Kid Icarus had been remembered as a cult classic and one of the best games on the NES. Pit himself was considered something of a Nintendo icon. But the fact is that after it’s fairly similar sequel, there wasn’t another new Kid Icarus game for twenty-one years!

Kid Icarus: Uprising was a triumphant return for the series and one which outdid both of the previous instalments quite significantly! The previous two games had been 2D sidescrolling games, but this game is made up of 3D flying segments and 3D on-foot combat segments. Both have fairly different kinds of gameplay and both are equally fun. There are several different missions that Pit is sent on by the goddess Palutena; they all start with him having to fly somewhere (rapidly shooting at airborne enemies on the way) and then landing somewhere and fighting through enemies until you find a boss. It’s a fun and satisfying.

What I especially like about Kid Icarus: Uprising though, is its story and characters. The story initially seems to be fairly straightforward (the kind of thing you’d expect from Nintendo games) but takes several unexpected twists and turns and becomes something extremely unique: What makes this especially interesting is the fact that it is full of well-developed characters: Pit and Palutena are both given full personalities for the first time and the way that they interact with one another makes their friendship feel very real. There are also several brand new characters introduced, such as Dark Pit and Viridi, the goddess of nature. Virid was definitely my favourite character as she’s very funny, likeable and interesting. I certainly hope that we will get to see more of her in future. It’s the strong characters that give the story emotion; it’s no exaggeration to say I found it very moving at times.

There’s a lot of additional content beyond the main story too: a fun multiplayer battle mode, an enemy and weapon gallery to fill in, a huge range of difficulties, alternate paths through certain levels and a large number of achievements to unlock. All of these things combine to add a high level of replayability; especially if you’re a completionist! There are also a lot of treats for the fans: as well as lots of nostalgic connections to the first game (none to the second though, which was disappointing) there are also loads of Easter Eggs which make reference to Nintendo’s many other franchises, so this game will be quite a treat for big Nintendo fans. On the whole, there are not many bad things to say about Kid Icarus: Uprising.

Rating: 9.5/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

The Mega Man series is one of the most iconic in the world of gaming and the several Mega Man games that appeared on the NES are remembered as some of the best titles on the console. This, of course, is the game that started it all. But does this game live up to the reputation of the series it spawned?

A big thing that will affect your enjoyment is its difficulty. I am not ashamed to say that I made heavy use of save states when I played through it; it would take you a very, very long time to get good enough to win at this game without the aid of save states… Unless I am just a terrible gamer. So, if you don’t appreciate tough games, this might not be for you. I have to admit though, that while it did get frustrating sometimes, I also sometimes found myself laughing at it; the level design was just hilariously obnoxious at certain points.

The game is made up of several 2D side-scrolling stages which involve a combination of platforming and shooting enemies. What’s quite interesting is that, other than the first and last stages, you can play through all of the game’s levels in whatever order you want. Each level has a Robot Master in it who acts as a boss; each Robot Master you defeat will leave behind a power-up which you can use to give Mega Man a new ability/power; this is pretty handy since without any of them he is not exactly mega! I always looked forward to acquiring the new abilities. Back onto the subject of difficulty: every level is full of very hard to dodge enemies and projectiles which fly all over the screen and since Mega Man isn’t very mobile, things always feel very unfair.

In the end, it’s quite hard for me to say how I felt about this game: it’s very unfair and has a cheap level of difficulty. However, I was amused with how hard the game was; do I like it because it’s bad? Maybe. But maybe that’s how you were supposed to enjoy it? Also, I was legitimately frustrated and annoyed with the game at times (especially one boss battle near the end) and that’s not in its favour. It had very nice music on some of it’s levels: some of the best 8-bit tracks I have ever heard. It’s a mixture of feelings, good and bad, so please take my final score with a grain of salt.

Rating: 6/10

Buy it here.

(Sorry for the delay with this blog post, it was supposed to go up yesterday, but was prevented from doing so by a technological error.)

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

When Rare was purchased by Microsoft in 2002, it seems Nintendo were left quite unsure as to what to do with the Donkey Kong series as there were several rather experimental games released after this. We had the modern Donkey Kong acting like the classic one, we had a climbing based game and we had this game, which is probably the strangest of them all: a music game.

The storyline is especially weak: Donkey Kong and Diddy find some magic bongos one day, they talk to Cranky and decide to try and become musicians. Yep. But for a music game like this, what did you expect? I guess it’s nice to think of this as just an average day on Donkey Kong Island, the kind of thing they do when not on adventures.

So then the game has you playing a variety of different pieces of music on the bongos. You can play using the regular Gamecube controllers, but a big selling point of Donkey Konga is that you play it on special bongo controllers and that you are actually playing the songs yourself. How it works is that it shows Donkey Kong sitting at his bongos and then these notes come flying past and you have to hit the left drum, the right drum, both simultaneously or clap depending on what it is. It sounds basic, but it’s pretty fun.

The thing about the Donkey Kong series is that it is renowned for having outstanding music. All three parts of the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy? Astounding soundtracks. Donkey Kong 64? fantastic! So it surely wouldn’t be hard to fill a music game with Donkey Kong music! Except for some strange reason, most of the music is covers of pop songs. Sure, there are some good ones like ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ and ’99 Red Balloons’ but they seem such strange choices. There are a couple of Donkey Kong pieces, but they’re just taken directly from Super Smash Bros. Melee. There are also a couple of pieces of classical music and new versions of the Super Mario Bros. theme and The Legend of Zelda theme. Every song can be played on a variety of difficulties, some being very, very hard, so there’s a lot of replayability. They can also be played in multiplayer mode.

Beyond the main music, there’re also a few pieces of additional content. There’s a whack-a-mole style game where you have to hit King K. Rool, a juggling game, other mini games and special unlockable versions of the bongos… All of which are rubbish and just make silly noises which spoil the songs! I used some of them out of curiosity, but mainly it is best to stick to the normal bongos!

On the whole it’s a fun experience… I just wonder why it’s a Donkey Kong game. It feels so weird and a lot of it doesn’t seem to make logical sense. Nonetheless, I did have fun with it.

Rating: 7.9/10

Buy it here.