enemies to shoot, and this is where the boss battles happened. Honestly I wasn't feeling the ground combat. Perhaps there's a lock on system that the tutorial failed to mention, or some better way to control the camera, but it was hard to aim. Sure, the bosses were cool, especially the multi-story tall demon that I had to shoot in the face, but the controls felt less smooth and easy to grasp.

Already I can tell Kid Icarus Uprising is going to kick my ass (as well it should), and that may be the most exciting thing of all. This may be the first 3DS game I scream in rage about as I die for the 50th time. And it's quite likely that it will be the first 3DS game that makes me break out my really lame gamer wrist strap.

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