Second Preview: Kid Icarus (NES)

In terms of game play styles and level design Kid Icarus take a cue from Metroid, Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. There are some strings of levels that slightly resemble Metroid’s innovative vertical scrolling level progression. For levels containing bosses the level design adopts The Legend of Zelda’s room-by-room dungeon crawling style. Things eventually start playing out like Super Mario Bros. when the level design take another change.

On top of this culmination of level design concepts, Kid Icarus has some original features that change things up. The inclusions of status ailments and cures and an incremental life gauge. Other notible features in Kid Icarus include the presence of physical attributes like power and health that can be increased with level progression. The level of difficulty for the game is meant to be fairly high as enemies randomly fall from the level’s sky.

First Preview Kid Icarus (NES)

 

This game coming straight from Nintendo of America was toted as being the dream project. Kid Icarus was presented in 1987 under the design Gunpei Yokoi and was to be a culmination of three previous first party releases: Super Mario Bros., Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda. The main protagonist of Kid Icarus is Pit who has the task of ascending from the realm of Hades in order to save Palutena. With the key word being “ascending”, it seems to be a forgone conclusion that the game will involve lots of vertical scrolling backgrounds. Platforming, shooting, and the collecting of lots of stuff are fundamental components of Kid Icarus. While the game was supposedly using the same engine used in the production of Metroid, the background only scrolls downward and most enemies spawn from the sky. With collecting hearts (the form of currency in Kid Icarus), you can buy items in various stores along the way.

Screenshots: Kid Icarus (NES)

 

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Box Art: Kid Icarus (NES)

 

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Editor’s Impressions: Mega Man (NES)

I know I’m not covering this game, but I still would would like to weigh in on this because I have nothing but fond memories of playing through Mega Man. It was a simple game by nature, but the sheer difficulty and addition the various characters (and environments) make this game kind of special. I don’t remember the graphics being all that special; they were standard for any second generation Nintendo Entertainment System game.