Boy does this bring back memories.
Telling younger gamers about the NES days makes me feel old and for years, most NES games were only available by purchasing an old console and the game. While other companies like Capcom and Sega were quick to shovel their classics out in compliation after compilation, Nintendo was hesitant though they suckered some into paying $20 for a GBA port of an NES game, but now the VC is here bringing us joy again.
One of the lost NES classics was Kid Icarus. This was a very early NES game that follows a young angel boy named Pit on his journey to save the Goddess of Light, Paltuna and stop the evil witch Medusa.
Kid Icarus's gameplay is hard describe. It combines the jumping of Mario, the shooting of Metroid and and the dungeon crawling of Zelda and towards the end, the side scrolling shooting of Gradius. You basically progress through each level shooting arrows at enemies, the problem is the arrow's range is short so you have to get pretty close. Even more frustrating, Pit has wings but has been robbed of his ability to fly so if you though falling as Mario was a pain, imagine watching a winged character fall to his death. It should be noted, today's gamers will find this harder than in the past. Kid Icarus can be challenging and frustrating and the dungeon levels are easy to get lost in. Even worse are the Eggplant Wizards who will turn Pit into an Eggplant and making him unable to shoot and he'll have to find a nurse station to remove it. Though throughout the dungeons, with the hammers you acquire from fighting baddies, you can free centurion warriors turned into stone which will help you fight the dungeon boss.
While you can't save, the game does offer passwords so if you stop playing, you can jot down the password and go back to where you left off and if you hunt the internet enough you might find some nice cheat passwords. The game also offers items though many aren't overly helpful. There's a magic feather which will let Pit fly enough to save him once as well as there are map reading items for dungeons.
Kid Icarus is great for old school NES owners who have longed for a sequel, but it's also a reminder of how hard games were back in the day. It made me angry and made me frustrated and I loved every minute of it.