Kid Icarus

Kid Icarus is the story of a winged angel named Pit (not "Kid Icarus") who is sent by the goddess Palutena to protect Angel Land from an onslaught of beasts, most recognizably Eggplant Wizards.

Reaper Hidden Sprite#

The Reaper enemies shoot out sprites which correspond to their sight hit detection. These use tile $5F, which is normally blank; replacing the empty tile with any other graphic (e.g. a checkerboard in the above screenshot) will make them visible. Because sprites can't be used for collision detection on NES hardware, it's likely these sprites were assigned a visible graphic during development for debugging purposes.

These sprites are shot in an alternating high/low pattern, as seen in the screenshot. These sprites will disappear if they touch any non-empty background tile, at which point the Reaper immediately throws out another one.

Game Genie code ZEXEXVYS will modify the routine that writes tile $5F to use tile $0A (a placeholder square) instead, rendering the sprites visible.

Regional Differences#

This page or section needs more audio. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough audio. Please fix this. Specifically: Rip more of the NES and FDS audio to compare.

Music#

The Famicom Disk System version notably has more instruments than its NES counterpart due to using the FDS' extra wavetable sound channel. Interestingly, these tracks would become the variants which would also be referenced in Kid Icarus: Uprising.

Title Screen#

Lose a Life#

Victory/Stage Clear#

Title Screen#

FDS	NES

The original Japanese title translates to "Light Myth: Palutena's Mirror". Besides the title change, the English logo uses a heart piece and a pegasus wing for a stylized "i" and "r". In addition, the green decoration received darker shading, the clouds and copyright were repositioned, and the trademark symbol was redrawn.

Select Screen#

FDS	NES

The Japanese version features a File Select screen with three save slots, which displays your score and how many hearts you've collected. A top five high score list is also present.

The NES version uses a password system instead, though the manual still references the high score list.

Menu Screen#

FDS	NES

The menu screen in the FDS version displays your file name at the top. The blue bricks were changed to gray and instead of only white text, the NES version received blue and beige colored text. Also, the "MAP" text is always visible in the NES version; in the FDS version, it only appears when you have obtained one.

Additionally, the "Check Sheet" (MAP) text is green in the FDS version.

Endings#

The ending requirements were changed between versions:

• In the FDS version, your Strength, Endurance, and Continues determine the outcome (+10 points for each level-up in Strength and Endurance, -1 point for each Continue).
• In the NES version, your Hearts, Strength, Endurance, and Weapons determine the outcome (the ending improves with each maxed-out stat).

Also, the FDS version contains a "worst ending" which was removed from the NES version, while the NES version contains a "best ending" that is not in the FDS version:

FDS (Worst Ending)	NES (Best Ending)

 The light of peace has returned to Angel Land!
 However, your fight doesn't end here.
 You must keep battling to protect this peace!

All five endings in the FDS version consist of a screen with Pit and Palutena against a black background. In the NES version, some nice graphics were added and the best ending and the other four endings' background differ slightly from each other. In addition, the message was moved to a separate screen and a staff roll was added.

Other#

• The Japanese version was only released for the FDS, and that version contains not only an enhanced soundtrack made in mind for the Disk System's improvements over the base unit, but took advantage of the controller's microphone to haggle with the shopkeepers (in the NES version, you do this by holding A + B on Controller 2). The 3D Classics release on the Nintendo 3DS is mostly based on the FDS version with the save system and audio intact; however, the last level, endings, and haggling method are more similar to the NES version.
• A few changes were made to the last level in the American version: the screen scrolls automatically rather than based on the player's movement, you no longer have to hold the Jump button to fly, you can fly through the bricks and pillars, and enemy patterns have been changed. To compensate for the earlier difficulty reduction changes, players will need to hit enough enemies to face the final boss. Additionally, when you defeat the boss, the eyeball reveals a collapsing Medusa.

Revisional Differences#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Investigate the differences between Rev 0 and Rev 1 of the NES version.

The password algorithm in the PRG0 version of Kid Icarus has a fatal flaw where the decoder and encoder interpret data differently, leading to an inconsistent game state upon restarting the game from the provided password. This flaw was fixed in the PRG1 version, and as part of that change, the checksum was deliberately changed to make passwords incompatible between the PRG0 and PRG1 versions of the game. All rereleases of the game (such as the Virtual Console version) are based on PRG1.

As a result, certain passwords distributed via video game magazines back in the day, such as "ICARUS FIGHTS MEDUSA ANGELS" distributed by Nintendo Power in issue #10, only work on the PRG0 version of the game.

References#