My Top 100: #94 – Kid Icarus

 

To me, nothing about the 8-bit era gets me more nostalgic than looking at this box art.  Whether it was silver or black (or blue, with Ice Hockey), it was plain and simple, and still managed to tell you everything you needed to know.

“Password Pak”.  There.  Get a pen, pad, and piece of paper, because you’re gonna need it.

I got to rent Kid Icarus a few times early on in my love affair with my NES, but it wasn’t until our neighbours had a yard sale that I managed to own it and give it a serious shot.  The kids mostly stayed inside and watched the tube that day, but I perked right up when someone peeked into the house and asked “How much did you want for Kid Ick-ray-cuss?”

This was my good friend’s yard sale, and here he was, selling his Nintendo games without telling me?  Pfft.  Some friend.  (/sarcasm)

I rushed out to see what few games were left, since it looked like most of them had been sold.  I knew he didn’t own many that I was interested in anyway, Strider being one of them, and the only one I kinda wanted was Kid Icarus.  I have this fuzzy memory of convincing the person who wanted to buy it that I wanted it more, and somehow, they relented.

I didn’t have cash on me, since carrying cash wasn’t commonplace at 8 or 9 years old.  I took the game into my friend’s house, and eventually brought it home, but here’s the funny part – I don’t recall rushing to my house to wrangle money from my mom.  Did I take it without telling her, or did I just not pay for the game?

Hmm.  I still have it, so…  I dunno.  Maybe I’m the one who’s a crummy friend.

 

 

I think what drew me to Kid Icarus so often was the atmosphere and music.  At about 1:52 in the video above, an enemy I always called Death (actually called “Reaper” – makes sense) started flipping out when you got close.  It scared the crap out of me when I was younger, and that weird music that started playing just made it worse.

I’d always get to one of the dungeon levels, get lost, and barely make it through the level alive.  I liked a challenge, though, and there was never a time with this game that I threw the controller in rage or frustration.  That’s more than I can say for even the greatest Mario or Mega Man games.  I was able to use the magazine below to cheat my way through to the final level and beat the game, even though it still wasn’t a walk in the park to do that.

It didn’t get nearly as much love through the years as its “sister game” Metroid, but of those two, I actually enjoyed Kid Icarus much more.