Kid Icarus can only be described as a mixture of three Nintendo games: The Legendof Zelda, Super Mario Bros and Metroid. I say this because it features platforming,item collection and RPG elements. This may sound a little weird, but actually itkind of works. You'll start the game just like the original Metroid: you're giventhis huge world and you have to find your way around it, meaning some young gamersmight become frustrated... not to mention the game is incredibly hard. I can'tmention the amount of times I died within the first 20 minutes of me playing it.

Thegame centres on collecting the hearts dropped by enemies, to level up the maincharacter Pit. He can also gain weapons to increase his power and move set. Combinedwith some fiendish platforming and this game does become quite fun, the onlydownside being if you drop to the bottom of the screen, it's instant death. The gamealso uses a left to right structure, but the screen only scrolls vertically meaningyou get 'warped' to the other side of the screen. This means that often there aretwo routes or more routes you can take in a level, meaning replayability is high.

The graphics and sound in Icarus still have some charm. The midi beats are quite toetapping, the music also changes as you approach different enemy types such as theGrim Reaper. The graphics, although simple still look nice to this day as the gameused the Metroid engine to great effect. There is some slowdown, but it's veryinfrequent and doesn't really hinder the gameplay experience.

One thing that hardened Icarus fans might not like, however, was the removal of theso called 'Icarus Code'. It was secret code system is completely removed from thegame, due to the fact that the Wii can suspend the game until you come back to it.But this means that certain cheats have been removed.

Overall, Kid Icarus is a tough but highly enjoyable game that I can highly rate foranyone who wants a challenge.

Verdict: Highly Enjoyable Classic