Kid Icarus arrived on the Family Computer Disk System in Japan in December 1986, then on the Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe that February and North America in July. Nintendo’s Research and Development 1 division built it, with an outside company later identified as Tose helping with testing. Toru Osawa and Yoshio Sakamoto designed it. Satoru Okada directed. Gunpei Yokoi produced. It is a side-scrolling platformer with role-playing elements, and it is remembered as a cult classic more than a hit.
Pit and the Three Sacred Treasures
The plot sends Pit, a young angel, after the Mirror Shield, the Light Arrows and the Wings of Pegasus. Medusa stole them from Palutena, goddess of light, after Palutena banished her to the Underworld for drying up crops and turning humans to stone. Palutena’s last power sends Pit a bow. He climbs out of the Underworld and goes to save her.
Climbing the Underworld, Overworld and Skyworld
The world splits into three stages: the Underworld, the Overworld and the Skyworld. Each holds three unidirectional area levels and a fortress. The Underworld and Skyworld levels send Pit upward. The surface levels scroll sideways. Fortresses are labyrinths with non-scrolling rooms, and each ends in a gatekeeper boss.
A Bow, Three Power Items and a Health Bar
Pit’s bow fires unlimited arrows. Three collectable power items upgrade it: the Protective Crystal, the Flaming Arrows and the Sacred Bow. The upgrades only work if Pit’s health is high enough. Doors lead to seven chamber types — stores, black markets, treasure rooms, enemy nests, hot springs, the god’s chamber and the training chamber. Hearts from defeated monsters buy items. Score carries over, and a good haul raises Pit’s health bar.
Five Endings and a Missing Best Ending
The game tracks performance through to five endings. Palutena may hand Pit headgear or turn him into a full-grown angel. The Japanese release cuts the English version’s best ending and swaps in another bad one.
Music and Mixed Genres, Graphics and Difficulty
Kid Icarus drew mixed reviews on release. Reviewers praised its music and its mixture of gameplay elements from different genres. They criticized its graphics and its high difficulty level. IGN and Nintendo Power later put it on best-games lists.
The Difficulty Is the Whole Argument
The climb is the point and the problem. Upward levels punish a single mistake, and the health bar only grows if you play well enough to earn it. That loop is clever. It is also unforgiving in a way that reads as a barrier now, not a challenge.
What Holds Up and What Does Not
The music and the mixture of platforming, shops and light role-playing are what reviewers liked in 1986. Whether they still hold up is a separate question. The graphics do not, and the difficulty has aged worse than either. It is not worth playing as a good time.
Kid Icarus had a mixed critical reception but became a cult classic.
Hard Numbers
- Released: Japan, December 1986; Europe, February 1987; North America, July
- Developer: Nintendo R&D1, with testing help from Tose
- Director: Satoru Okada; Producer: Gunpei Yokoi
- Designers: Toru Osawa and Yoshio Sakamoto
- Platforms: Family Computer Disk System in Japan; Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe and North America
- Endings: five
- Score: 6.7 of 10
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