"An on rails comedy routine" is the best descriptor of Uprising I've ever heard

"Ambulatory aubergine" is my kinda writing.

For my money, the so-called inverse difficulty curve works for games that have permanent character progression with "zero-to-hero" trajectories. It feels good to go from struggling as a lowly weakling to soaring through the air whupping monster ass with ease. Right somehow. When your character has more or less fixed abilities, the opposite is true.

Kid Icarus is still a candidate for “most underrated game of all time.” It’s in Jeremy’s blind spot or something. It’s a stylish, innovative, challenging game with great music and charming music. The ungainly password system is possibly the game’s only real flaw. Not as good as Metroid or Zelda, but definitely one of the ten best NES games of all time. And I beat it without cheats when I was 9 (unlike Ghosts n’ Goblins and Castlevania), so it can’t be THAT hard.

This is one of those games that always evokes special feelings in me. The world is alien and feels bigger then it is. The dark backgrounds and somewhat strange graphics really gave it an underworldly feel, especially with the music. Everything just felt super mysterious. Also with the exporable doors, the levels didn't feel as linear as they actually are and the fortresses really strengthen that. I would love a new game of this in the old retro style (the minimalistic and dark graphics really spark my imagination) but with more variation. I would also love bigger worlds, more secrets and more items and weapons.

Maybe they call him Pit because he keeps falling into them. :P Also, Rygar! Yay!

Thank you Jeremy for another great video that goes into way more depth than 99% of channels. Now I can actually play this game and not be maybe quite as confused and frustrated

This was the first NES game I ever saw being played. In 1988, I went to my babysitter's house to play with his younger siblings. All I had seen of video games to that point were Atari and C64 games since my father was big into the early days of personal computing as a hobby. We were promptly ushered to the basement where I saw my babysitter and his friends playing a game on this thing they called a Nintendo. The game was Kid Icarus, though I didn't know it at the time. I sat there for about an hour but I don't recall them ever finishing the first level. However, the music was burned into my brain. Years later, my cousin and I played the game and I discovered why they could not finish the first level. The sheer brutality of the first world is enough to destroy even the most dedicated gamer's interest in the game. However, that first experience with an NES (not through Super Mario Bros. ironically) was enough to put it on my childhood Christmas radar. I didn't get an NES until Christmas of 1989, but I'll always remember the first time I saw an NES in action. I did eventually finish the game a few years ago the 3DS. I agree wholeheartedly with Jeremy. The small changes made in that version of the game make it so much better. It's now tough, but fair. I missed the GB game when it originally came out, but finished that one as well via Virtual Console. In my opinion, it's a better game than the first.

The music in this game really takes me back to my childhood, it was one of the first games I ever played on nes over at my uncles house, epic! (I really sucked at playing it though)

I remember getting addicted to Kid Icarus and playing through in one 17 hour run. First and last time I did that, boy was I tired and sore at the end (7 in the morning), very satisfying too.

The credit card is not befitting of Ancient Greece but perhaps very befitting of current day Greece

I have always adored KI and all his sequels. Loved the video. I picked up a copy of KI for the Famicom Disk while i was in Japan, and either forgot/didnt know it has the added sound channels. Been saving it for a rainy day, and now i'm even more excited to revisit this old favorite. I always considered KI one of the 4 original "crown jewels" of OG NES, along with Zelda, Metroid, and SMB. So good.

This game both frustrated and fascinated me as a kid. To this day I'm still mesmerized by the look and the soundtrack and challenged by how unrelentingly hard it is!

It’s crazy how these old simplistic games were some of the most engaging, well-crafted, interesting, and very addictive. Compared to today’s games it’s hard to believe how much fun it was playing a game like Kid Icarus back in the day.

Love your videos. Great retrospectives that trigger all my nostalgic feelings. Thanks!

12:40 They indeed took liberties with the source material - I don't think they had Metroids in ancient Greece either. :D

Kid Icarus is one of my favorite NES games. I admit that nostalgia has more than a little to do with that but I still find it very replayable.

The first time I really gave this game a try was on the Wii's Virtual Console, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Thank you for covering this game! This was one of the 3 games I got with my NES back when I was 8 and I have to say I love it to pieces. I've beaten it many times over and I definitely agree that it has that inverse difficulty curve as I would always dread going through the 1st world the most as it definitely gets more fun and interesting afterward as well as "easier". To be honest I didn't pay too much attention to its story so I am glad to hear all of it explained here. Thanks Jeremy~

The music in this game is beautiful

Here's a fun fact about this game. This game takes inspiration from other popular Nintendo games, you have the shooting part from Metroid, the jumping platformer part from the Super Mario games and the RPG style and form changes from The Legend of Zelda. This is why one Nintendo Power magazine did comment that Pit can jump like Mario, shoot like Samus and fight and change form like Link.

One of my favorite games I played as a kid, still love it today.

Still my favorite game of all time.

Marvelous video! I played this game to death as a kid. I beat it over 30 times over, keeping track of my passwords in a spiral notebook. I dug the light Greek motif and the general weirdness of it all. It was also my first introduction to credit cards. I'll never forgot the agony I felt seeing my heart total stalled as I paid off that barrel I bought on a whim. (I think it was a 500 heart black market barrel, too!) And finally: Eff Eggplant Wizard, now and forever.

This series is a huge undertaking but will be an amazing reference. Thanks Jeremy ✌️

Fantastic video! Love your breakdown and inclusion of technical aspects of Kid Icarus that set it apart from other games at the time. Very informative, bravo!

Thouroghly enjoyed, Jeremy. Great cast!

Happy Thanksgiving Jeremy, thanks for the incredible work all these years. Been waiting on this one for a long time, did not disappoint! I still remember how powerful it felt as a kid to play with the full powerups. Hard to recreate that feeling.

Been a fan since the 1up days! Love your videos makes my day everytime

Beautiful review Jeremy!!

I could swear Metroid and Kid Icarus was released the same day? At least at the Goodguys in CA. I got them on the same day. I had such a love/hate relationship with both those games, lol! The Eggplant wizards are forever my nemesis. That and the passwords, So frustrating!! You cover the difficulty well! Proud to say, I did make it to the final flying stage but never completed the game. I think I was too worn down at that point. That starting music still haunts me. :-|.

appreciate the massive depth of this video. Never played this game but liked the vid bc it was super insightful

Great video, thank you for the nostalgia. One of my favorite NES games. Beaten without any passwords several times. The key is getting past the first few stages, tip: an early barel is nice, but a feather really helps the final ascent of stage 3.

But WHAT an on-rails comedy routine. Uprising is one of my favorite games of all time simply because of its marvelous writing.

Great retrospective! As always!

I've never managed to get past that opening set of stages, despite playing Kid Icarus off-and-on for the last 25 years. I got so close to clearing the 3rd stage the last time I played (the exit was literally on-screen!), but I got greedy while trying to farm a few hearts; one of those flying eyeballs guys swooped down and turned all of my hopes and dreams into pixelated ash. I haven't had the heart to go back to it since.

I was a huge fan of this as a child, it's one of the first videogames I ever played but I've never even met another person who'd even heard of it prior to Melee, much less played it. I don't know how different it may have been in the U.S. but here in Britain it just wasn't well known, which is crazy because it's such an amazing game that really captivated me as a child with its setting, music, and ridiculous expectations of you as a player! If nothing else, it taught me clear and thorough note making - nothing worse than looking at the password you've written and not knowing if it's an 'o' or an '0' or an 'O' when there are 20 characters. I remember sitting there just entering random values as maybe a five year old and actually unlocking a game state with items unlocked out of order and other oddness I've long since forgotten. Naturally I didn't write down every random password I tried out, so I could never reproduce the results and to this day I've never seen any such code appear online.

Great video. I’ve got some fun memories staying up late mapping out dungeons on paper. I hope this comes to NES classics online for the Switch.

I'd be interested in taking a look back at The Mysterious Murasame Castle/Nazo no Murasamejou for Famicom Works as to complete the set of FDS First Party action games from 1986.

With the right passwords, Kid Icarus becomes an incredibly improved experience-- almost a modern, friendly game!

Subscribed because you're a great narrator. This series is mostly comprised of things I already know, but presented in a very pleasing and worth-while format that's enjoyable to watch and listen to.

The final level is a “brisk lightweight delight” ! Haha :D Jeremy I love your wording.

Thank you, Mr. Parish, much appreciated Kid Icarus review.

Another thing to mention about the 3D Classics version is that it actually includes the save system from the original FamiCom game, eliminating the clunky password system from the NES game.

You did this game justice. I just want to say thank you. 19 min went by just like that! I agree with the high risk - "high reward" mentality about Nintendo making the first few levels so damn hard. It definitely turned away a lot of players...including myself. Glad I gave it another go. Can't wait for your Rygar vid. Sagila's Cave theme, Here we come!

This was really enjoyable! I always look forward to new entries in the Works anthology. Kid Icarus was an interesting game, but like you said, way difficult in the beginning. As a kid, I never even made it out of the underworld. I was eventually surprised to find out that the game had horizontal levels, and the free-roaming mazes. It's cool how it covers the spectrum. Also, thanks to Captain N, until Smash Bros came along, I thought the protagonist of this game was named "Kid Icarus" -- similar to the confusion a lot of people had over the star of its sister game, "Metroid."

the one thing I really hate on kid icarus is getting an eggplant incantation.

This video is a amazingly well done.

I got my nes Xmas of 87 (I was 7) and a library of games. Ghost & Goblins, Zelda, Metroid, Trojan, Commando, Section Z, Castlevania, Rush n attack and Kid icarus. My parents sold my Atari and it’s library of games about 2 months before Xmas (they said it broke and was in the shop...lol). Still my greatest Xmas to date😀😀😀 love your videos!!

Kid Icarus did get an earlier sequel, but not in Japan. The Game boy game Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. I didn´t know the soundtrack was converted from Disk System music, I liked it on the NES but it sounds even better as it was intended!

I remember tweaking the passwords to get different results lol

Wow this is a really good channel. good job!

This game blew my seven year old mind in 87’. Inscrutable. Obstinate and obdurate were the controls and the jumps and never did I reach the top of the first ring of Hades. And I still haven’t.

Woah, Mirror of Palutena is the name! Man, this vid is cool. I gotta play through these cookies. Thanks for your works Jeremy. Old Nintendo games rule!

Love this game more than Metroid. I have super nostalgic memories of both that year, but more so with this one. Up all night with my brothers and friends.

Classic game that I only recently discovered on 3ds.

Jeremy, your Anatomy of a Game series on Kid Icarus convinced me to pick it up again after hating it as a kid. At the time I didn't know it gets easier, or that you get extra life at 20,000 points, but with that knowledge I figured I could grit my teeth through the first 3 levels. And I did! It felt very gratifying to finally beat this game after writing it off in frustration so many years ago: thank you!

Man I loved this game, still do and Uprising is amazing as well! Was gonna say you forgot to mention Kid Icarus: of myths and monsters on gameboy! Still a great in depth retrospective on a classic game :)

I can't recall having heard about the specific password system in Kid Icarus before. I was however delighted when at 7:16 in the video, one of the passwords read DUVANS MAMMOR KOMMER BORTOT, which roughly translates to Swedish as either "the pigeon's mothers get misplaced OT", or a slightly misspelled "the pigeon's mothers come/move away". I'm now imagining a very, veeery slow Sunday in early 90's Sweden when someone just kept entering Swedish nonsense sentences into Kid Icarus hoping to find a winner. They obviously stumbled upon a good one, since this pigeon mama thing grants invincibility and fully upgraded arrows on the final level.

awesome vid, this game still kicks my ass

Don't forget Kid Icarus also got a few game boy releases too. I played this game a bunch as a kid. I hated the things that stole your items, and the egg plant people. Just avoid the other thing you talked about and your good. And the dungeons had that creepy music pretty cool but took a long long time to go through it and kind your way around it. I don't know why they didn't put battery saves in all the games instead of messing with the passwords. It was such a pain to write them all down and then enter them into the thing the next time and try and distinguish what was what.

I always preferred the Game Boy follow up which most people seem to have forgotten as it's not as brutal right out of the gate.

I had pretty much given up on kid icarus until i watched this. I think i might give it one more try

Kid Icarus the best comedy routine game

Mr. Parrish. While I am not sure if you read these comments, I still want to say, that I enjoy these videos and may purchase your books in the future, as, I have to say, you do a wonderful job of covering these games. You seem to cover everything about the game, noting, its weaknesses and strengths and the story behind its creation and release. I also like that you always make good points about gameplay that I have deduced myself. For instance, I was just thinking, while watching this video and you mentioned the fortress phases, that the hardest part about a fortress is not dying by enemies, but by getting to the end boss wihout being an eggplant! Then, spot on, you make the same point! You seem, well, in my case, to be on the same wavelength with me on observations about these games, plus you bring up things that I have never thought about before. Thank you for your excellent work. I look forward to future videos.

The evangelion music at the end snuck up on me!!

Kid Icarus always resonated more with me than Metroid, and I was eventually able to beat it as a kid. Trying for all endings involves maxing out a stat the game gives no visibility to - I think rom hackers had to find it. The other example of it's inverse difficulty the way it allows you to start from the beginning of the game with all of the power ups you had when you beat Medusa, so second play throughs can focus on getting better endings instead of just surviving.

When I was a boy I always wanted to this game because the cover was very cool, but I could never get it. Because everywhere I went it was sold-out.

Never got past that first stage, I thought the entire game was horizontal scrolling but the other levels actually look pretty cool

I remember sitting there just entering random values as maybe a five year old and actually unlocking a game state with items unlocked out of order and other oddness I've long since forgotten. Naturally I didn't write down every random password I tried out, so I could never reproduce the results and to this day I've never seen any such code appear online.

You forgot about the arrow upgrade. You had to have a certain amount of points before Zeus would give you the upgrade. If you went into a blank room then that meant you didn't have enough points. It really made it a challenge since the point system was complicated and not shown.

It's on my short list of games to get.

Funny in the Captain N comic, they used Uranos along side King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard since it was just all Nintendo characters.

This game grew on me. When I played it as a child, it was too hard for me but I liked it. It also makes me think of whoever did the voice acting for kid Icarus in captain n the game master cartoon. He had a speech problem and would add icus to every wordicus lol.

I got this game when I was 8 and struggled with the first few levels... Still do.

I still remember the code to the final boss. 18!18!18!18!18!18!...and so on.

I still have nightmares about the eggplant men

I always liked kid Icarus. It was so different at the time, w the Greek mythology type base and upward levels.

It took me so much swear Words to complete this game, but it felt satisfying. It is not perfect by I really love this game.

Considering there's a flying level, I wonder why they didn't call it "Kid Daedylus".

Eggplant Wizard was one of the best characters in Captain N. Mother Brain was also great.

Nice 1up shout out there (RIP 1up)

The Eggplant Wizards were the original aimbotters. It might of just been because I was a kid but it seemed like they were just in the matrix able to see where I would be 3 moves ahead and just hit me with the most unbelievable cheap shots. Homing missle eggplants 😂

Kid Icarus is on my short list of NES games I never finished, it's brutally hard at points, sadly it's a game that unlike Metroid or Zelda I wasn't invested in getting that end game screen.

_"Enemies tend to spawn infinitely in fixed zones of the stage."_ Not true, actually. There are a set number of waves that will come at you at any given point, although I don't remember if there's a hard number for that for all enemies. My general strategy was always to kill as many as the game was willing to send my way until they stopped coming before moving forward. It's one of several strategies that make the game much easier to handle once you figure them out (like pressing up to brake on those precarious jumps or firing faster by constantly ducking).

I really need to try this one. I've beat both Zelda and Metroid on their original hardware but never even played this.

sadly to this day I haven't finished this one... perhaps if it arrives on Nintendo Switch Online I'll attempt it again! And I didn't know about the changes to the end-game in the Japanese version.... definitely would save some headaches not having to deal with that extra stuff.

I cannot get past stage 1-4. It's driving me nuts

Duvans Mammor Kommer Bortot. I see we Swedes even tried a few passwords :P (The) Dove's Mothers Comes Away. Not that it makes any more sense than it does in Swedish (last word in Swedish is supposed to be Bortåt)

It's a classic nes game. 😀👍🎮

A lot of people dont know that Pit can fight with the mallets. You can kill Eggplant wizards in two hits and Twinbellows in 20.

I never played it back in the day, but I've had my classic for almost 9 months and have still yet to make it pass the first level....

Didn't this game also feature "bartering" with the shop keepers for better prices by using the second player control pad?

I've always thought it wasn't as fun and polished as other first-party Nintendo titles on the system. No surprise that it was co-developed by TOSE.

love this game but those dungeons are brutal without a map

The NES version did take a hit on sound quality, but I will say one thing. Having played the NES for over 30 years, and having only recently seen Famicom footage of the game for the first time, that shrieking the Grim Reaper makes in the Famicom version is a fresh hell I really didn't need to know existed.

Loved it. What are your thoughts on Solar Jetman?

Osawas must have been heavy in credit card debt lol, or he wished he used it for heat while working

I always wondered what a 16-bit sequel _à la_ Super Metroid could have done for this franchise, ahead of the DS sequels made many, maaaany years later, far long after my interest would have been piqued

This was the first game I beat.