TL:DR

Kid Icarus Uprising is fucking weird. Do you think weird/fucked up/confusing games like this should exist? If no, why not. If yes, do you actively seek them out and play them?

---------

Long version.

Absolutely everything about this game confounds me. So why, then, am I smiling?

Those nights when you find yourself entrenched in some kind of action game, while your brother/girlfriend/roommate are sharing the same space with you, watching something on late-night-TV. You're not as fixed on the game ad you'de like to be, and consenting or not, you pick up half of the adjacent film's plot-points. This experience is very much like that. I'm getting two halves of two very different experiences to make any memory of the event fuzzy. All I remember is that I spent a good portion of that time giggling. I giggle. This game seems to have been designed for beings with two brains, a nostalgia for a game that I'm not sure anyone has (if you do, come forth! I love to hear your take), and a real love for anime comedies. I like to think of myself as an individual who can maneuver game worlds pretty well at this point in my life. I love videogames and I've payed a lot of videogames. I have no idea what I'm doing when I'm actively playing and I feel like there may be a genius to this(every aspect of this game) that goes entirely over my head.

And this game wasn't cheap to make, guys! It's another Sakurai project (of smash bros. fame) which means it's an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink game. There are wild set pieces, an incredible number of different baddies, the whole smash-bros-style trophies to collect, a loot/power-perk system, and I'm only on chapter 5. Who is this video-game for?

Now that I've said all that, I still want to jump back in and play because I'm genuinely enjoying it. What confuses me most is that this is a headliner Nintendo first-party game, not where I would expect this concoction to come from. Nothing I've played in recent memory has been this bizarre for so many reasons. I love that. (This is also why I love Tricky's Worth-Reading articles. I really hope he actually spends some time to make a game.)