Why It Took Nintendo So Long to Revitalize This Almost 40 Year Old Franchise

Nintendo is home to some of gaming’s biggest characters and franchises. Titles like Super Mario Bros. have spread far beyond the world of gaming, with the two plumbers at the center of the series headlining countless games and pieces of tie-in media. Nintendo has been good about keeping those characters feeling timeless and fresh, playing into their longevity in the cultural zeitgeist. However, not every Nintendo character is as lucky as Mario.

Over the years, there have been plenty of cult classic Nintendo characters and games that have been forgotten about for years at a time. Sometimes, they get renewed attention at a crucial junction, such as when the Metroid series came back after almost a decade with Metroid Prime and repositioned Samus as one of Nintendo’s marquee characters. However, some Nintendo titles go into lull periods that can last literal decades. That’s exactly what happened to one of Nintendo’s oldest properties, which suffered a nearly thirty-year gap in releases.

Kid Icarus Was Part Of Nintendo’s Original Generation

Kid Icarus was one of Nintendo’s earliest franchises and — for a long time — one of their most obscure titles. In the early days of the legendary publisher, the early success of titles like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda gave Nintendo R&D1 confidence in their next projects. Two games went into development — Metroid and Kid Icarus. While Metroid embraced the sci-fi aesthetic, Kid Icarus used Greek mythology as inspiration for the adventure. Development on the game went to the wire, with the final version of the title only being completed a few days before the formal Japanese release date of December 19, 1986. The game received a larger worldwide release the following year.

The game focuses on Pit, a young angel who is tasked by the Goddess of Light Palutena to defeat Medusa and the armies of the Underworld. Ambitious in a way other NES titles of this era simply weren’t, Kid Icarus was met with solid (if slightly polarized) reviews. The game was complimented on the atmospheric approach and the tight gameplay. However, the game’s harsh difficulty curve and cartoonish pixel art style didn’t endear it to everyone. The game was met with a largely mixed reception by fans as well, with Kid Icarus failing to match the higher sales of other Nintendo titles.

Kid Icarus Has Only Gotten Three Games In Forty Years

While some Nintendo franchises like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda have gotten dozens of games over the years, Kid Icarus remains one of the more obscure entries in the Nintendo library. The game’s relatively mixed reception compared to the more rousing instant success of other Nintendo titles likely explains why the series was quickly shunted to the side, as it failed to find the same audience. It didn’t even connect as well as Metroid, which initially had a similar trajectory. Both games received a Game Boy sequel, with Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters and Metroid II: Return of Samus both launching in 1991 (and being among the only first-party Nintendo titles to be released in North America before Japan).

Metroid firmly established itself as a major Nintendo title in the Super Nintendo era with Super Metroid, but Kid Icarus had no such luck. There were rumors of a potential follow-up for the SNES and the N64, but neither was ever formally announced. Capcom and Factor 5 also took swings at the franchise for games intended for the GameCube and Wii, but those games ended up canceled as well. Kid Icarus‘ biggest claim to fame for a long time was that a version of Pit was featured in the Captain N: The Game Master animated show, leaving the prospective series as a footnote in the history of the publisher.

How Pit Returned

Due in part to Nintendo’s relative lack of acknowledgement of the series, Kid Icarus quickly became a cult classic. It remained that way for over two decades. Pit’s big return came in 2008, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Featured as one of the playable characters in the crossover fighting game, Pit got a great showcase in the title thanks to his unique attributes as a combatant and his importance to the game’s “The Subspace Emissary” single-player storyline. Similar to how Fire Emblem got renewed life thanks to the inclusion of Marth and Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee, Kid Icarus got a modern reappraisal thanks to the popular fighting series.

The renewed interest even led to the series getting a third game, Kid Icarus: Uprising. Despite being intended as a launch title for the Nintendo 3DS, a lengthy development cycle delayed the game until 2012 — where it received strong reviews and sold over a million copies. However, Kid Icarus has lain dormant since then, outside of appearances in Super Smash Bros. games or as easter eggs in stuff like The Super Mario Bros. Movie. However, Kid Icarus proves that while it may take decades for a character to find his audience, all it requires for a character to find renewed life with an audience is to have a good, memorable turn.