Elf Blood

So, Kid Icarus: Uprising came out last week for the 3DS. Now, I wouldn’t qualify myself as a fan of the series, having never played any of the original, but I’d absorbed enough information over the past few years to experience a kind of… Sympathetic nostalgia over the release of the game. Perhaps the little throwbacks the game constantly makes to its 8-bit roots revive memories of the original Gameboy Brick for me, and that’s a delightful trip down memory lane.

Playing the game as it stands now, however, is pretty damn fun. Of course, it’s a complete turn about face from its platforming/metroidvania origins, but the new direction is quite entertaining. The format of the levels comes in three stages; An initial, bullet-hell style on-railes shooter flight section, a second ground-based section that feels quite God-Handy to me (that’s my frame of reference, feel free to use your own!) and the final boss segment which will probably be more familiar to console action players than me in my RPG experience. It’s fast-paced and frenetic, with plenty of baddies, loot and customisation to keep you keen throughout. read more