Kid Icarus: huh?!

**Cravdraa** · 09-02-2010, 02:35 AM

I recently started playing this game again.
Rented it a few times when I was a kid. Didn't understand it. Sucked pretty bad. Maybe made it to the second level?
Many years later I bought it used. Didn't suck at games nearly as much, but it was still a hard game. I beat it using some codes, but eventually I played all the way through the hard way. Still didn't understand it. Why were there so many empty rooms? Why even bother with them at all? Half of them just had enemies in them and the rest were stores with sky high prices on items that I couldn't figure out how to use.

So this time, I decided to look up the game on Gamefaqs.
HOLY CRAP!
It's like I completely missed the entire point of the game!
The health upgrades aren't random or at preset points like I'd thought. Turns out that meaningless score gauge is actually an exp meter (despite the fact that it's clearly labled score), and you get them at the end of levels you've leveled up in. Instead of running past enemies, they actually expected you to grind for EXP. That gets you more money for the store, with items that are fairly useful once you know their obscure uses. And you'll probably be able to buy even more of them once you learn that you can haggle the prices with the shop keeper by pressing A & B on second controller. BUT WAIT! All that grinding will also help you boost a second invisible score that resets everytime you beat a stage. Why would you care? Because if you get it high enough, they give you permanent weapon power upgrades when you enter any of those previously worthless empty rooms. Up to 5x the power of the arrows you start out with.
There are even more tricks, like raiding the treasure rooms to get super rare items and stuff like that.

Basicly, while I considered the game an old classic, I also thought of it as sort of a dumbed down, simplified metroid. Not only was that completely wrong, but the game is practicly overflowing with the sort of obscure secrets and tricks that NES games of that era were known for. Just amazes me to learn so much more about a game I'd thought I'd beaten years ago.
If you like NES games, don't mind a challenge, and havn't played Kid Icarus, I'd suggest you give it a try.

**Valigarmander** · 09-02-2010, 06:59 AM

I've never played this game outside the Brawl demo.

Is it worth the $5 to get it on the VC?

***Cosmonautical*** · 09-02-2010, 09:45 AM

Whoa, that's an EXP meter? No wonder I never really "got" Kid Icarus. How odd. That might actually make it a good game.

**Cravdraa** · 09-02-2010, 01:38 PM

^^ I'd say... yes, but it depends on your tastes. Now that I actually understand it, I'd say the game has probably aged better than the original Metroid, maybe putting it along side some of the more advanced NES games.
Here's the break down:

You start out pretty weak, about on par with Samus from the original metroid (I compare the two games because they were made with modified versions of the same engine) Short range bow, a health bar that has 7 HP in it (Most early enemies inflict 1 or 2 hp of damage per hit.)

You'll want to do quite a bit of fighting since your health will level up and it makes power upgrades available. Each health upgrade increases your HP by 8, with a max level of 5. So once you max out, you'll have 39 hp instead of 7.
The fighting will also net you this game's money (hearts) which is good because you're going to need them.

Health is pretty rare in this game. Your life doesn't get refilled at the end of most levels. Occationally you might find a glass of wine (heals 8 HP) or a hot spring (full heal), but don't count on it. Instead the game expects you to keep yourself healthy by buying healing items in the many stores that are scattered throughout the levels. You can buy glasses of wine there. Bottles, which do the same thing as glasses, except instead of healing you on the spot they heal you automaticly when you're about to die. (basicly each bottle is a one time temporary extention to your life bar.)
Once you get a barrel, you can carry up to 9 bottles in it, so you shouldn't be dying so often once you get into the game.

As far as deaths go, it's pretty forgiving for an NES game. It starts you off back at the begining of the level you died on with 16hp and you get back any items and money you may have used before you died. (you don't get to keep anything you've collected in the current level though before you died though.) The only instant death in this game is falling in a hole, or off the bottom of the screen in vertical levels, but you can safeguard against that too by buying feathers. Feathers work a lot like Beat does in the newer Megaman games. If you have a feather and fall in a hole, Pit will temporarily gain the power of flight so you can fly back up to the platform you fell off of, or maybe even a little higher.

Along with leveling up and getting strength upgrades, there are also 3 pretty badass power ups you can get by surviving tests of endurance in certain rooms. One is a magic staff that creates a shield around you that inflicts damage on enemies that touch it equal to the current power of your arrows. (So it kills most weak enemies before thay can hit you) One is a long bow that extends your range so you can fire all the way across the screen. And the final one is a fireball that shoots with your arrow and inflicts equal damage to it, effectively doubling your offense. These upgrades are permanent once you get them, but they can be stolen from you by these invincible little hit and run thieves that occationally leap across the screen. When I lose one, I usually just kill myself so I can restart the stage with it, but if you opt not to your stolen powerup can be bought back at the next black market store you pass, or rewon by completing another test of endurance. The only downside to these powerups is that they don't activate when you first get them unless you're at near full health. Also they don't work in dungeons for some reason.

The 3 dungeons of this game are what you'd get if you crossed Metroid with dungeon from the original LoZ. That is to say, a massive, multidirectional, sidescrolling maze made up of lots of single rooms that mostly look alike. You can find a map, but it's completely worthless unless you buy a pencil and torch from that dungeon's store to go with it. You're probably better off just cheating by using a map from Gamefaqs, unless you're a masochist that really enjoys figuring out stuff for yourself. On the plus side, every dungeon has a hotspring, store, and hospital (for removing the dreaded eggplant curse)that can be entered and exited as many times as you want. This makes them perfect for grinding for money and exp. In the first dungeon I maxed out my HP and filled my barrel with 9 potions, so I'm pretty much set for the rest of the game. Dungeons are also the only place you can use any mallets you've collected. Press select and you'll switch to a mallet, which lets you perform a fairly powerful close range attack. Their real purpose is that they let you free any soldiers that have been turned to stone. Each soldier that you free will return the favor by showing up to help you fight the dungeon's boss. They follow your lead, attacking in groups of three, and each has an attack equal in power to your own. They die in one hit, but before the boss swats them, you'll effectively have 4x the offense.

And that's pretty much the main points of how the game works. If it sounds like fun, give it a try. Now that I understand it's finer points myself, I actually find it to be the sort of game that get progressively easier as it goes on thanks to the upgrades, despite that it's constantly throwing tougher challenges your way.

Oh yeah, the last level is special. And the game has 5 slightly different ending depending on how well you do. (In the same way that Metroid's endings are slightly different.) Beat the game and you'll be able to start over from the beginning with all the levels and powerups you've collected.

Toadyking · 11-12-2010, 08:23 PM

Kid Icarus should have had its 3rd game on the SNES like the sister series Metroid but dunno why it didnt happen.

09-02-2010, 02:35 AM	#1
Cravdraa VGF RPG Mod Join Date: May 2001 Location: It's Round on the sides and high in the middle. Gender: Posts: 8,470 Thanks: 171 Thanked 662 Times in 404 Posts	Kid Icarus: huh?! I recently started playing this game again. Rented it a few times when I was a kid. Didn't understand it. Sucked pretty bad. Maybe made it to the second level? Many years later I bought it used. Didn't suck at games nearly as much, but it was still a hard game. I beat it using some codes, but eventually I played all the way through the hard way. Still didn't understand it. Why were there so many empty rooms? Why even bother with them at all? Half of them just had enemies in them and the rest were stores with sky high prices on items that I couldn't figure out how to use. So this time, I decided to look up the game on Gamefaqs. HOLY CRAP! It's like I completely missed the entire point of the game! The health upgrades aren't random or at preset points like I'd thought. Turns out that meaningless score gauge is actually an exp meter (despite the fact that it's clearly labled score), and you get them at the end of levels you've leveled up in. Instead of running past enemies, they actually expected you to grind for EXP. That gets you more money for the store, with items that are fairly useful once you know their obscure uses. And you'll probably be able to buy even more of them once you learn that you can haggle the prices with the shop keeper by pressing A & B on second controller. BUT WAIT! All that grinding will also help you boost a second invisible score that resets everytime you beat a stage. Why would you care? Because if you get it high enough, they give you permanent weapon power upgrades when you enter any of those previously worthless empty rooms. Up to 5x the power of the arrows you start out with. There are even more tricks, like raiding the treasure rooms to get super rare items and stuff like that. Basicly, while I considered the game an old classic, I also thought of it as sort of a dumbed down, simplified metroid. Not only was that completely wrong, but the game is practicly overflowing with the sort of obscure secrets and tricks that NES games of that era were known for. Just amazes me to learn so much more about a game I'd thought I'd beaten years ago. If you like NES games, don't mind a challenge, and havn't played Kid Icarus, I'd suggest you give it a try. Last edited by Cravdraa; 09-02-2010 at 04:45 AM.

09-02-2010, 01:38 PM	#4
Cravdraa VGF RPG Mod Join Date: May 2001 Location: It's Round on the sides and high in the middle. Gender: Posts: 8,470 Thanks: 171 Thanked 662 Times in 404 Posts	^^ I'd say... yes, but it depends on your tastes. Now that I actually understand it, I'd say the game has probably aged better than the original Metroid, maybe putting it along side some of the more advanced NES games. Here's the break down: You start out pretty weak, about on par with Samus from the original metroid (I compare the two games because they were made with modified versions of the same engine) Short range bow, a health bar that has 7 HP in it (Most early enemies inflict 1 or 2 hp of damage per hit.) You'll want to do quite a bit of fighting since your health will level up and it makes power upgrades available. Each health upgrade increases your HP by 8, with a max level of 5. So once you max out, you'll have 39 hp instead of 7. The fighting will also net you this game's money (hearts) which is good because you're going to need them. Health is pretty rare in this game. Your life doesn't get refilled at the end of most levels. Occationally you might find a glass of wine (heals 8 HP) or a hot spring (full heal), but don't count on it. Instead the game expects you to keep yourself healthy by buying healing items in the many stores that are scattered throughout the levels. You can buy glasses of wine there. Bottles, which do the same thing as glasses, except instead of healing you on the spot they heal you automaticly when you're about to die. (basicly each bottle is a one time temporary extention to your life bar.) Once you get a barrel, you can carry up to 9 bottles in it, so you shouldn't be dying so often once you get into the game. As far as deaths go, it's pretty forgiving for an NES game. It starts you off back at the begining of the level you died on with 16hp and you get back any items and money you may have used before you died. (you don't get to keep anything you've collected in the current level though before you died though.) The only instant death in this game is falling in a hole, or off the bottom of the screen in vertical levels, but you can safeguard against that too by buying feathers. Feathers work a lot like Beat does in the newer Megaman games. If you have a feather and fall in a hole, Pit will temporarily gain the power of flight so you can fly back up to the platform you fell off of, or maybe even a little higher. Along with leveling up and getting strength upgrades, there are also 3 pretty badass power ups you can get by surviving tests of endurance in certain rooms. One is a magic staff that creates a shield around you that inflicts damage on enemies that touch it equal to the current power of your arrows. (So it kills most weak enemies before thay can hit you) One is a long bow that extends your range so you can fire all the way across the screen. And the final one is a fireball that shoots with your arrow and inflicts equal damage to it, effectively doubling your offense. These upgrades are permanent once you get them, but they can be stolen from you by these invincible little hit and run thieves that occationally leap across the screen. When I lose one, I usually just kill myself so I can restart the stage with it, but if you opt not to your stolen powerup can be bought back at the next black market store you pass, or rewon by completing another test of endurance. The only downside to these powerups is that they don't activate when you first get them unless you're at near full health. Also they don't work in dungeons for some reason. The 3 dungeons of this game are what you'd get if you crossed Metroid with dungeon from the original LoZ. That is to say, a massive, multidirectional, sidescrolling maze made up of lots of single rooms that mostly look alike. You can find a map, but it's completely worthless unless you buy a pencil and torch from that dungeon's store to go with it. You're probably better off just cheating by using a map from Gamefaqs, unless you're a masochist that really enjoys figuring out stuff for yourself. On the plus side, every dungeon has a hotspring, store, and hospital (for removing the dreaded eggplant curse)that can be entered and exited as many times as you want. This makes them perfect for grinding for money and exp. In the first dungeon I maxed out my HP and filled my barrel with 9 potions, so I'm pretty much set for the rest of the game. Dungeons are also the only place you can use any mallets you've collected. Press select and you'll switch to a mallet, which lets you perform a fairly powerful close range attack. Their real purpose is that they let you free any soldiers that have been turned to stone. Each soldier that you free will return the favor by showing up to help you fight the dungeon's boss. They follow your lead, attacking in groups of three, and each has an attack equal in power to your own. They die in one hit, but before the boss swats them, you'll effectively have 4x the offense. And that's pretty much the main points of how the game works. If it sounds like fun, give it a try. Now that I understand it's finer points myself, I actually find it to be the sort of game that get progressively easier as it goes on thanks to the upgrades, despite that it's constantly throwing tougher challenges your way. Oh yeah, the last level is special. And the game has 5 slightly different ending depending on how well you do. (In the same way that Metroid's endings are slightly different.) Beat the game and you'll be able to start over from the beginning with all the levels and powerups you've collected. Last edited by Cravdraa; 09-02-2010 at 01:55 PM.

09-02-2010, 06:59 AM	#2
Valigarmander The Bee's Knees Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The land of rain and trees (Oregon) Gender: Posts: 29,755 Thanks: 1,649 Thanked 5,701 Times in 2,581 Posts Blog Entries: 20	I've never played this game outside the Brawl demo. Is it worth the $5 to get it on the VC?

09-02-2010, 09:45 AM	#3
*Cosmonautical* Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 28,100 Thanks: 2,156 Thanked 5,338 Times in 2,433 Posts	Whoa, that's an EXP meter? No wonder I never really "got" Kid Icarus. How odd. That might actually make it a good game.

11-12-2010, 08:23 PM	#5
Toadyking Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: California Gender: Posts: 5,107 Thanks: 8 Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts	Kid Icarus should have had its 3rd game on the SNES like the sister series Metroid but dunno why it didnt happen.