Kid Icarus: Uprising

The original Kid Icarus was a two-dimmensional action platformer game for the NES released in 1987. In it, Palutena, the goddess of light, was imprisoned in a sky temple by Medusa, the goddess of darkness, after losing a war with her. However, an angel named Pit escaped his imprisonment in the Underworld by Medusa's army and began fighting Medusa's Underworld Army using a bow and arrow sent by Palutena. During the game, Pit retrieves the Three Sacred Treasures, which were stolen by Medusa during the war, and once Pit has all of them, he goes into the sky temple, defeats Medusa, and frees Palutena. A sequel to that game, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, was released for the Game Boy in 1991. In it, Pit is tasked with undergoing special training by Palutena, again battling three guardians, this time so that he can use the Three Sacred Treasures against the demon Orcos. He defeats Orcos, and the game ends with him flying into the sky, but, as with the legend the series is named after, he flies too close to the sun, his wings burn up, and he falls.

In Kid Icarus: Uprising, almost everything except the story is different. instead of a 2D side scroller, it's a 3D third-person shooter and platformer. The game's levels switch between air battles, in which Pit's course is already set, the player controls shooting and dodging enemy attacks, and ground battles, in which the player controls Pit and can explore the level while fighting enemies. Pit being able to fly in air battles after the ending of Of Myths and Monsters is explained by Palutena, she is able to resuscitate his wings for five minutes at a time, but his wings will burn up again if he exceeds that. Also, instead of using only bows, Pit can switch between different types of bows, claws, blades, clubs, orbitars, staffs, arms, palms, and cannons between levels, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Pit can also use different vehicles in ground battles if they are there, including an armored mech and a motorcycle-like "vehicle of the gods". The levels are similar to the original game, however, as all of them end in a boss fight, and some have multiple bosses throughout them.

It's difficult to review the story of this game without spoiling parts of it, however, it is generally nonlinear. There are definite story arcs in the game, which can be identified by which army Pit is fighting, however, some of the story arcs can seem random. The game begins with Palutena telling Pit that Medusa has returned and wants revenge against her, Pit, Skyworld, and humanity in general. Pit then spends fights against Medusa, her lieutenants, and the Underworld Army. The majority of the game is spent fighting the Underworld Army, with different arcs separating these confrontations.

Overall, Kid Icarus: Uprising is a very good game. Although it is a sequel, it's hard to compare with it's predecessors, as it's a very different type of game, the story is more complex, and it was released over 20 years after the previous game. It's only significant problem is how random and unconnected some of it's arcs are (in one case, there is no mention of the main enemy of the arc before the arc begins, and in another the main villain is mentioned beforehand, but it isn't identified as anything important and is forgotten until halfway through it's arc), although the good characters and other aspects that were done well make this easy to overlook.