Kid Icarus: Uprising is a hotpot (or hodgepodge, if you like) of good and bad, light and darkness, in keeping with its narrative themes. The most enjoyable feature by far is the pace and cinematic extravagance of the on-rail shooter sections which make up half the content. They deftly blend swelling music, sweeping vistas and quickfire dialogue as Pit the angel is blown, spun and buffetedKid Icarus: Uprising is a hotpot (or hodgepodge, if you like) of good and bad, light and darkness, in keeping with its narrative themes. The most enjoyable feature by far is the pace and cinematic extravagance of the on-rail shooter sections which make up half the content. They deftly blend swelling music, sweeping vistas and quickfire dialogue as Pit the angel is blown, spun and buffeted for miles on end, through canyons, crevices and constellations. Poseidon splits the sea for him. Massed armies fire at him from the ground. Fortresses yield their hidden apertures. And all the time, the player is busily engaged with gunning down and dodging, while Pit's employer, the goddess Palutena, alternates between teasing quips, tactical talk and exposition duties. Later in the game, other characters join in the radio banter, and it's half-rollercoaster, half-sitcom.
The script and voice-acting are stellar by the standards of other video games, perfectly acceptable by any other standard. Since the plot is a feather-light series of fantasy cartoon tropes, the only real bar the characters have to clear is to be likeable and entertaining. With the odd exception, they achieve this. Phyrrhon the god-who-thinks-he's-a-champion-of-justice is a particular favourite of mine.
Special mention should go to the way difficulty is managed. You can start a level at any 'intensity' from 2.0 to 9.0, paying in hearts (the in-game currency) to push the meter up. The higher you go, the harder the stage and the greater the reward. When you die, it knocks you down a difficulty but starts you at a recent checkpoint. So while dying costs you hearts and lowers the rewards you can claim, you never have to start the whole level again.
Of middling quality are the enemies. In terms of their mechanics, they offer a decent enough challenge, with an array of different weaknesses to be exploited. But visually, they're a slapdash batch of half-baked conceits, seemingly imported from a time when platform games rained down any old **** on the player.
Now onto the grimier stuff. The on-foot sections that make up the other half of the game rely far too heavily on enforced 'arena' battles. That is to say, the game regularly traps you in a small space with no cover while waves of enemies materialise out of thin air, only opening the gates when you've defeated them all. This would be a more tolerable feature if the controls were more agreeable, but I'll come onto them later.
There are a handful of optional vehicle sections. All the vehicles handle poorly and are hardly any fun at all, which is very disappointing. The Exo Tank in particular steers like an oil tanker.
The weapons system is actually perfectly decent and fairly diverting, but is far more limited than the publicity around the game leads one to believe. All the weapons behave almost identically - they fire continuous fast projectiles, can charge up for a more powerful single shot, are used for melee attacks when an enemy is nearby, and let loose a burst when used in conjunction with dashing. The difference is largely in the stats - range, power (at different ranges), speed, charge time, and so on. There are few exceptions, such as bouncing or explosive shots, but after a while they all seem to blend into one. As you earn or buy more weapons, you'll want to fuse them together to create even more powerful weapons, and it becomes mostly a numbers game, rather than having anything to do with styles of play of 'game feel'.
I suppose the weapons system would feel slightly more tactical if you could take two or more into a level with you and switch between them, but as it is you have to opt for the same one for handling every type of enemy the game throws at you. Your sniper-rifle-like laser staff will let you down when you're trapped in a corner at close quarters, while your wolf claws will have you haring back and forth to reach each adversary.
Dishonorable mention goes to the health system. At fixed points, you will find fruit or hot springs to revive your flagging strength, but these often turn up at the most inopportune points, when you're already close to full health, while there are long, punishing sections with not a melon or apple in sight. Oh for portable health kits!
Finally, then, the controls. They are awful. Never mind the strain it puts on hands, back, eyes or all three by making you use your left hand to move, fire and support the whole system while your right hand hovers and swipes; the real problem is that the 3DS touch screen is used for both moving the aiming reticule *and* moving the camera. How does it know which you want to do? Well, it seems to guess. This means you cannot turn round quickly or accurately, even as enemies appear behind and to the side. Worse still, you have to *fight* the camera as it moves on its own to offer dramatic angles. Circle-strafing makes the whole thing go haywire, and getting behind an enemy to target their weak spot is ludicrously difficult.… Expand
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