Awesome / Kid Icarus: Uprising

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"I can't hear you over all this AWESOME!!"

— Pyrrhon, Chapter 17: "The Aurum Brain"

A retelling of Classical Mythology and a successor to an NES classic 25 years in the making, Kid Icarus: Uprising sets out to serve a breathtaking experience worth remembering, and it delivers in spades.

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Kid Icarus: Uprising

• Chapter 2: Halfway through fighting through Gaol's castle, you find Magnus, surrounded by Underworld troops and owning them all despite being only human. He and Pit then team up as Back-to-Back Badasses against the room of enemies.
• Chapter 3: If you take your time handling Hewdraw, Palutena will actually pitch in and help you, since the Underworld's Forces are invading Skyworld. Normally Pit would have to fill the monster up to their throats with bullets. Palutena simply drops a huge Pillar of Light and one-shots them.
• Chapter 5: Dark Pit's introduction during the battle with Pandora, especially when he knocks her down with a single punch!
• Chapter 8:
  • The Space Pirates. They go around stealing constellations and then sell them on the black market or use them for fuel.
  • They also put up an impressive fight against the Underworld forces. One scene in particular shows a pair of Space Pirate Snipers fighting a Clubberskull! The Snipers win.
• Chapter 9:
  • Dark Pit knocking out the Underworld Gatekeeper (a giant flying robot) with a side kick from above.
  • A villainous example at the end: It seems like Medusa's been defeated and nothing else stands in the way of peace for humanity. During the credits, as Pit and Palutena are celebrating, a voice telling them to "wait just a second" is heard and the credits tear away to reveal the real Big Bad of the game, Hades. After revealing the truth about Medusa, he vows to make her look like a "cuddly little bunny" in comparison with what he has planned.
    Hades: Welcome to my underworld, Pitty Pat! You too, Pretty Palutena.
• Chapter 11: Viridi's Establishing Character Moment. You're fighting off the Underworld Army after Hades duped the entire human race into thinking the Wish Seed will grant them any wish they desire, causing armies to kill each other over the false promise. Just as you're witnessing all this unfold, suddenly a Reset Bomb drops on the entire battlefield, wiping out a good deal of the humans present as well as possibly whatever Underworld troops were present, creating a beautifully deadly pink mass of twisted nature before finally revealing herself to Pit and the audience. Say what you will about Viridi, but she sure knows how to enter the scene with a bang.
  Viridi: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Nice shot, if I do say so myself! Good riddance, human scum! The world's better off without you!
• Chapter 14:
  • Throughout the air section, you are treated to an awesome backdrop of Thanatos and Phosphora duking it out.
  • The air section in general. The chapter starts off with the door getting blown up by a laser. It only gets better from here, as tornados rise from the clouds and this absolutely epic theme starts blasting as you pummel both Underworld Troops and the Forces of Nature.
  • The entire fight between Phosphora and Pit. It's essentially an all-out showdown between Palutena and Viridi's top commanders. It's also one in-universe as Palutena, Viridi, and Hades comment on it.
    Viridi: Just look at them go~
    Hades: And I thought the fighting outside was exciting! Turns out the real action is in here!
  • The Badass Boast Pit gives Phosphora (right before she interrupts it) is even more awesome if the player equips him with claws.
    Pit: Attention, pet of Viridi! You better sharpen your claws!
• Chapter 16: Hades of all people gets one in-universe when he throws an Aurum ship into their own shielded mothership, which even Viridi is impressed about.
  Hades: Don't curse the darkness. Light a candle! When freaky aliens give you lemons, make freaky alien lemonade. LIKE THIS!
  Pit: WHOA!
  (Pit narrowly dodges the Aurum Ship as it crashes into the mothership shield)
  Pit: Well, I guess that's one way to do it.
  Viridi: That. Was. Awesome.
• Chapter 17:
  • The beginning of the chapter, where Pit, the Underworld Army, the Forces of Nature, and Pyrrhon all teamed up to take down the Aurum brain for the world's survival. Pit notes that everyone is in good spirits, though Palutena believes they've all completely lost it.
  • When Pit's Power of Flight runs out, Viridi comes to your rescue by having some of her troops carry a chunk of rock to serve as a platform, culminating in the troops performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save Pit from Pyrrhon's massive column of fire.
  • The Centurions of all people save you from falling to your death again by carrying another chunk of rock to serve as your platform while helping you fight off some of the Aurum. The music certainly helps.
  • Hell, Pyrron hijacking the Aurum brain and turning it against all the other Gods was pretty friggin' awesome by itself. Especially when you consider what a(n apparent) blowhard he is. After beating him, it is implied that he has some sanity left to move the entire Aurum Fleet from the planet.
• Chapter 18:
  • The entire level is a Mêlée à Trois between the Underworld forces, an army of Centurions led by Pit's brainwashed body, and Magnus. The fact that he even registers as a threat alone would be a Moment Of Awesome for the character, but winning makes it even better.
  • Pit's response to facing someone so powerful that they lazily toss islands at him? "Send me in there."
• Chapter 20: Six words:
  Pit: Go home, Hades. Just go home.
• Chapter 21:
  • The latter half of the aerial section where Pit is chasing the real Chaos Kin. The combination of all the stuff flying at you, the sense of urgency, and the Awesome Music make this part incredibly epic.
  • The end where Pit chooses to save Dark Pit at the cost of burning his own wings. Dark Pit's response is shown in the next chapter where he decides to dive into the Underworld to save Pit.
  • Dark Pit's entrance during the land battle sequence? You're making your way through wave after wave of enemies that seem to never end. You're probably getting tired of having to deal with all of them, and it gets to the point where the game has to cut to a loading screen to keep summoning enemies... And then you get a quick scene of Dark Pit arriving on the scene. It suddenly cuts back to gameplay with a snippet of the Chapter 6 Air Battle theme playing as Dark Pit begins slaughtering enemies with you. Not to mention Pit and Dark Pit's pre-battle rallying cry. So awesome.
• Chapter 25:
  • The entire Final Boss Battle.
  • The sequence where Hades fires some dark arrows at Pit, right before the Great Sacred Treasure transforms to the Mech Armor mode definitely counts as one for the animating team.
  • Medusa showing up near the end of the final battle and punching Hades strongly enough to obliterate his head entirely. Shame it doesn't end well for her.
  • Pit's speech when the Final Strike is charging:
    Pit: I fight for all creatures living and breathing! I fight for all departed souls still hanging in limbo! But most of all, I fight for Lady Palutena, the Goddess of Light! And it's in all their names that I will crush you, Lord of the Underworld! I won't let you desecrate another soul!
• For the player:
  • Beating any level on Intensity 9.0, especially if said player only had a sliver of health left or was in Crisis Mode.
  • For that matter, beating all the levels on Intensity 9.0 for the challenge on Hades' Treasure Hunt board. So satisfying.
• Fighting bosses with high-speed weapons can be this. Most of them have a penchant for dashing all over whatever arena you happen to be in at the time, and out-dashing them while dishing out serious damage is very, very satisfying.

Kid Icarus: Uprising - Thanatos Rising

• In Thanatos Rising part 3, despite Thanatos having the advantage over Pit and having a huge opportunity to kill him, he decides to toy with Pit and throw spike bombs while Pit hanging over the edge. Not only does Pit dodge everything thrown at him while still holding on to the ledge, but he uses his other hand to shoot the gear above him, effectively defeating Thanatos when it falls on him. And this is while Thanatos is taunting him.

Other

• For some time after the game's release, two of the game's 412 AR cards were distinctly absent. What they were—Pit (Victory) and Medusa (Rare)—was revealed by Chuggaaconroy thanks to an anonymous source, but they were inaccessible to the public for years. Then, just a few days prior to the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Pit (Victory) was revealed in full online to celebrate the oncoming game, striking down the amount of unreleased AR cards to one. And two days later, Medusa (Rare) was revealed. It may not have been released officially, but it's impressive how avid fans managed to piece it together. And with that, every AR card has been accounted for after six years.

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