25 years after being defeated by Pit, Medusa has returned and is leading her troops in an invasion of both the land and the air. Standing in her way is her old rival Palutena and her angelic, but flightless, servant Pit. Palutena can grant Pit the power of flight for a few minutes at a time - Pit is ready to swoop down to protect the people, in both fierce aerial combat and gripping ground-based battles.


The control scheme is fairly simple, with only three major controls.


The Fiend’s Cauldron is a new system that allows you to customize your play experience by adjusting the intensity level. Intensity ranges from 0.0 to 9.0 for each individual Chapter. As the intensity increases, you can earn more Hearts and more powerful weapon drops from defeated enemies. You can also use Hearts to buy new weapons. The standard intensity setting is 2.0, but you can precisely adjust it by increments of 0.1. In order to increase the intensity, you must bet an increasing number of Hearts by placing them into the Fiend’s Cauldron. If you are defeated during the Chapter, you will lose some Hearts and you intensity will be lowered.

Coming soon!

There are special AR cards for Kid Icarus that, when used, produce 3D characters on-screen, known as AR Card Idols. You can use these to see the characters of the game in the real world. If you place two of the card facing each other, they can battle! Each card has its own stats, and these will determine how they fare in battle. You can buy two packs of AR cards from the Stars Catalogue for 250 points, and Panini will soon be distributing them too.


Multiplayer comes in two flavours.

Light Versus Dark: Team up with other players in Light Versus Dark multiplayer mode, in which two teams of three are pitted against one another. The ultimate goal is to empty the opposing team’s Team Life Gauge, which transforms the last defeated team member into an angel. The team who defeats the opposing team’s angel wins. This unique multiplayer mode tests players’ ability to work as a team while keeping the match exciting as the focus constantly shifts from dealing out damage to protecting the team angel.

Free-for-All: In this mode, up to six players (including CPU players) face each other in a winner-takes-all match. Winners are determined by high score, heavily influenced by both the number of times players are defeated and how many enemies they defeat.

The game comes with a free stand that holds the Nintendo 3DS at an angle above any flat surface, for extra comfort.


Kid Icarus has a dedicated Twitter feed where Nintendo distribute tips about weapons and enemies, and also news about the game, such as special events.

A variety of new Kid Icarus animations were created by various animation studios and shown through the Nintendo Video app. They've now finished, but may be repeated in the future or made available from the video store.

The president of Nintendo interviews director Masahiro Sakurai about the making of the game.

The original Kid Icarus for the NES has been remade for the 3DS, with new backgrounds and a 3D effect. Use this QR code to download it from the eShop:

The Game Boy sequel to Kid Icarus is also available from the eShop, using the Virtual Console. Use this QR code to download it: