(Originally published to Glitchwave on 7/22/2023)
[Image from wikipedia.org]
Kid Icarus
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre(s): 2D Platformer
Platforms: NES
Release Date: December 19, 1986
But why was Kid Icarus reduced to a one-hit wonder when it was propped up amongst the architects of Nintendo’s legacy? Certainly, Kid Icarus is more inspired and offers more content to extrapolate on compared to its fellow NES stalemates like Ice Climber and Clu Clu Land. If one’s high school education needs dusting off, the game’s title alludes to the Greek myth of Icarus, the young man who infamously flew too close to the sun and fatally dipped into the ocean from the sky and drowned. Whether or not one sees this story from ancient times as a sympathetic tragedy or a fable poking at the hubris of man, Icarus has ostensibly resonated in popular culture from centuries onward. However, Kid Icarus is not an 8-bit rendering of the morality tale. Hell, the winged, cherublike protagonist of the game isn’t even named Icarus–but the blunt-sounding nickname of Pit. No matter, for the game can still borrow plenty from the gilded Greek mythos to sculpt something of substance. Kid Icarus presents itself as the same respectable tribute to the entirety of Greek mythology that Castlevania does with the golden age of horror films.
Then again, refusing to commit to a single source of inspiration might be the root cause of Kid Icarus’s downfall (no pun intended). Kid Icarus’s gameplay is cemented in the 2D platformer genre, but the game insists on warping the perspective for every level. The game begins as a vertical platformer, hopping upward on a series of clouds and Corinthian architecture to eventually reach the goal at the zenith point of the climb. The NES was no stranger to these sections spliced into the action of other 2D platformers, and their inclusion was a tense, thrilling mixup of the standard side-scrolling action. In Kid Icarus, however, prolonging these sections to the length of an entire level makes the ascent a hefty endurance test. Slipping down the cavernous pratfalls created by the scrolling screen devouring the level will obviously kill Pit instantly, which makes him channel his inner Daniel Plainview and scream “I’m finished!” as he is transported back to the beginning of the level. A one-life penalty seems harsh, but at least a password system is implemented instead of sending the player back to the start of the game upon dying. Still, these vertical levels feature far too many hazards, especially at the beginning of the game. The levels in the second act of the game adopt a more traditional trek to the right side of the screen, and the difference in difficulty between the opposing level axes is clear as day. Technically, Kid Icarus only offers 3 levels, but they are divided into four sections that extend those levels significantly. The sublevels are already lengthy enough as is, so the player has to endure an onslaught of hazards before they are victorious. The fourth sublevel will always remain constant: a labyrinth stage where the player must navigate through a series of rooms and find the correct path to the boss. These sublevels are intended to ape the dungeons in Zelda, but not even the hidden bomb passage in the first Zelda is as cryptic and circuitous as these befuddling excursions. Also, finding the dungeon map in Zelda would uncover the entire layout as opposed to putting a blank board on the screen shaped like a waffle with one glowing dot to indicate Pit’s location. Why do these levels punish the player so swiftly without them warranting it?
If the inflexible level design doesn’t crush the player’s spirit, the droves of mythical enemies definitely will. They complement each level’s challenge effectively, but more like an axis of evil and torment than anything. Snakes with wings will fall from the ceiling without little notice, and the piles of sludge that form from the ground are short enough to only scrape their heads with Pit’s arrows and piss me off. A particularly irksome enemy type is the reapers. These scythe-wielding phantoms go apeshit when they are aware of Pit’s presence, signaling four minions to swoop down on Pit and distract him from his trajectory. They also tend to be situated on the slimmest of platforms along the path, making them especially difficult to avoid. Really, the one enemy from Kid Icarus that is so notoriously vexing is the Eggplant Wizards. Where in the Greco-Roman texts do these robed cyclopses stem from? Probably none of them, but they’ve earned their spot in the Kid Icarus canon. They’ll lob their namesake fruit at Pit and if he comes in contact with one, their black magic will reduce him to nothing but an eggplant with legs. Being that eggplants are soft and squishy, Pit cannot fight in this handicapped state. The only solution is to visit a sectioned-off block of any fourth level dedicated to a doctor who’ll cure Pit’s ailment. Considering all the player has to reference is a rectangular pastry to find this specific area, pray to the Gods of Olympus if you stumble upon these purple bastards. Surprisingly, each boss at the end of every fourth level is relatively undemanding, even if Pit doesn’t free the petrified soldiers with the hammer items.
Only having the poor excuse for a map the game offers isn’t entirely accurate, I must admit. The player can purchase a pencil from one of the merchants, but the player would be better off saving their heart currency for other items. The saving grace of Kid Icarus is that the game becomes far less stressful once the player acquires all of the upgrades, permanently boosting their maximum health and damage output for the duration of the game. Other nifty tools to purchase are fire arrows, magic rods, and a glass of wine that restores a fair bit of health. How bohemian. While all of these upgrades seem like a practical solution to beating this game, none of them come cheap. I mean this quite literally as buying any of these items will break the bank, so the player will have to make an entrepreneurial decision on which item will be the best for them. If the game still proves to be excruciating with this frugal system, the other option is to farm hearts with a maximum quantity of ten. The player is forced to engage in several forced grinding sessions to make the game tolerable, and that aspect is absolutely unforgivable.
Also, the amount of items the player has on hand coincides with the ending the player receives. Kid Icarus already flirts around with different interpretations of the 2D platformer, so why not add a space shooter section as the final one for good measure? At the end of this overlong flight, Pit will take down Medusa, the prime mythical Greek figure who serves as the game’s main antagonist, by shooting the eye of the monstrous vegetation she’s hiding beneath. Paulutena, the damsel in distress, rewards Pit the same way a boss would. Depending on the player's diligence, Pit’s future will range from a lowly farmer to a prestigious role as a knight in her army. As far as I’m concerned, she can demote Pit to a shoe shiner because the qualifications needed to put Pit in a more lucrative position isn’t worth meeting. Sorry, Pit.
The main issue with Kid Icarus is that its gameplay identity wasn’t worth giving further attention to. The game isn’t any more cruel and cryptic than its peers at Nintendo, frustrating the player to no end and leaving them as lost as a gerbil in a test chamber. However, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid pioneered a fresh outlook on game design that the world would’ve been bereft of if Nintendo decided not to expand upon, despite their myriad of gameplay flaws. Pit throws every conceivable method of platforming in a 2D space at the wall and executes them all very poorly. I’m forgiving its rudimentary foundation to some extent like every NES game, but Kid Icarus simply doesn’t offer any visionary concepts. No wonder why Nintendo left Kid Icarus at the front steps of the gaming orphanage. Nintendo was only producing game changers at the time, and Kid Icarus didn’t quite cut it.
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