2012/5/1: NES: Kid Icarus, R.C. Pro-Am, R.C. Pro-Am 2

[Adamant1]

[QUOTE=Burk]I am really surprised about all of the posts regarding the difficulty of Kid Icarus. I believe this is the first game I beat as a kid, and when I picked it up a few years ago,I progressed rather smoothly. It is an intersting platformer in the sense that you are rewarded for keeping the pace slow. Kill EVERYTHING in the first few stages.[/QUOTE]

The thing is that the game rewards... no, requires a slow and steady pace where you carefully take out enemies, grab their dropped items, visit the secret rooms and fight swarms of tough monsters for heart bonuses, carefully hoard your hearts so you can buy those elusive bottles... and combines all this with really long levels full of powerful enemies, hard jumps, and really really few possibilities to refill your life meter - and if you die, you lose all your progress. You need to be careful and on your guard at all times, with the tiniest slip-up being extremely punishing, that's what makes it so hard.

[VideoGameCritic]

I did not finish it.  In fact I had to use a Game Genie to see the later stages.

[JustLikeHeaven1]

Critic use the passwords from here and play through that last stage....its worth it.

Kid Icarus Codes

[Burk1]

[QUOTE]The thing is that the game rewards... no, requires a slow and steady pace where you carefully take out enemies, grab their dropped items, visit the secret rooms and fight swarms of tough monsters for heart bonuses, carefully hoard your hearts so you can buy those elusive bottles... and combines all this with really long levels full of powerful enemies, hard jumps, and really really few possibilities to refill your life meter - and if you die, you lose all your progress. You need to be careful and on your guard at all times, with the tiniest slip-up being extremely punishing, that's what makes it so hard.[/QUOTE]
 I didn't mean to say it wasn't hard, just not exceptionally hard. I think the difficulty arises from the fact that we are all used to fast paced platformers like SMB. If you play the game,as you say,"slow and steady", it is a different game.I have never considered myself to be particularly great a video games,although I do tend to shine at platformers and shmups. I just wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged by the difficulty level,and miss out on this killer title. If someone has not played this,give it a try, and go for the tortoise over the hair approach.

[crimefighter1]

Okay, in my re-playthrough...getting thru the first three levels of the game have proven to be a royal pain.  It's not cause of difficulty, but the length of the level that is more likely to get you cause you either slip off a platform or just run out of power without a bottle.  I finally got to 1-4 which I then was able to build up my character cause I could buy health items at will.

[crimefighter1]

After a couple days I finished Kid Icarus with ending #4.  So in truth 1-1 to 1-3 starting from scratch is the toughest part of the game.