VS. Battle: Kid Icarus VS. Kirby's Adventure

Time for a sweet VS. Battle! Today's face-off is between two classics: Kid Icarus and Kirby's Adventure, both for NES!

Before we launch into this, I'm just gonna explain my rules. The way this will work is: I will improvise an odd number of categories, and a winner will be chosen in each category. There will be no ties in any category, and the game with the majority of the categories in its favor will be the winner.

So let's get started!

Category #1: Creativity
This one is actually pretty easy to decide. Kid Icarus''s theme is based upon old Greek legend, but there are a few key twists, such as the fact that there is a new goddess (of light), and that Pit has an assortment of ethereal arrows, plus big wings. However, you can clearly see that the influence for the game came from the legend of Icarus, as well as from all sorts of Greek cultural patterns and references.

Kirby, on the other hand, really has no influences at all that I can see. Look at it! It's about a little squishy blob in clown shoes who eats people and steals their powers to defeat them! Not to mention the whole world he lives in; there are penguins in crazy outfits, hostile trees, and Waddle Dees, which, who knows what the heck they're about. The point is that Kirby is way more "out there," and the thing you're less likely to see every day, so this point goes to Kirby.

Winner: Kirby's Adventure

Category #2: Controls
This is harder, as both games control pretty darn well. However, I'd say that the controls in Kid Icarus are slightly better, for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that the Kirby controls are many and varied. For example, you can't just stop floating as Kirby, you have to push a button first, meaning that inhaling an enemy in the air can be pretty difficult without plenty of practice. They place a little too much responsibility with the D-Pad in Kirby's Adventure, and after a while, it's kind of annoying.

Kid Icarus has much simpler controls. It's basically just move, shoot, and jump. Only four buttons are of any use, really, and few difficult combos are necessary. The biggest issue is that some jumps are too difficult to aim, but in the end, the actual apparatus is smoother.

Winner: Kid Icarus

Category #3: Challenge
This is pretty much a no-brainer. Kirby mainly consists of using strong powers against rather simple enemies. The biggest challenge is that If you get hit, you lose your power and have to go after it, which is more of an annoyance than anything. If you inhale at the right time, and efficiently enough, you won't get into much trouble.

Kid Icarus is Zelda-level hard, because not only do you have to deal with waves of enemies, but you have to deal with the nutty terrain of the levels. For example, you often have to jump across small, single platforms, and if you fall off, you automatically die. It's like when you run off the screen in Super Mario Bros. Not to mention the fact that there are labyrinths every so often that you have to navigate, which is just the way to spend hours on a single task, making it (like Zelda) all the more gratifying to beat it. As such, Kid Icarus gets this one.

Winner: Kid Icarus

Category #4: Content
It's pretty easy to see which one wins here; if you play through the entirety of Kid Icarus, you see that it's just four levels in all, which are albeit pretty long, but no so much that it will take an experienced gamer hours to finish one of them.

Kirby's Adventure has a number of worlds, each with a unique structure and about 5 levels, in addition to a short boss battle at the end. It's about as long as Super Mario Bros. 3 (although not nearly as hard), so needless to say it will last much longer than Kid Icarus.

Winner: Kirby's Adventure

Category #5: Replayability
Neither of these games has much replayability, to the extent that there isn't a whole lot of extra material (aside from things like health and 1-Ups) to find in either of them. However, as far as collectible items go, I'd say Kid Icarus has more of an edge, because you have the harps to collect, in addition to striving to collect as many heart points as possible while still surviving.

While there are a number of bonus levels in Kirby's Adventure, you can hardly see that as replayability because the only real reason to play those are for 1-Ups, which make no difference if you beat the game first.

Winner: Kid Icarus

Category #6: Graphics
This one is a hands-down, easy-to-decide category (to quote the Wiiviewer). Kid Icarus may be a cool-looking game, but it can't at all compete with the stunning backgrounds, realistic objects, and great character designs of Kirby's Adventure. It's just incredibly advanced for its NES period.

Winner: Kirby's Adventure

Category #7: Impact
It isn't very hard to tell which first title in each of these series had more impact on the world as a whole. Kid Icarus only ever had one game and one port before just recently, when Kid Icarus: Uprising was released for the Nintendo 3DS. Meanwhile, Kirby has appeared on not only the NES, but also the SNES, the N64, and essentially every Nintendo generation since its beginning. Plus, the big factor is that essentially every gamer knows just who Kirby is, while only a few people knew about the Kid Icarus universe before Uprising was released.

Winner: Kirby's Adventure

Kirby's Adventure
Kirby's Adventure took a total of: 4 Points

Kid Icarus
Kid Icarus took a total of: 3 Points

Winner
And the winner is: Kirby's Adventure, with a score of 4 to 3!

This was a really close match, closer than I expected. Still, this shouldn't be much of a surprise. Both games are really fantastic, and remain incredible even today, decades later. It's no question that these two games were worthy adversaries, and I enjoyed pitting them against each other (no pun intended)!

Thanks for reading my VS. Battle, and stay tuned for my next one, coming soon!