Kid Icarus Whips the NES Into Shape
Issue #003 - July 1987
Nintendo is Great is a Substack devoted to exploring the world of Nintendo - their games, their consoles, their merchandise - in mostly chronological order, starting with the NES and continuing to the upcoming Switch 2.
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After a slow, but steady release schedule in the first half of 1987, Nintendo and their third-party gang of misfits are about to pull out all the stops for the summer.
Big adventures. A curious new peripheral. Genre variety. Different types of games mean broader consumer interest.
Sales are increasing, summer vacation, kids are bored, they need something to play, keep ‘em occupied while the parents go to work in their boxy 80s cars, big feathered hair and shoulder pads spilling everywhere.
In today’s issue, we explore six games from Nintendo, Bandai, Tecmo, and Capcom, four companies that are slowly starting to get the hang of this NES thing.
KID ICARUS
Kid Icarus is Nintendo’s forgotten child, the dreamer in the corner, full of unique ideas and imagination, but without any encouragement from his parents.
You play as Pit, an angel tasked with rescuing the goddess Palutena from the evil Medusa. Medusa has the complete Underworld army to do her bidding. One-eyed creatures, snakes, robbers, dragons, and other weirdos conspire against Pit and the forces of light.
As Kid Icarus begins, Pit climbs out of the gloomy underworld, shooting enemies as he goes. The enemies drop hearts, which act as currency; confusing, perhaps, for those raised on Zelda, but these things weren’t set in gaming stone yet. With hearts, Pit can buy the Water of Life, Angel Feathers, and other curious baubles that assist along his way.
Mysterious doorways throughout beckon Pit into unknown territory. Merchants are found in these chambers, but also enemy gauntlets, endurance trials (that if conquered provide extra strength to Pit’s attacks), stronger arrows, and hot springs that completely fill up your life.
Kid Icarus tries a bit of everything and it all works. Vertical and horizontal platforming, non-linear dungeons, weapon and life upgrades, multiple endings based on how skillfully you play the game, on and on. The environments are beautiful and otherworldly. Pit is a formidable hero, with excellent arrow control (he can shoot up!) and supreme jumping ability. The journey is tough, no question, but your reward is a supremely fulfilling adventure, one of the best the NES has to offer.
ATHLETIC WORLD
In July 1987, Bandai released the Family Fun Fitness Pad, a floor mat controller that allows the player to control on-screen actions with their feet. According to Wikipedia, the mat has “twelve pressure sensors embedded between two layers of flexible plastic.”
The goal of the Fitness Pad? Get families to work out together while playing video games (according to the box photo, anyway). It’s a positively warmhearted idea, though I imagine not many families actually used the Pad as Bandai intended. Parents are always tired. Kids just want to play games. Lot easier to turn on the TV and bond with some “Night Court” or something.
Athletic World was the Fitness Pad’s pack-in game, complete with five events that require a surprising amount of stamina. You run, you jump. You run and jump a lot. Seriously, I don’t think your dad’s gonna enjoy playing this game, he hasn’t exercised since college.
Five events, let’s do this.
1. “Hurdles”: run as fast as you can, while jumping right before you hit the hurdles.
2. “Animal Trail”: run on a dirt path in the woods while feral boars chase you down.
3. “Dark Tunnel” will fulfill your cardio regimen or leave you needing an ambulance. Your athlete’s inside a pyramid, complete with steep hills that require massive strides. Only for the young.
4. In “Hop a Log,” you walk swiftly across planks before hopping across a log using the blue side buttons.
5. Finally, “Rafting” has you jumping and crouching over logs while maneuvering around rocks in a raging river.
When Athletic World starts, you’re asked for your name, age, and sex. In theory, this allows the game to adjust the challenge for your current life station, but who knows how much grace it gives if you claim you’re a 78-year-old woman.
Each event tests you for a different attribute: “Hurdles” for Reflexivity, “Animal Trail” for Agility, “Dark Tunnel” for Endurance, and so on. After you’ve played all five events, you’re given scores in each category and inspirational jabber like, “Good Job, Ace Player!” or “Get in the Gym and Make it Count!”
Athletic World is a solid workout, and the Family Fun Fitness Pad can handle a surprising amount of abuse. Unfortunately, neither of these attributes contributed to decent sales for the Pad, and the product languished on store shelves. No amount of feral boars and dad bod workouts could convince people the Pad was a necessity.
MIGHTY BOMB JACK
Mighty Bomb Jack is that special kind of NES game, a devious action platformer that plays by its own irritating rules.
You control Jack, a hero charged with rescuing King Pamera from the demon, Bezelbut. Jack’s not like other heroes, though. He has no direct attack to combat Bezelbut’s army of ghouls. Instead, Jack jumps, drifts, and floats his way out of danger. A hero without a weapon, a conscientious objector even in the face of pure evil. Not sure where the “Mighty” comes into his name, but there you have it…
RYGAR
Rygar’s a man’s man. He’s beefed to the nines, muscles on muscles, filled with stamina, vigor, and determination. His weapon is a Diskarmor, a shield with a chain that returns to him when he pulls on it. He was dead once, but now he’s back to slay evil again, restore peace to the land of Argool.
Is Argool Rygar’s home? Does it matter? The man willingly rose from the grave, against all odds. His motives might be his own, but as long as he’s on your side, all is well…
SECTION-Z
Imagine a shoot-em-up comprised not of fully formed levels, but of half-baked, incomplete vignettes. Welcome to Section-Z, an experimental Capcom-developed game with unique ideas that feel stilted in execution.
You control Captain Commando, a space fighter working to save the galaxy, do good, all that heroic jazz. He’s called into a space station to stop the L-Brain, a destroyer of worlds, presumably. Armed only with his laser and a modicum of health, he must upgrade his weapons, find shields to prevent his death, and not go insane as he swears he’s already visited this part of the station before…
SOLOMON’S KEY
Solomon’s Key hides its cryptic mysteries behind bricks, bells, and keys. The type of arcane knowledge mankind couldn’t handle, so it was sealed away for ages. Sealed, that is, until some rube came and unrolled scrolls he had no business opening. Now, the world’s shaking and only one person can make things right.
Dana the wizard is tasked with setting this odd world straight, maybe rescue a fairy or two along the way. He’s no Gandalf, though, full of surprises and resurrections. All Dana can do is jump, create and destroy blocks, and unleash the occasional fireball. It’d be nice if he had a more consistent attack, but hey, where’s the challenge in that?...
(full reviews of Mighty Bomb Jack, Rygar, Section-Z, and Solomon’s Key coming soon for paid subscribers only)
YOU CAN NOT BEAT US…
Thanks so much for reading! Issue #3 continues next week with a look at Nintendo Fun Club Scorepads and the rare Game & Watch title, Bombsweeper!
That NES ad haunts your dreams. Although the tagline of “you cannot beat us” held true for a large portion of the NES catalog.
Shedding a tear for the NES Night Court game we never got.