Kid Icarus: Uprising

 

At first, I was disappointed by Pit’s return and new approach. Around chapter 7, I felt like I had seen it all regarding single player. But starting from chapter 10, well, the game turned out to be much larger than I thought.

In fact, it is the longest on rail shooter I have played yet, and even more than that. Kid Icarus Uprising combines air and ground combat with touch, 1 button and circle pad gameplay, which let you shoot plenty of things, move around, aim, dash, roll, use powerups and change the camera.

The controls were definitely an issue at first, but I simply needed time for me to grasp it and get comfortable. Once you get used to them, the game is easily enjoyable for many of us. It has a clever Intensity difficulty system that lets you gamble with currency in order to get even more and therefore get better gear, but to be able to do so, you must set the intensity higher, making the game much more challenging.

This is not a cake in the walk, so at first, I beat the game on the very normal setting. If you want to get stronger in this game, you should set the intensity higher, but make no mistake, this will challenge you in every way possible when looking at so many different kinds of enemies Pit will have to face.

The story has become much better than the old platform games, as the lore has expanded with plenty of new characters, as well as many mythological beings returning and making their debut. Most surprisingly, although the dialogue might come off as very annoying at first, it swiftly becomes a very humoristic ride throughout the chapters while gaming.

You see, the characters in each chapter have such cheesy conversations with each other most of the time, that it added up to the quality of this large game, which by the way has a huge achievement system that is similar to Super Smash Bros.’s trophies and achievements.

Which is no surprise, seeing as this is coming from Masahiro Sakurai after all. The same could be said about the GUI. The soundtrack was very good and quite heavenly, and the new Pit has become likable for me. It’s a game not to take seriously, but as far as entertainment goes, this is once again top notch and quite original, combining some of the best ideas from past games.

Rating: 8.2