Kid Icarus (series)

Kid Icarus
Genres	Platform
Developers	Nintendo R&D1, Project Sora
Publishers	Nintendo
Platforms	Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Nintendo 3DS
Platform of origin	Nintendo Entertainment System
Year of inception	1986
First release	Kid Icarus December 19, 1986
Latest release	Kid Icarus: Uprising March 22, 2012

Kid Icarus, known in Japan as Light Mythology: Palutena's Mirror, is a franchise of fantasy video games by Nintendo. The games are set in a fantasy world, based on classical antiquity and Greek mythology, called "Angel Land". The gameplay consists of a mixture of action, adventure and platform elements. The Kid Icarus franchise is known as a cult classic and sibling series to the Metroid franchise.

The first installment, Kid Icarus, was released in 1986 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and was received to critical acclaim despite poor sales. A sequel, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters was later released for the Game Boy. On June 15, 2010, at their E3 conference, Nintendo announced Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS, thus reviving the franchise after a 19-year hiatus.

After Nintendo's release of commercially successful platforming games in the 1980s, including Donkey Kong, Ice Climber, and Super Mario Bros., as well as the critically acclaimed adventure game The Legend of Zelda, the company was interested in entering a different genre. They began work on an action game. The game was called Metroid. Nintendo released Metroid for the Family Computer Disk System on August 6, 1986, and on the Nintendo Entertainment System one year later. One year later Kid Icarus was developed alongside as its sister game, it shares elements and programmers with Metroid. The game was produced by the same man who produced Metroid, Gunpei Yokoi, who previously produced Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior (1982) and the original Mario Bros. (1983), and it featured music written by Hirokazu Tanaka, who also composed for Duck Hunt (1984).

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