Kid Icarus: Uprising

The official North-American boxart

Kid Icarus: Uprising (新・光神話　パルテナの鏡 Shin Hikari Shinwa Parutena no Kagami, lit. "New Light Myth: Palutena's Mirror") is a long awaited revival of the Kid Icarus series to be published by Nintendo. It was officially announced at E3 2010 that a new Kid Icarus game would be coming out for the new Nintendo 3DS. It has taken a re-imagined 3D design of Pit and the enemies of the original NES game, though Pit and Palutena themselves are based off their Super Smash Bros. Brawl looks. Their character models are slightly downgraded from Super Smash Bros. Brawl due to the hardware limitation, but even so, the game itself seems very advanced graphic-wise for its system (Nintendo's new portable, the 3DS).

Project Sora is the developer, with Masahiro Sakurai as the lead designer. The game is still wing-deep in construction, so details are likely to change quickly.

The game will be released on March 23, 2012 in the US, and during the same month in Europe.

Story

Uprising is a direct sequel to the classic NES game, and takes place 24 (25 in the Japanese version) years after the original Kid Icarus. Medusa has been revived, and once again attempts to eradicate the mortals while seeking revenge from Pit and Palutena. In hearing this news, Palutena summons her most loyal servant, Pit, to stop Medusa and her Underworld Army, and restore peace to Angel Land once more. Along the way, Pit will encounter many new characters and enemies in the greatly expanded Kid Icarus universe. The story mode will also be divided into separate chapters that each represent a stage. As of now, only five chapters are known:

Chapter 1: The Return of Palutena

Chapter 2: Magnus and the Dark Lord

Chapter 3: Heads of the Hewdraw

Chapter 4: The Reaper's Line of Sight

Chapter 8: Star Ship of the Heavens

In addition, there have been numerous other locations revealed in the trailers, although it is unknown what chapters they appear in. These include:

• A snowy wasteland that is made up of many canyons and caverns.
• A forested area where Pit is seen defeating one of the game's currently unknown bosses.
• A dark cavern where the Eggplant Wizard is first encountered.
• A desert area where Pit is flying towards the sunset.
• A grassland with ruins that is plagued with tornadoes. Dark Pit will be encountered here.
• A purple and magenta room Dark Pit first appears in, which may be a specific area from the location mentioned above.
• The interior of a bluish building where Pit will possibly be facing a boss or villain in battle.

Gameplay Modes

The game appears to be shoot'em up based, apparently with an upgrade system for Pit's blades as well. Pit retains the twin blade from Brawl, but they can be upgraded into more fierce melee weapons. As it can be gleaned from the trailer, there seems to be three primary modes of play.

Single Player

The single player mode is where the main game and its story will take place. Each chapter of the story is divided into three sections:

Flight Sections

In this game, Pit is granted the Power of Flight from Palutena, giving him the ability to fly for a limited amount of time. The areas where this ability is used resemble a free-aiming flight mode as seen in titles such as Panzer Dragoon and Omega Boost, where Pit can fly in one direction and aim in another, reminiscent of the Palace in the Sky in the original Kid Icarus. But as the trailer states, Pit can only maintain flight for 5 minutes at a time, after that Pits wings will burn out and he will fall. He can also now battle in the air and target enemies.

Land Sections

This appears to be a free-roaming mode, where Pit can alternate easily between melee and ranged combat depending on how close he is to an enemy. In this mode, Pit is also able to perform fast dodges and run very fast while shooting. The land sections will make up the largest parts of the game.

Boss Battles

At the end of every chapter, Pit will face off with a boss character. These range from fighting massive monsters such as Twinbellows, to battling other major characters like Dark Lord Gaol. In some cases, such as with Hewdraw, a portion of the boss fights might take place during the flying sections in addition to the land sections.

Multiplayer

A Multiplayer Mode has been confirmed for the game, featuring Pit, Dark Pit, and the Fighters as playable characters. It will be a team deathmatch type of game, pitting Light Team and Dark Team against each other in battle. There also appears to be a type of Free for All mode. This will be avaliable over both local and online play.

AR Battles

The game will also feature an expansive AR Battle Mode, allowing players to see all characters, enemies, items, and weapons using AR cards and the Nintendo 3DS's dual cameras. With this mode, battles can be waged with different characters and enemies, each of which have their own stats and health bars.

Demon Cauldron

At the end of the newest Uprising trailer, four images were shown teasing different modes of the game, with one being translated as the Demon Cauldron. This particular item is also shown on its own AR card being filled with Hearts, allowing players to increase the difficulty of the game by adding more enemies to attack as well as making them stronger.

Items

Multiple Items have been revealed during gameplay videos and in trailers. Hearts will make a return as items dropped by downed monsters. Treasure Boxes have also been seen containing items such as Food, Grenades, and Drinks of the Gods.

Weapons

Pit is seen using the same bow as he was in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, in both twin-blade and bow mode. In addition to the bow, Pit seems to gain a very large arsenal of powerful weapons that can be chosen from before each stage. It seems as if every weapon has close and long range attacks and charged and rapid fire attacks. It has also been confirmed the weapons listed are more like categories, with many different Bows and Blades. In addition, each weapon has a special power attack that can clear the screen of most enemies, although they can only be used during flight. Each of these attacks is represented by a number of blue orbs at the bottom left of the touchscreen. The weapons that have been confirmed are as follows:

• Bow - Pit's original weapon that can split into two blades.
• Blade - A plasma gun with a feather-like beam sword that extends from the front.
• Claws - A pair of red claws that work best at close range.
• Orbitars - Two floating blue orbs that can hit multiple enemies at once.
• Arm - A bulky mallet-like device that can shoot large flaming rocks out of its top.
• Palm - A glowing, rainbow tattoo that harnesses multicolored energy.
• Cannon - A bulky bazooka that slows the user down.
• Staff - A blade-like staff that curves at the end.
• Club - A massive weapon that can deflect enemy projectiles.

Miracles

Miracles are new weapons and abilities that Pit can use in battle. They can have different effects when used, ranging from unleashing powerful attacks to recovering Pit's health.

Vehicles

In addition to these weapons and abilities, Pit will also be able to utilize armed vehicles in battle and for transportation. It is currently unknown how many vehicles will be in the game, with the Exo Tank being the only one revealed so far.

Confirmed Appearances

Major Characters and Voice Cast

So far, these are the major characters with voice acting roles that have been confirmed:

Characters	English Voice	Japanese Voice
Pit Dark Pit	???	Minami Takayama
Palutena	???	Aya Hisakawa
Medusa	???	???
Magnus	???	???
Dark Lord Gaol	???	???
Thanatos	???	???
Blue Hewdraw	???	???
Purple Hewdraw	???	???
Violet Hewdraw	???	???

Unknown Characters

• What appears to be a young girl was revealed on an official AR Card. Like Magnus, she is classified as unaffiliated with either the Underworld Army or Palutena's Army, but it is currently unknown what role she will play in the story.
• A character literally called Cake, which appears in certain levels possibly as a friendly character.

Medusa's Army

Medusa's army is unique in that it is primarily an aerial force, with most enemy creatures revealed so far being capable of flight or levitation. Trailers and screenshots have revealed many enemies that will appear in the game.

Returning Enemies

A number of familiar monsters have been seen in the trailers, including, but not limited to:

• Daphne
• Mick
• Monoeye
• Shemum
• Ganewmede
• Keron
• Nettler
• Octos
• Specknose
• Syren
• Komayto
• Commyloose
• Monolith
• Twinbellows
• Hewdraw
• Eggplant Wizard
• Reaper

New Enemies

Quite a few monsters have been shown that have not appeared in previous games. The names of these enemies have yet to be revealed, but their descriptions are as follows:

• A floating, yellowish shell with clawed arms and a tail. It appears to have a light coming from the inside of the shell's opening, which may serve as its eye.
• A creature resembling a hammerhead shark that can shoot energy blades from its head.
• A squid-like monster that can spin its four arms like a propeller. A crystal underneath it allows this enemy to use a rapid-fire plasma attack while spinning.
• A disembodied hand with a red eye in its palm. This creature's "body" actually ends in another clawed hand that it uses to move around very rapidly.
• A small creature that doesn't attack or move from its position, but it can put up a force field to protect other enemies that might be near it.
• A large, bug-like monster with three vibrating legs that allow it to "slide" along the ground without actually needing to walk. When attacked, it will hop on its back and begin spinning very rapidly towards its target like a top.
• A weird, dancing thing with eyes and a mouth that makes a lot of racket.
• An orange saucer-like creature with what appears to be a single eye. It has two short legs that hang down beneath its large head.
• A floating, orange coral-like creature with a blue mouth. When hit with a ranged attack, it breaks apart into multiple shards that fly towards Pit.
• A cave-dwelling monster with one eye that wears a rock shell on its back. This shell has spiky crystals jutting out of it that can be shot at Pit and regenerate thereafter.
• A purple monster wearing a giant, spiked shell that resembles a nautilus.
• A flying fish-like creature that may also be an unaffiliated character like Cake.
  
• A somewhat futuristic, giant squid, or Kraken-like creature that may serve as a boss for one of the chapters.

Anime

A mini-series of Kid Icarus Anime shorts has been confirmed to be in production by three different animation studios. Whether this will lead to a full series remains to be seen.

External Links

• Official Website (Japanese)
• Official Nintendo Page (English)
• The trailer