Starting this review off by confessing that the act of playing Kid Icarus: Uprising causes my hands a great deal of pain is a frustrating situation. For every positive point I’ve discovered within the game, and for every reason that keeps me returning to the newest 3DS release from Nintendo, my hands ache that much worse for the extended sessions.
Assigning controls to the upper one side of the 3DS leaves my pinky fingers dangling while the rest of my fingers work to hold the weight of the system, and playing through the game’s plethora of stages finds those digits going numb, kicking off a painful throbbing that moves up my hands the longer I play and forcing me to break repeatedly from Pit’s sprawling adventure sooner than I’d like.
Playing Kid Icarus: Uprising is quite a bit like being offered a bowl of your favorite ice cream, and then being told to eat it with a steak knife. The task is not impossible, and many delicious sensations are waiting to be experienced, but the process is going to leave you scarred – in this case with wretched claws where your hands once were.
And the pain extends further, because no matter what one says about the content of the game, of which there is a great deal to be discovered, this issue of control keeps presenting a barrier that prevents me from enjoying the experience as much as I otherwise might.
While I suspect that many others will share my pain after taking flight with Pit, I can’t assume everyone will suffer the same experience however – perhaps some of you are monkey bar champions and can take down a bear with your fingers. And it’s also worth noting that despite the complaint, I keep returning to the game to cause untold damage to my digits, which certainly speaks to the quality of the content.
