You Don’t Have To Fear The Reaper In Kid Icarus: Uprising

Since we gave the first level in Kid Icarus: Uprising a spin back in January, I went straight for level four when I saw a build of the Nintendo 3DS game last week.

After I picked "The Reaper’s Line of Sight" from a menu, I got to choose Pit’s weapon. Nintendo gave players three options: the Blade, the Claw, and the Orbitars. I tried the Orbitars first, which shoots two bullets as if Pit was wearing shoulder cannons. On the ground, you could use the dual stream of bullets to hit two enemies at the same time, but this situation didn’t occur often. I went back to pick the Blade, a balanced weapon with only one shot.

Level four begins with a short on-rails sequence with Pit blasting through flying eyeballs. With the 3D depth slider at maximum, Pit hovers on top of the screen and the enemies pop out as they get closer. Shots and flying blades extend towards the player, but the effect was not disruptive. The slide mat makes Pit move out of the way. You use the touch pad and L button to attack. If you played Metroid Prime: Hunters you should have a good idea about the controls. As Pit winded his way through a cavern, red lasers popped out at the player. Pit spoke to Palutena, in English, he will have to continue on foot.

Pit was greeted with spiral path and a spinning blade when he landed. I had to avoid the blade by tapping a direction twice on the slide mat to make Pit dodge. There was a little ledge, which also had a health item, to rest on while the blade spun past Pit. Kid Icarus: Uprising had an ample amount of life restoring roasts and health potions to pick up.

A grind rail made of light was on top of the spiral path. Pit shouted "Whoooa!" as he slid down the light beam (in a frontside pose) right into a group of enemies. Even though Pit was on the ground, the Blade gave him a long range attack. There were more eyeballs to shoot, but they weren’t a problem. Top-like enemies provided more of a challenge. These creatures would whizz by Pit and you had to quickstep to dodge them. When they come out of their attack motion they’re dizzy for a few seconds. This is Pit’s chance to strike back by quick turning (a sharp 180 degrees turn done by flicking the stylus) and blasting the dizzy enemy with a stream of energy orbs.

The demo was capped at five minutes of play time so I rushed to the boss instead of exploring the level. When I arrived a skeleton head grew to two screens tall and I knew this was the Reaper. Towering over Pit, the Reaper tried to crush Pit by stepping on him. As I ran backwards, I used the stylus to aim at the Reaper’s head, tilting the camera angle in the process. A conveniently placed spiral staircase put Pit and the Reaper face to face. The Reaper changed its attack pattern by swinging its scythe vertically and horizontally. Dodging the vertical strikes was easy, a quick dash to the left or right got Pit out of the way. I didn’t dodge the horizontal slashes, I focused on shooting the Reaper instead and soon it grabbed its face in pain. As a reward of sorts, Kid Icarus: Uprising’s demo ended by showing players their score before going back to the main menu.