Portal: Kid Icarus
| |
| Kid Icarus | |
| Developer | Nintendo, Project Sora |
| Games | Kid Icarus, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, Kid Icarus: Uprising |
| Debut | Kid Icarus (1987) |
| Gallery | GH Gallery |
Kid Icarus is a minor Nintendo franchise that had two installments during the class Nintendo years and later received a heavily revamped sequel on the 3DS. The series features the adventures of an angel named Pit who works for the goddess Palutena. It is based on Greek mythology combined with humorous elements. The classic games were platformers which used a similar engine as the Metroid series.
History[edit]
The original Kid Icarus was developed for the Famicom Disk System due to its higher memory capacity. Toru Osawa designed the game based on a fondness of Greek myths and created it as an action games with some roleplaying elements. Yoshio Sakamoto joined production near the end to help, and the game was finished only three days before its release in 1987. Kid Icarus was made using the same engine as Metroid and was considered a sister game to it, although it was overshadowed by the other game. The series did initially receive one sequel, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, for the Game Boy in 1992. That installment was not released in Japan, which added to its obscurity.
The Kid Icarus series went for years without any new games, although there seem to have been several attempts that did not reach fruition. Nintendo Power once reported development of a Super Kid Icarus game for the Super NES, but nothing was ever known about it beyond that initial announcement. Factor 5 and Retro Studios each made their own pitches for rebooted Kid Icarus games that were rejected. Factor 5's idea was for a game called simply Icarus, which would have had a more mature tone and featured a completely flightless Pit, and it was rejected for being considered to be too far a departure from the Kid Icarus series. Despite its lack of games, Kid Icarus was still referenced in other games.
Masahiro Sakurai finally revisited the series when he was developing Super Smash Bros. Brawl for release in 2008, and he decided to include Pit as a playable character. Pit received an updated design which Sakurai saw as a "what if" of what Pit would look like if he had been in a long-running, evolving series. This appearance was popular enough to renew general interest in Pit and the Kid Icarus series in general. Following the completion of Brawl, Sakurai's Project Sora secretly began developing a new Kid Icarus game for the 3DS using the new design for Pit. Kid Icarus: Uprising was unveiled at E3 2010 and went through several delays that moved its release date to early 2012. The game featured a new gameplay system which included flying sections, as well as voice acting, a multiplayer mode and new supporting characters. Although Uprising seemed to be paving the way for a new series, Sakurai ultimately confirmed that he was not planning any sequel to the game
Afterwards, Pit continued to appear as a playable character in the following Super Smash Bros. games: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The former installment added Palutena and Dark Pit as playable characters from the series and heavily expanded the Kid Icarus references with stages, items, enemies, musical tracks and Assist Trophies based on the series. The game's also featured Palutena's Guidance conversations as easter eggs that could be unlocked while playing as Pit at the Palutena's Temple stage. Similar to Snake's Codec conversations from Brawl, they were humorous conversations containing observations and information about the other characters in the game. Viridi could also make appearances in the conversations.
Other Media[edit]
Pit was one of the characters who was included in the Captain N video game crossover cartoon series, and he was part of the main cast. He was erroneously referred to as Kid Icarus and ended most of his sentences with "-icus". He was depicted with a variety of trick arrows. The Eggplant Wizard from the games was also included as a recurring antagonist and one of Mother Brain's main henchman.
In 2011, a trio of Kid Icarus anime features were released to tie in with the release of Uprising. Each feature focused on a different character and was made by a different animation studio. Production I.G.'s feature is action-oriented and lasts three episodes with Pit as the main character. Shaft's feature is a more comical two-episode story about Palutena. The last feature is only one episode produced by 4℃, which focuses on Medusa and her background.