Kid Icarus - Retro Playthrough - January 2015

[JerryGreenwood]

I have to be the worst gamer on RF Gen. Tried 1-3 for about an hour last night. Still can't beat it.

No, it is very hard. For me, it actually required some memorization and a little bit of a game plan. There are parts of that level where I took it really slow and a few parts where I needed to race to outrun enemies - like when the "octoroks" fly up from the bottom and you have to maneuver through the green blocks with the plants that stick out from the wall.

I don't think wasted arrows hurt you, I think he just means "wasted" in firing off too many that miss.

After rereading some posts, Duke also mentioned that wasting arrows hurts your score.

After playing this game for basically the first time I have to put Kid Icarus, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid in the same family.

I forgot to add - why on does Zelda have save files, but Kid Icarus (or Kid Eye-car-us as we called it as youths) and Metroid doesn't? I understand it's an early game, but Zelda came before Kid Icarus. I don't get it.

Some nice level music later on as well, outside of the first stage's iconic music.

I find most of the rest of the games music to be average (maybe I need more time with it), but the first level is a fantastic song.

[singlebanana]

The Medusa battle music is really good and memorable, but just a short portion of the overall game experience.

[MaterialHandlerMike]

Thanks guys. The encouragement of hearing others struggle as well, is what I do like about Community Playthroughs. I have been a quitter a lot in my life, but sometimes knowing that my peers have accomplished something, spurns me to achieve the same goal. I will try and persevere and get over this hump. After all repetition can only improve my gaming right?

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Kid Icarus and Metroid didn't have room for saves in the ROM - hence, why they received FDS releases with save capabilities.

[Fleach]

I have to be the worst gamer on RF Gen. Tried 1-3 for about an hour last night. Still can't beat it. Going to start over soon and see if I can somehow improve my status to that point.

You can't be worse than me. When I play it'll be an accomplishment just getting past the first level.

[Duke.Togo]

I'd say that Nintendo must have at least considered using battery back up for Metroid and Kid Icarus at some point. If you look at the boards they have a spot for a battery holder.

[NxCmp]

Count me in for Icarus

[singlebanana]

Count me in for Icarus

Excellent sir!

[JerryGreenwood]

I can understand Metroid, but how big could Kid Icarus possibly be? Zelda seems a lot bigger.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Not sure - looks like ROM size may not be the culprit, as I previously heard, as the ROM looks like it's only 86KB. I don't remember where I heard an explanation of it before (maybe AVGN?), but someone out there knows.

Also, wasn't aware of this, but apparently there are two versions of Kid Icarus for Europe - original and "A" (v1.1) release. Not sure what the differences are, but there ya go.

[JerryGreenwood]

I'm assuming it had to do with money. But I did a quick wiki search and found some interesting quotes.

"Reviewers praised the game for its music and its mixture of gameplay elements from different genres, but criticized its graphics and high difficulty level."
Are the graphics really that bad? It looks comparable to any other game out at the time.

"if Pit's health is high enough the game keeps track of the player's score, and increases Pit's health bar at the end of a level if enough points were collected."

"In the god's chamber, the strength of Pit's bow and arrow may be increased depending on several factors, such as the number of enemies defeated and the amount of damage taken in battle."

"To meet the game's projected release date of December 19, 1986, the staff members worked overtime and often stayed in the office at night. They used torn cardboard boxes as beds, and covered themselves in curtains to resist the low temperatures of the unheated development building."
That's dedication.

"Several ideas for additional stages had to be dropped because of these scheduling conflicts."

[singlebanana]

"To meet the game's projected release date of December 19, 1986, the staff members worked overtime and often stayed in the office at night. They used torn cardboard boxes as beds, and covered themselves in curtains to resist the low temperatures of the unheated development building."

Alright, so what night this month do you guys want to play and have a site cardboard/curtain slumber party?

[JerryGreenwood]

That quote actually made me feel sorry for them. They're breaking their backs to make this game and it comes out and it gets mediocre reviews because it's "too hard". Why is it such a bad thing that the developers tried to give the consumers bang for their buck by releasing a game that they couldn't finish in a day. (One of the most disappointing days of my gaming youth was the thrill of getting Mega Man 3 on Christmas morning, only to be letdown by how quickly I beat it later that night.)

Yes, it is a hard game, but you get a password for every level. The game can only be hard for a few minutes at a time. In a game like Battletoads, you have to be on point for like 45 minutes straight. Yet iirc, that game got rave reviews and it's insane difficulty wasn't seen as a negative.

[Silent Scythe]

I'm glad everyone else had problems with 1-3. I've just been going through the game without grinding because I didn't know how you level up because I've always gotten my health bonuses at the end of a stage. As of now, I'm on 3-1 with the 3 specials weapons and 4 arrow strength.

It is better to take it slow, earn hearts and avoid damage and wasted arrows.....avoid the rooms with the ? pots. I think every pot you break counts against your upgrade score if I remember correctly.

Wasted arrows hurt you? Good to know, I fire 'em off like they're going out of style.

What if you break all the ? pots and you don't reveal the God of Poverty? That shouldn't count against your score. I've figured out the pattern of those rooms for the first three stages, but after that it seems pretty complicated or random.

I, too, claim to be no expert. This is just information I read a long time ago. Apparently the game will take note of some of your actions and apply an invisible penalty to your score. Getting hit by enemies, firing arrows that don't hit anything and every pot you break in a treasure room will subtract from this score. This may only apply to the strength upgrades and not the health upgrades, I'm not sure. There's a gamefaqs page that details it better than I do.

For anyone who still needs a little help getting started try grinding the fire enemies who pop out of the ground towards the end of 1-1 until you have like 400+ hearts. As long as you don't scroll the screen too high they'll never stop re-spawning. They give half a heart per death and they can only shoot 1 fireball at a time which can easily be ducked. Before I beat this game for the 4th or 5th time this was the only way I could complete it.

[russlyman]

What great back story we learned.
So who's skyping later in our cardboard box beds so we can play together. Ha


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