This was one of those games that I played just because friend had it, there weren't many avenues for game manufacturers to reach their target audience other than cartoons in the 80's so I had never even heard of it. But it ended up being one of my favorite platformers of all time.

The graphics, as you might expect from a side-scrolling game in 1986, weren't anything to get excited about by today's standards but back then they were above average.

The game was also difficult enough to weed out the noobs. The guy I borrowed the game from told me it was too difficult and I was probably at the peak of my gaming abilities back then so I was thinking "challenge accepted."

The game only has 3 levels, but to be fair they are enormous. The one part of the game that I will agree with my friend about it being a bit full of poo-poo as far as difficulty is concerned is near the end where these guys throw eggplants at you. If they hit you, you can do nothing but jump and can only get them removed at a special room that might be MILES behind your current position. Of course everything respawns too.

I had not been exposed to much in he way of RPG elements at this point in my life so it was refreshing that Kid Icarus had some elements of that. Equipment could be upgraded and how you handled the upcoming levels depended heavily on which weapon / special items you had equipped.

I'm very happy that I wrote this because I found out there is at least one remake of this available out there on the 3DS. The original game was received about average. Many critics thought the game was too hard (keeping in mind that video games, outside of Japan, were still considered "just for kids" in 1986) and the graphics were considered dated, which I disagree with.