Assorted Gamespite Articles

As a new article of mine is soon to be published, I realized that I've neglected to post here letting any regular readers here (do I actually have any?) know about them. So here goes.

I wrote a series of articles on the MacVenture games that were ported to the NES. These were a series of point and click adventures created for the Mac that, thanks to not needing a keyboard, could now be played on home video consoles. Shadowgate, Déjà Vu, and Uninvited were the three titles that made it to the NES (in that order), and I think Déjà Vu is the only one that really holds up well.

Also, I wrote a virtual console review of Kid Icarus, exploring why nostalgia is so key for this game - it was really innovative when it came out but very much doesn't stand up well today.

As mentioned, I have another article that will be published on gamespite in the next few weeks and I'm pretty proud of it. I think it's the best writing I've done in awhile.

Kid Icarus - Review

I guess since I just played through Kid Icarus, I may as well put up a review of it. It was also recently released on the virtual console (which is a reason I was playing it), so my four or so readers may be wondering if it is worth getting for the virtual console.

Kid Icarus was released along with Metroid for the NES and it seems they were intended to be sister games. They both came in similar packaging, they both allowed you to resume your game where you left off (by password in the US, by saving on the Famicom Disk System that they original came out on), and they were both designed by Gunpei Yokoi (who would later go on to create the Game Boy and Virtual Boy). While Metroid introduced more revolutionary ideas like open-ended exploration and showing players areas they could not reach until they found a new item, Kid Icarus stuck a little closer to the platformer roots, but attempted to add a little more story and characterization with items that could be found and used along the way.

In Kid Icarus, you control the warrior Pit, a loyal servant to the Goddess Palutena. Palutena is kidnapped by Medusa and imprisoned in the Sky Tower. Pit escapes from his underworld prison and must traverse through the underworld, overworld, and skyworld to reclaim the three sacred treasures and becomes strong enough to take on Medusa. This plot is all from memory, so it may be slightly inaccurate. One of the interesting things attempted by Kid Icarus is story through gameplay. While some games had taken the approach of having characters talk to you between levels or otherwise in between action, in Kid Icarus, you see the story unfolding as you progress through the levels. Let me quote from alexb on the gamespite.net forums:

When the game starts, Pit has just broken out a prison at the bottom of the Underworld. So you make your way through three vertically-oriented stages. In the first level, everything's very dead and brown, but as you progress through these early levels, the surroundings gradually become more verdant, showing that you're getting closer to sunlight and the overworld.

After you beat the first fortress, you find yourself finally in the overworld, in a bright day scene. In contrast to the climbing underworld levels, these next three levels are completely horizontal. They're also longer, suggesting that you're traveling a very long distance. In fact, over the course of these three levels, the sky changes from day to night. The enemies here give you a lot more money than they did in the underworld and the rooms where you can receive upgrades are also more numerous. Now that Pit's broken out of prison, he's regrouping, regaining his strength. Reaching the end of the overworld, you've got another dungeon.

And then the sky, another set of vertically oriented levels. As you continue up, there are more and more Greek-style buildings, suggesting you're travelling back into Angel Land and nearing the Sky Palace. After taking out the final dungeon, you finally get the Sacred Treasures and become an armored, flying badass. This last level is basically a set piece level, one of the earliest I know of. You totally obliterate all opposition with your new toys. You then make short work of Medusa, and, depending on how well you played, are rewarded accordingly by Parthena, the goddess you've been fighting to save.

The gameplay of Kid Icarus is a platformer with some twists. It was the first NES game (well, again, concurrent with Metroid) to scroll veritically upwards. Basically, you move and jump to get to the top of the screen. The jumping in Kid Icarus takes a little getting used to. You don't have nearly as much in air control of your jumps as in typical platformers. Also, you have momentum, so you will take a step or two forward when you land. Pit is equipped with a bow and arrows with which he shoots enemies. You have a health bar and lose health by getting hit by enemies or certain environental hazards. Throughout the levels, you will find various chambers you can enter that may hold shops, treasure rooms, enemy rooms, and more.

Kid Icarus was one of the first platformers to have an inventory system and some RPG elements. You can collect bottles of life that will automatically restore a bar of your health if it goes to zero. You can collect feathers that will give you a short period of flight if you fall to the bottom of the screen. You generally get these items by buying them in the shops you come across throughout the levels. The currency in Angel Land is hearts, which are dropped by defeated enemies. The RPG elements comes into play because the game keeps track of how many and what types of enemies you have killed and if you do enough, you get health upgrades at the end of levels or can upgrade your arrow strength in certain rooms.

Most of the game takes place in scrolling levels, that scroll upwards in worlds 1 and 3 and horizontally in world 2. These levels are typical platforming affairs which you do while avoiding enemies that come at you. At first, you only face a few different types of enemies, but the variety gets much greater as the game goes on. The signature major enemies you face in world 1 are the grim reapers. These guys (possibly your jailors?) take many hits to kill and if they see you, they freak out and send the reapettes after you.

At the end of each world is a fortress. These are labyrinths of individuals rooms that take up the entire screen and do not scroll. You can pick up a map to help you find yourself through them, although you will have to purchase the torch and the pencil from the shopkeepers to make good use of it. Fortresses generally feature completely different enemies from the levels. The marquee enemy in the fortresses (besides the boss in the final room) is the eggplant wizard. These enemies are big and tough like the grim reapers. These guys fling eggplants from their staves and if you are hit, you turn into an eggplant with legs. You cannot fight while an eggplant, only run around and so you must seek out a nurse who can cure your condition. In the fortresses, you can also use the mallets you have acquired during your journey to free the centurions trapped in stone around the fortress. These centurions then come and help you during the boss battle.

Kid Icarus has quite a charming art style. It is more or less taken from Greek mythology, but a decidedly Japanese video game take on Greek mythology. The characters are certainly all present in Greek mythology, but their stories are completely ignored so as to basically mash them all up in one game. There is quite a bit of attention to detail in the background graphics of each level, plenty of which serves no practical purpose but to set the mood. While the sprites aren't as detailed as in later NES games, each one does have plenty of details, such as faces with expressions or other quirks. The metroids in world 3 are a nice touch.

The sound in this game is polarizing to many. All music was composed by Hip Tanaka who is well known for his Metroid tunes. Kid Icarus music is more experimental. There are some very interesting harmonies in the music and it is often chromatic. All that said, a lot of the sound is very high-pitched. Sometimes annoyingly so. Until a few days ago, I had forgotten how the title theme (which I love as a theme) is incredibly high-pitched in this game (which I don't love so much). If your ears are sensitive, this game can make you want to stab an ice pick into them.

Kid Icarus is good. It isn't great, and it isn't a game I would say every person who owns a NES should have. It is at least as good as the original Metroid and has stood the test of time better. I'll grant that I like my platformers to be challenging and Kid Icarus certainly lives up (though once you pass the first fortress, it becomes a lot easier). Kid Icarus shows the evolution of platformers and is interesting for that alone. Fortuantely, it is also a good game.

Rating: 7 / 10

Kid Icarus - One Credit Challenge, Beat the Game

It is done.

I have beaten Kid Icarus without dying.

I passed the reapers in the first world. I passed the annoying thieves that steal your weapon in the second world. I passed the metroids in the third world. I sang the tune I had somehow made up at age 9 when the phrase "Pit equipped himself with the three treasures" appears before world 4. I owned Medusa in possibly one of the easiest final boss fights in history.

I consider myself done with this one credit challenge. Oh sure, I could keep playing until I have the max number of points (999,999) or just keep looping through the game again until I collapse from exhaustion, but I think this is it. I got the best ending, anyway. Giant Pit and kiss from Palutena FTW!

Anyway, this was a ton of fun. I'm glad I stumbled across this opportunity.

Kid Icarus - One Credit Challenge, Level 3-4

So, over at a forum I read, they have started a weekly series called "One Credit Challenge". Basically, each week they pick an older game (generally one that is available on the Wii's virtual console) and people see how far they can get in the game without continuing. I find this idea very compelling as it presents a completely new way to play a game that people just don't do anymore. The first game in the series was R-Type for the TurboGrafx-16, a game which I love but had only played in the arcades previously. Not actually owning the game, I found a way of playing it, but using my computer's keyboard just isn't the same.

Kid Icarus is different. It is a game I do own. In fact, it is one of the first games I owned for my Nintendo. It is also incredibly difficult. Since my parents had gotten me the Nintendo Deluxe Set, I didn't have Super Mario Bros so Kid Icarus was the first serious platformer I had. As if figuring out jump height and momentum (which is a little wonky) weren't bad enough, there are a huge varieties of enemies that come after you and you will get hit. You have a life bar, but this only helps so much. The game has unlimited continues, but since you always start off at the beginning of a stage and they are long, this only helps so much.

One of my clearest childhood gaming memories is finally beating stage 1-2. After a fair amount of attempts, I could beat the first stage, but the second seemed absolutely impossible. Whether it was missing a jump and falling to my death or, more likely, getting beaten down by enemies, I just could not advance much past 2/3 of the way through the stage. Fortunately, I was persistent. It was summer and I was going to a summer day camp. I would get up at around 6:45 each morning and wait for the van to come pick me up around 8. I often had about a half hour between finishing breakfast and the van coming and would often use that to play Kid Icarus. One day it just clicked. I was carefully jumping up the platforms, dodging the enemies swarming around me, and suddenly I realized I was farther than I had ever been. I managed to get the next level and was furiously writing down the password while the van was honking its horn outside.

That was kind of a watershed moment for me. After beating level 1-2, I suddeny "got" platformers. Not that they no longer held challenge for me, but I now knew I could overcome their challenges. It didn't take me nearly as long to beat level 1-3 and I know I managed to beat the game that summer (granted, the game gets significantly easier once you reach the second world).

I had beaten Kid Icarus many times before, but this was a new challenge. Could I do it without dying?

I will repeat here my post in that forum:

Argh! I should have had it.

I made it through 1-4 to the hot spring, and after that it was smooth sailing. I breezed through worlds 2 and 3 to the fortress at the end of 3. And then I didn't remember where the boss was, so I wandered around. Without warning, I managed to find the boss' lair... as an eggplant. My only hope was the one Centurion I had, but he didn't last long.

*sigh*

So, world 3-4. So close.

For those of you having trouble progressing, here are my suggestions for getting so far. (There may be some game mechanic spoilers, so don't look if you want to figure out how everything works for yourself.)

Kill all the enemies you see and don't progress too fast. Generally, every time a new enemy group appears on screen, it appears as a group of four. If you kill that group and take all the hearts from it (or they disappear), the next group of four appears and there will be four such groups of four. Keep killing them for experience (gives you more life at the end of the level and gets your arrow upgrades in special rooms) and hearts. However, if you scroll to fast, the groups will stop appearing and you won't get the whole group of four.

At the beginning of the game, the patterns of the enemies are pretty simple. The little snakes with wings shouldn't be too hard. The red eyeball things float back and forth as a wave and at some point will swoop down toward you. Learn when this is as it is when you can fire vertically or horizontally and hit them. Also, I find that if you are at the far left or right edge of the screen, they will almost always swoop down at you when they hit that side. You should probably also kill the grim reapers. You can get two shots on them when their backs are turned, but watch out as they do quick turns to check behind them every so often. If she calls the reapettes, I have no good advice, but if you are at a spot where you can move between the right and left edges of the screen, it makes dodging them a lot easier.

In the first regular shop, buy a life bottle. In level 1-3, when your life bar should be two bars long, then buy the chalices you have less than one bar of life. Buy a feather when you can as well. Basically, I try to always have a life bottle in reserve. If I have one, I try to at least have one full life bar. If I have that and don't have a feather, I'll get a feather. Two feathers is probably the most you'll ever need. Oh, and the black markets (shops that sell life bottles and feathers at a markup and sell barrels) the only thing you want is a barrel. Unless you are truly desperate or swimming in cash, don't buy anything else there.

Unless you are going to look up the patterns for how to always get all eight treasures in the treasure rooms, they should probably be avoided. You lose five hearts for each treasure you shoot at.

The monster rooms (with the groucho marx glasses enemies) are great sources of hearts. Enemies basically either fly from top left to bottom right and back or from left to right and back (occasionally, you will get a bottom right to top left). Concentrate on not getting hurt over killing enemies so you can collect their hearts. I try to fight my way to the bottom left and from there it is easy to take out any enemy that comes near me. Then I work my way out, taking them on one at a time.

Be sure to get the arrow upgrade in the room toward the end of level 1-2. At the end of level 1-2, you should get a life upgrade (20,000 points) and at the end of level 1-3, another one (50,000 points). Also, be sure to do the challenge with the columns (I always thought they looked like mirrors) that fly at you in the room about 2/3 of the way through 1-3. Choose the rod, as after you beat the first fortress (and recover some health if necessary) you will have two orbs spinning around you that damage enemies.

Anyway, once you beat the first fortress, the game becomes significantly easier. I was never in danger of losing all my health (or even less than two bars) past the hot spring in level 2-1. I did fall twice, so my feathers came in handy, but that was that. Enjoy the metroids in world 3. Just be sure to cure your eggplant condition in the world 3 fortress before wandering into the boss' room. :(