My 10 Most Influential Games: Kid Icarus (NES)

Although a number of its initial releases lured me and my older brother to the NES in the year following its North American release, none had a more powerful pull on us than the pair of Nintendo-made "Adventure Series" games known in the West as Metroid and Kid Icarus.

I was especially drawn to the latter title, which was made by Gunpei Yokoi, Satoru Okada and Yoshio Sakamoto, among others, and which first hit store shelves here in July of 1987. (Just a month before Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, in fact.)

There are all sorts of reasons for that, of course. A rather stupidly superficial one is that, right off the bat, I was a fan of Kid Icarus' magenta logo. (Hey, I've never been shy about my love of the color pink.)

Also catching my eye early on: the cover art's depiction of Pit. I was keenly interested in Greek mythology back when Kid Icarus was released, so a game that allowed me to play as an angel who has to traverse a world full of crumbling stone pillars, fantastic creatures and even goddesses--Medusa among them--quickly commanded my attention. (Speaking of the creatures that populate this game, you can see illustrations of all of them in the Hikari Shinwa: Parutena no Kagami GameBoy Advance instruction manual.)

And then there were the write-ups in Nintendo Power and elsewhere that showcased Kid Icarus' colorful locales. Purple bricks and stone, red-checkered floors, pink and green clouds--my younger self thought the game looked like a dream.

I know most folks today don't think Kid Icarus plays like a dream, but I thought it did back in the day. (Hell, I still kind of think it now.) After all, Pit controls pretty darn well, if you ask me. Specifically, he's easy to maneuver--except for when you find yourself on one of the icy ledges that pop up in a number of the game's levels--and he reacts quickly to commands. (I can't imagine anyone describing Kid Icarus as floaty or sluggish.)

Is that why I consider it to be influential? Not really. One aspect of Kid Icarus that did help shape my taste in video games, though, is its difficulty. Admittedly, it's sometimes (some may say often) "cheaply" difficult, but in general I think it just asks a lot of those who decide to play it. In some cases, that means perfectly timing jumps and arrow shots; in others, it means memorizing stage layouts (refer to this site if you need help) and enemy placements.

Regardless, Kid Icarus--along with its silver-box, "Adventure Series" sibling, Metroid--made me realize that while I like my games to be at least somewhat cute (or even simply colorful), I also like for them to be at least somewhat challenging.

Kid Icarus also prompted me to realize and embrace that I prefer action-platformers that dare to be a bit different to those that toe the line. Straightforward efforts that ape Super Mario Bros. are all well and good, but this game took that classic's basic components and built upon them tenfold. Rather than having stages scroll almost exclusively from left to right, Kid Icarus offers up ones that scroll up, down and all over the place. It even features maze-like dungeons that sprawl in all directions and need to be conquered at the end of each four-level world before you can move on to the next one.

Another of Kid Icarus' unique quirks that helped set the tone for my love of platform games that veer from the beaten path: the bow and quiver of unlimited arrows Pit uses to dispatch foes. For whatever reason, that's always struck me as far more interesting and thrilling than, say, Mega Man's "Mega Buster" or Simon Belmont's whip.

Unfortunately, despite all of the above, and despite the fact that Kid Icarus was chiefly responsible for shaping my taste in video games (oddball platformers, in particular), I've barely experienced it and its brilliant Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka soundtrack in the last couple of decades.

Truth be told, that's mostly because I'm now slightly terrified of it. The last time I attempted to work my way through its technicolor worlds, I struggled to complete its third stage.

Still, I've never been one to shrink away from a challenge, so I'll do my best to boot up some version of the game in the coming days and weeks. Here's hoping this playthrough will be more successful than the quickly aborted ones of the not-so-recent past.

See also: previous 'My 10 Most Influential Games' posts about The 7th Guest, Balloon Kid, Bubble Bobble and Final Fantasy V

The Great Gaymathon Review #57: Balloon Kid (GameBoy)

Game: Balloon Kid

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Pax Softnica

Publisher: Nintendo

System: GameBoy

Release date: 1990

Last week, I published a little write-up (read it here) on this game's Famicom-based kinda-sorta remake, Hello Kitty World. I'm sure some will say it's overkill to review the original so soon afterward, but that's not how I see it. Instead, I'm thinking of this "Great Gaymathon" review as being the blogging equivalent of "striking while the iron's hot"--as in, why not chat about Balloon Kid while Hello Kitty World's still fresh in your brains?

Anyway, enough about that. You're probably wondering what sets this breezy release (you can beat its eight stages in an hour or two, if you're skilled enough) apart from its console-based follow-up. There aren't as many differentiators as you might think, to tell you the truth. The most obvious ones: 1) Balloon Kid stars a wee lass named Annie as opposed to Hello Kitty, 2) Annie's goal is to save her kid brother Jim while Kitty-chan has to rescue some Sanrio character named Tippy, 3) the GameBoy title is a black-and-white affair while the Famicom one is in full color, and 4) although the camera is zoomed-out in Hello Kitty World, it's much closer to the action in Balloon Kid.

Every other aspect of these auto-scrolling platformers is pretty similar. Both buck tradition and progress from right to left. Their plucky protagonists use balloons rather than their legs to move around as well as to avoid enemies--which include bees, penguins and, er, walking campfires. Enjoyably creative boss fights pop up every other stage whether you're playing Hello Kitty World or Balloon Kid. (Speaking of this game's stages, although most are thematically clichéd, a couple are surprisingly unique--with the standouts being the first and its pencil-shaped skyscrapers as well as the fourth that takes place in a wale's bowels.) These cute-as-buttons carts even share the same, Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka-sourced soundtrack.

Anyway, as I said in my earlier review, I tend to prefer Pax Softnica's effort to Character Soft's--mainly due to the GameBoy title's art style--although you really can't go wrong with either. That said, if you decide to play these games via emulation, be sure to go with the colorized, Japan-only version of Balloon Kid, known as Balloon Fight GB. It adds a pretty little map screen and the ability to save after each level to the mix.

See also: Previous 'Great Gaymathon' posts

Eh, I prefer the pea-soup-green version anyway

The good news: Nintendo of America added the should-have-been-a-classic GameBoy title, Balloon Kid, to the 3DS eShop earlier today.

The bad news: They added the pea-soup-green version of the game rather than the superior, colorized one that hit Japan's eShop a few weeks ago.

Granted, the colorized update of the game, called Balloon Fight GB, was a rather limited, Japan-only release--and we all know how Nintendo of America feels about those (I mean, just look at all of the import-only games that have been added to the Wii's Virtual Console service in the last few years)--but that's not much of an excuse when you realize the bulk of Balloon Fight GB is in English. (The title and map screens are the only ones that feature any Japanese.)

All that said, at least they're giving us access to some version of this pint-sized platformer, which was produced, in part, by Gunpei Yokoi and Yoshio Sakamoto. (Also, the peerless Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka composed the game's perky soundtrack.)

See also: 'I'll bet you can't guess which game I bought in the place of Xenoblade Chronicles' and 'Speaking of Balloon Kid ...'

The Great Gaymathon Review #41: Balloon Fight (Famicom)

Game: Balloon Fight

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

System: Famicom

Release date: 1985

What a difference a decade makes. I distinctly remember renting the North American version of this game, one of the first released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, on a few occasions as a teen, and each time I did so I turned it off after about 15 minutes wondering, "Why in the hell did I rent this again?" For some reason, the Joust-esque gameplay of its main campaign bored me back then. To tell you the truth, it still bores me today. That's not to suggest there's something wrong with that mode, mind you--it ably apes (i.e., rips off) the feel of the aforementioned Williams Entertainment arcade classic while covering up its apocalyptic aesthetic with such cheery adornments as balloons, bird masks (well, that's what they look like to me) and, uh, a big, grinning fish--but it's just not my cup of tea. What is my cup of tea, at least these days, is the game's "Balloon Trip" mode. For those of you who have never played this mode, it places players in a forced-scrolling (from left to right) stage and tasks them with avoiding sparks and collecting balloons for as long as possible. It's completely maddening, of course, but it's also completely addicting--in that "I'll just play one more round" kind of way. Another aspect of Balloon Fight that's sure to bring you back again and again: Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka's cheery, chunky, propulsive soundtrack.

See also: Previous 'Great Gaymathon' posts