Game: Hikari Shinwa: Parutena no Kagami
Genre: Platformer
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
System: GameBoy Advance
Release date: 2004
In my humble opinion, anyone who wants to call himself (or herself) a masochist should be forced to play Hikari Shinwa: Parutena no Kagami, aka Kid Icarus, on a GameBoy Micro before being allowed to use that moniker, as I can't imagine there are many more painful experiences in life than playing this tough-as-nails adventurer-platformer-shooter on a teeny tiny screen. So, why did I buy it? I actually kind of like playing this challenging title, to tell you the truth--or at least I do when I play it on a console attached to a nice-sized TV. Another reason I bought it: I liked the packaging in general and the yellow cartridge in particular. Unless you're a huge fan of this game or of banana-colored GameBoy Advance carts, though, I'd highly recommend passing on this release and picking up, say, the Wii Virtual Console release instead. That way, you'll be better able to appreciate--and appropriately deal with--the perilous jumps of its unidirectional overworld stages and the similarly onerous travails (Eggplant Wizards, hello!) of its cavernous underworld ones, both of which feature fairly unique-to-the-platformer-genre elements like credit-card-accepting shops, life-restoring springs and chest-filled treasure chambers.
See also: Previous 'Great Gaymathon' posts
