Action/Platformer
July 1987 (Nintendo)
It’s nice to get something good again. And something from Nintendo, but at this point those two are essentially the same thing.
There are so many things about Kid Icarus that can be looked at. The subtitle seems to suggest that Nintendo planned for this to be a series of games. Or at least make a game that had the possibility of sequels. There was another release for the Game Boy later but that’s it. Which sucks.
Also the fact that you only have one life makes it look like an arcade port. But it’s a Nintendo original. This isn’t a bad thing, it isn’t a good thing. It just is. And while it’s annoying it doesn’t break the game experience for me.
What is key here is that the game is hard. I used a Game Genie code that gave me unlimited energy and still had a hard time getting out of the first level. As in I couldn’t do it.
At least I don't have to do it all in one sitting. Although having to die to get the password is obviously something that shows how old this is.
The controls here leave something to be desired. You can’t seem to jump if you’re looking up. Landing a jump just doesn’t feel right.
And yet I can’t make myself give it a thumbs down. It’s a hard game, no doubt about that. Just the way the game scrolls up is enough to wrap that up. When you jump the level goes up with you, but it doesn’t go down when you do. And if you fall off the screen you die, even if the platform is just a pixel too low. Which means that it’s possible to block yourself into taking a bad path through the level.
But like Solomon’s Key it’s one that I can see myself coming back to. And honestly the fact that it came straight from Nintendo doesn’t hurt at all.
True Fact: Despite this game being inevitably being thought of as Metroid’s less popular kid brother (both were designed by the same team and came out around the same time), Kid Icarus originally outsold Metroid in Japan.
I suppose the question is: why did Nintendo never release a sequel to this or Metroid for the NES? Both sold over a million copies in Japan, which was very substantial at the time. I guess Nintendo R&D 1 was too focused on the Gameboy to develop any more NES games?
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Metroid not getting another NES release I can sort of understand. Super Metroid came out in 1994, so maybe it’s the same reasoning that kept Star Fox 2 from the SNES and had it on the 64: a new system coming out means better graphical capabilities and they wanted to have a successful game in their back pocket ready to go for the new system.
It took 3 years to get Super Metroid and only 1 for Star Fox 64. 3 years is a long time to sit on a game so I doubt that’s it. But it is an idea.
But as to why Kid Icarus never got any more love, I’d have to blame the Game Boy for that. Even just making an NES version of the Game Boy title would have been something.
Well, Nintendo somehow found the time to release, like, a million golf games for the system. So you’d think one lousy Metroid or Kid Icarus sequel for the NES wouldn’t be too tall an order.
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