Kid Icarus - Development and Releases

Development and Releases

Kid Icarus was designed at Nintendo's Research and Development 1 (R&D1) division, while the programming was handled by the external company Intelligent Systems. The game was developed for the Family Computer Disk System (FDS) because the peripheral's Disk Card media allowed for three times the storage capacity of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console's cartridges. Combined with the possibility to store the players' progress, the floppy disk format enabled the developers to create a longer game with a more extensive game world. Kid Icarus was Toru Osawa's debut as a video game designer, and he was the only staff member working on the game at the beginning of the project. Osawa intended to make Kid Icarus an action game with role-playing elements, and wrote a story rooted in Greek mythology, which he had always been fond of. He drew the pixel art, and wrote the technical specifications, which were the basis for the playable prototype that was programmed by Intelligent Systems. After Nintendo's action-adventure Metroid had been finished, more staff members were alloted to the development of Kid Icarus.

The game was directed by Satoru Okada, and produced by the general manager of the R&D1 division, Gunpei Yokoi. Hirokazu Tanaka composed the music for Kid Icarus. Yoshio Sakamoto joined the team as soon as he had returned from his vacation after the completion of Metroid. He streamlined the development process, and made many decisions that affected the game design of Kid Icarus. Several out-of-place elements were included in the game, such as credit cards, a wizard turning player character Pit into an eggplant, and a large, moving nose that was meant to resemble composer Tanaka. Sakamoto attributed this unrestrained humor to the former personnel of the R&D1 division, which he referred to as "strange". Osawa said that he had originally tried to make Kid Icarus completely serious, but opted for a more humorous approach after objections from the team.

To meet the game's projected release date of December 19, 1986, the staff members worked overtime and often stayed in the office at night. They used torn cardboard boxes as beds, and covered themselves in curtains to resist the low temperatures of the unheated development building. Eventually, Kid Icarus was finished and entered production a mere three days before the release date. Several ideas for additional stages had to be dropped because of these scheduling conflicts. In February and July 1987, respectively, a cartridge-based version of Kid Icarus was published for the NES in Europe and North America. For this release, the graphics of the ending were updated, and staff credits were added to the game. Unlike the FDS version, which saves the player's progress on the Disk Card, the NES release uses a password system to return to a game after the console was turned off. In August 2004, Kid Icarus was re-released in Japan as part of the Famicom Mini Disk System Selection for the Game Boy Advance. The game was published internationally for the Wii's Virtual Console in 2007. The North American, European and Australian versions of this digital release have the cheat codes of the original NES game removed. A 3D Classics remake of Kid Icarus was published for the Nintendo 3DS handheld console in Europe on January 5, 2012 and in Australia on January 17, 2012. The remake features stereoscopic 3D along with updated graphics including backgrounds, which the original lacked. It also uses the same save system as the Famicom Disk System version does, as opposed to the Password system from the original NES version. The 3D Classics version also utilizes the Famicom Disk System's music and sound effects (utilizing the extra sound channel not available in the NES version). The game became available for purchase on the eShop on January 18, 2012 in Japan, on February 2, 2012 in Europe, on April 12, 2012 in Australia and on April 19, 2012 in North America. A download code was given to users who registered two selected 3DS games with Nintendo in Japan and Europe or pre-ordered Kid Icarus: Uprising in North America from certain retailers before it was released.