Kid Icarus on NES?

[RegiGiygas]

After completing both Xenoblade and Zelda Wind Waker, I have been trying to decide what Nintendo game to play next. While browsing the Wii U VC I saw Kid Icarus on the NES and was immediately curious about the game. (The Nes I played when I was younger only had SMB, SMB2, ZULDA, Final Fantasy, and Mike Tysons Punch Out.) I was wondering if anyone who has played it has any thoughts on it. How difficult is it? How long will it last if I only play about an hour per day? I was also considering about playing through Earthbound too but Kid Icarus seems just seems so NESish that I was too intrigued by it to bother.

[Sebby19]

The game is ridiculously hard at the beginning, and get's much easier later on, as you powerup and get stronger (and the fact that world 2 is not vertical, so no constant bottomless pit). Level 4, the first dungeon, is where the difficulty drops off.
The game is rather short, with only 13 levels. A straight playthrough without dieing will only take an hour. But as a first timer, the first 3 levels will take you a 1/2 hour to a whole hour to beat.
Smash Bros. Brawl and for Wii U both have a demo you can play, if you got those games, so try it there first.

[Nathan the Talkmaus]

First three levels were way too hard for me, and the only way I could get through them was by rushing which left me under-equipped for 1-4.

TL;DR playing the game was a disappointment 20 years in the making.

[Jesuiscontent]

It's bad, shit controls, slow, slippery, short, no exploration possible (if you slip off you die)

What you want to play instead is this



It's so much better it's not even funny

[Oh Man]

You could also just play Uprising.

[Grey V]

I'm gonna lump with the opinion of discouraging from playing. If you have a way of demoing it like what's been mentioned, it can be worth the try, but personally I've found it to be too difficult as a general rule. It's an interesting game intellectually speaking, seeing the DNA it takes from similar games, but it has it's issues. Bare in mind I speak as someone who hasn't played it to the end, so perhaps I'm too soft for it.

Earthbound can be nice as an alternative if your of the mind for an RPG--at least, again, to my limited experience. I'm still in the middle of it. It's quirky and clunky, but in an endearing way.

[Nathan the Talkmaus]

Honestly I think if Kid Icarus hadn't been one of the main characters of Captain N this game would have been pretty much forgotten until Sakurai revived the series for Brawl. And also that if this game never existed it wouldn't have hurt the history of gaming much at all.

[Bean]

The first part of the game is a vertical-scrolling platformer where the screen doesn't scroll back down. It's the hardest part of the game, and I don't find it all that fun, either. It gets better, but it's still pretty archaic.

[RegiGiygas]

Hmmm. Thanks for the Input. I checked out the Demo on Smash U and really enjoyed the enemy design and the sprite work but Jesuiscontent was right by saying that it had pretty awful controls. I had never heard of Kid Icarus Of Myths and Monsters but I can easily believe that a Game Boy game could be much better than the NES version. I chose to purchase Earthbound which I played for a good hour and have enjoyed enough to play more and can understand the fanbase that it has. For now, I will leave Kid Icarus as it is and may play Myths and Monsters another time.

[Sebby19]

Ah yes, the GB sequel. I also got that, since I had the 1st and 3rd game, so why not? It's just like the 1st game, with two major differences: The vertical levels (World 1 and 3) can now scroll down, which is good, because there is a new hidden item that reopens all doors you've entered. Vertical levels also scroll horizontally as well, wrapping in on itself, similar to what the 1st game does with the screen warping.

There is also a 3D classic version of the NES game on the 3DS, with much better graphics (very nice background), and an option to use better controls. But after beating that version, by biggest gripe is that they removed the New Game+. NG+ is supposed to keep your score, so you can go for a better ending (and that empty room at the beginning now does something), but the 3DS version resets your score to ZERO! That's absolutely bonkers.

Kid Icarus is also featured in NES REMIX 2, and you'll get to play the 'important' bits from there, like all 4 boss fights (you even see the ending).