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YMMV / Kid Icarus: Uprising

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  • Adorkable:
    • Pit likes to act cocky and tough (and beneath it all, he really is tough), but his love for Nintendo video games, fanatical loyalty to Palutena, his lack of literacy that even he lampshades, and general goofiness make him endearingly dorky throughout the entire history.
    • Palutena isn't left behind either, despite being an elegant goddess. She's got a lovable, snarky, trollish personality, and outside of battle has a Genki Girl streak, behaving similarly to many geek girls in real life. Best demonstrated in Palutena's Revolting Dinner, where she's probably at her cutest!
    • Dark Pit is no different from his light counterpart. Try as he might, even he can't be taken seriously throughout the story, and demonstrates to like Nintendo games, given he casually mentions Brain Age during a conversation.
    • Viridi. Given she looks and sometimes acts like a child despite not being one, oozes sass in her interactions with the heroes and does show a liking to Nintendo games (see a recurring pattern?), this shouldn't surprise anyone.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Pyrrhon. Was he manipulative and power-hungry from the beginning, or did he just have a lapse in judgement? If so, was his pushing the Aurum away from the Earth a genuine moment of redemption, or was he just getting even for taking control of him?
    • Palutena, the Big Good. While Medusa is far from a reliable source, there are some comments from other characters that imply she was not always good and more than a bit harsh. While it does make sense given she's based on Athena, how harsh she was before is never dwelled on properly through the story.
    • What is the relationship between Palutena and Pit, other than goddess and servant? Are they also best friends? Surrogate big sister and little brother? Surrogate mother and son? Biological mother and son? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Secretly crushing on each other? The game is a bit straight on the first one, but otherwise rather ambiguous as to how they view each other, to the point most fanon prefers to go with the "surrogate mother and son" or "boyfriend and girlfriend" route.
    • Medusa is an unrepentant villain with a bloodthirsty lust for revenge... but there are a few in-game hints that lend themselves to interpreting Medusa as a Jerkass Woobie and Death Seeker. While she certainly seems all too happy to get revenge on Pit and Palutena after being dead for 25 years, she seems genuinely distressed in Chapter 9 as she explains that she does not know the circumstances of her own resurrection, implying that she did not actually want to be revived to seek her revenge. This is further supported in Chapter 25, when Medusa angrily attacks Hades because he keeps reviving her as his puppet.
  • Angel/Devil Shipping: Pit is no stranger to this trope, usually helped by the fact that most of his enemies tend to assist him at some point or another. Examples include Dark Pit, Medusa, Viridi, and Phosphora (the latter two especially, as Viridi is often seen hanging out with the heroes in spite of her misanthropic tendencies).
  • Annoying Video Game Helper: If you have a centurion assist with you and you approach a Clubberskull, then it will shoot the Clubberskull and unseal it.
  • Angst? What Angst?: The events of the penultimate arc and especially Palutena turning evil should be legitimately horrifying for the characters and especially for Pit, but the cast rarely expresses anything beyond mild displeasure at the circumstances.
  • Arc Fatigue: Aside from it being considered pointless aside from making Viridi's pseudo-Heel–Face Turn seem more justified when the Chaos Kin arc comes around, the Aurum arc is considered incredibly long and tedious that doesn't have much of a satisfying pay-off. In particular, the land section of Chapter 15 involves lots of backtracking in an indoor area, and Chapter 17 amounts to a glorified Escort Mission. At the very least, most fans agree that Pyrrhon is a great character and ends up being the Aurum arc's one saving grace.
  • Ass Pull:
    • In Chapter 15, the war between the Gods is interrupted by the Aurum, aliens with no allegiance to anyone, who attack the planet out of nowhere.
    • In Chapter 22, Pandora is revealed to have originally appeared as a humanoid Amazon, and reverts into that form upon bathing in the Rewind Spring. The randomness of these events is lampshaded by Palutena and Viridi, who comment nobody could have seen that coming.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
  • Bizarro Episode: For three chapters, the war between the Gods is put on hold to fight an alien invasion, of all things.
  • Breather Boss: The boss of Chapter 16, the Aurum Generator, is considerably easier than the bosses before and after it, even on the highest difficulties. The core itself is a sitting duck, and while enemies do show up to harass you, the threat they pose is generally negligible; the only real problem is switching Grind Rails if you aren't using a long-range weapon.
  • Can't Un-Hear It:
    • Ali Hillis as Palutena. This is the only installment where Palutena is voiced by Hillis, but nonetheless while Palutena is voiced by Brandy Kopp in Smash Bros. most fans will always think of Ali Hillis as Palutena's default voice.
    • While Hynden Walch did reprise her role as Viridi in Super Smash Bros. 4, she was replaced by Dayci Brookshire in Ultimate. Hynden Walch is still widely viewed as Viridi's definitive voice.
    • For many hardcore KI fans, it's all but impossible to hear Antony Del Rio's voice in other roles without thinking of his performance as Pit.
  • Cargo Ship:
    • Pit/Hot Springs, Pit/Cherubot, etc.
      Pit: Cherubot, you're my new best friend! Don't tell Lady Palutena....
    • Dark Pit/Capri Sun, which originates from the Crack Fic The Hot Topic Krew. In the story, Dark Pit is a mall goth obsessed with Capri Sun.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Hades is the absolute ruler of the Underworld, the one pulling the strings behind Medusa, and despite bearing an overblown, hammy sense of humor, is the cruelest character in the game. Hades orchestrates Medusa's revival in the first third of the game while hiding in the shadows. Once Medusa is destroyed, Hades takes center stage and wastes no time in demonstrating his selfish lust for power and his sadistic sense of humor, mocking both Pit and Palutena and arranging a destructive war among the humans over a non-existent Wish Seed for the sake of harvesting their souls. Hades is responsible for the harvesting of countless souls, all of which are crudely abominated into the monsters comprising his army. Hades actively propagates as much conflict as possible to rack up as many casualties as he can, giving his army more and more power. Hades sometimes even eats them, showing a dismissive disregard for life enough to disgust even the more morally-grey characters in the game. Though Hades makes numerous team-ups, they are all solely in his self-interest, and he finds himself sending monsters after Pit anyways for kicks. Disposing of his own soldiers, like Medusa, once he sees they have worn out their use, Hades was a self-serving snake of a god who prompted every other faction in the game to fight against him.
    • The Chaos Kin is an ancient, cruel creature that desires nothing but to cause chaos and destruction. Having been sealed away in the Lunar Sanctum, the Chaos Kin, once freed, latched onto Lady Palutena and began to slowly consume her soul and control her body. The Chaos Kin proceeded to trap Pit's soul inside of a ring and order Palutena's armies to wage war on mankind, intending to exterminate humanity. When Pit gets free of the ring, the Chaos Kin had Palutena insult and demean him to try to break his spirit. Once confronted by Pit in person, the Chaos Kin had Palutena try to kill him while cowardly using her body as a shield. After Palutena is freed from its control, the Chaos Kin then rips her soul from her body, turning her to stone before fleeing. After the Chaos Kin is finally destroyed, it attempts to drag Dark Pit down with it so it could possess his body.
  • Crossover Ship: Some people have got attached to Link/Viridi after she clearly shows some admiring towards him in the Palutena's Guidance Conversations (which she, of course, denies after Pit and Palutena point it out).
  • Cult Classic: One of Nintendo’s more niche games, and it sold just over 1.3 million copies… which can easily be considered a failure by a company as large as Nintendo, and is even less than the original NES Kid Icarus, which had over 3 million copies sold. And today, the Kid Icarus series is mostly just remembered through Super Smash Bros. for many Nintendo fans. Despite that, Uprising is often considered an under-appreciated masterpiece, or even a full-on magnum opus, and contender for the best game on 3DS for its story, humour, varied gameplay with unique and interesting weapons such as Palms and Orbitars, memorable characters, customizable difficulty that give it options for both beginners and experienced players, an orchestral soundtrack that could belong in a movie, especially in Air Battles, where the music for each one almost seems written specifically for it after the script was complete, a frantic and fun multiplayer mode with free-for-all and a team battle with Light VS Dark. Sometimes even one of the single best Nintendo games ever made.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • The Tempura Wizard turns Pit into tempura, which makes him constantly tired and thus much slower, and chases him around. If he catches him, it's a One-Hit Kill.
    • The Reapers hit extremely hard, have a lot of health, are difficult to avoid, and can summon Reapettes that can pass through walls and paralyze you. Pit even lampshades this when he has to start the mission in Chapter 4, dreading at the idea of fighting them, seeing how annoying they were on his first adventure and how they were always freaking out and summoning their Reapettes. Once you get a Great Reaper Palm, though, you can use its charged shot to give them a taste of their own medicine.
    • Clubberskulls are Lightning Bruisers who are weak to melee attacks. The catch is they also use melee attacks, which are devastating can take you out quickly if you aren't careful. They also have lots of health.
    • The Mimicuties are surprisingly deadly, as their kicks are fast enough to stunlock Pit and strong enough to take off a sizeable chunk of health without ever giving you a chance to retaliate. They WILL turn into Paranoia Fuel and make you never trust a treasure chest again.
    • The Orne can One-Hit Kill you just by touching you. What's more, they're invincible if you're not using the Three Sacred Treasures. Even Pit remarks how unfair it is. They even have their own ominous 8-bit theme tune that plays whenever you get near one.
    • The Centurion Strongarms will either charge towards you or toss dumbbells as soon as they spot you. The former leads into an undodgeable piledriver that could kill you easily if you aren't careful.
    • Surprisingly, Miks are this in Air Battles. While on land they're not much more of a threat than a Monoeye, their tongue-lash is HELL to avoid in the sky on high intensities, since it covers a wide range.
  • Designated Hero: Viridi's attempt to wipe out humanity with her Reset Bombs is arguably worse than anything Medusa did, but after her arc, she's treated as one of the heroes. Though slightly justified in that the Aurum's invasion and the Chaos Kin's possession of Palutena practically forced an Enemy Mine in the middle of a three-way war between factions, as well as both sides realizing that Hades is the most immediate threat. Also, at least according to Dark Pit's Guidance Conversation in Smash for Wii U, it's stated that she's still opposing Palutena's Army. She's just really amicable in her downtime.
  • Difficulty Spike: Chapter 4 introduces three of the most dangerous Underworld enemies in the game; Reapers, Clubberskulls, and Ornes, plus one of the most annoying in Eggplant Wizards, and it also has painful stage hazards and minimal healing items.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Viridi gets this quite a bit from her fans. Fanart generally accentuates upon her love of nature and occasionally her bratty nature, ignoring the fact that she is an Ax-Crazy genocidal nature goddess who has been shown nuking entire human towns. The Forces of Nature in general can also qualify.
  • Dry Docked Ship: It's generally accepted that Magnus and Gaol used to be a couple, until Gaol fell into the clutches of the Underworld Army. When both characters return late in the game, little is made of their relationship.
  • Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The game is well-lauded for its top-notch script, particularly in the localized versions, but the gameplay, while well regarded, suffers from an incredibly awkward control scheme that is an outright deal-breaker for many.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Phosphora is quite popular, to the point where she was also made an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. For 3DS/Wii U. This is partly due to being a Ms. Fanservice, but also due to her chapter being considered one of the better levels in the game, and her funny dialogue with Pit and Palutena.
    • Thanatos is adored by the fandom for how much of a Large Ham he is, on top of being one of the most personable adversaries that Pit faces. His fight against Phosphora also provides some of the best visual effects in the entire game, and he even got a two-part promotional miniseries dedicated to him.
    • Everyone loves Pyrrhon. Mainly because he's such a Large Ham.
    • The little girl from chapter 18, as some of the comments on this video would attest to.
    • Amazon Pandora is this, but mostly because of her design.
  • Estrogen Brigade: It is safe to say that the game has a lot of female fans who fangirl over Pit (and Dark Pit, to some extent).
  • Evil Is Cool: While Hades is another case of Everyone Hates Hades, he is still one of the most popular characters in the game, for being such an utterly despicable Large Ham.
  • Fanon:
    • It's generally accepted that Pit and Dark Pit see each other as brothers at the end of the game, something that is only implied in some scenes.
    • Those who don't ship Pit and Palutena prefer to see them as a surrogate mother/big sister and her son/little brother, considering how she acts towards Pit during the game.
    • Many fanworks refer to Phosphora as being the Goddess of Lightning. At no point in the game is her race ever mentioned, leaving whatever species she is unknown.
  • Fan Nickname:
  • Genius Bonus: The binary code said by Aurum Pyrrhon translates to "kill".
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • Many flying enemies, such as the Monoeyes, don't pose much of a threat on their own, but are designed to distract the player from bigger enemies. Fortunately, they're much easier to deal with during air battles.
    • The Plutons are back, and no longer invincible, at that. You can pick up the weapons they steal if you kill them.
    • Eggplant Wizards are less dangerous than they were in the first game, as Palutena can simply transform the player back into a regular angel rather than Pit having to go to the hospital. However, it can still be an annoyance, and Pit lampshades this when he founds one in Chapter 4 alongside the just as annoying Reapers, complaining that he doesn't want to get turned into an eggplant again.
    • On the Forces of Nature side, they have the Skreetles. Tiny spider like enemies that scuttle along the ground at high speed. They can be extremely hard to get a bead on due to their speed and size and the only time they stop moving is when they stand up to fire surprisingly damaging lasers at you.
    • Despite all the flak that is given towards the Centurions on how useless they are, they can be surprisingly difficult and irritating to deal with during Chapter 18 when playing as Magnus owing to your complete lack of ranged attacks, wonky melee accuracy and their tendency to fly back or up out of range when you are about to land a hit. Coupled with their slow moving but extremely accurate homing projectiles and the fact they can fire up to three times in succession while you're desperately trying to close the gap between them means that any mistakes will often lead to them rapidly chipping your health off. May Palutena help you if you're unlucky enough to be surrounded by them.
  • Growing the Beard: Thanks to this game, Kid Icarus evolved from a series of overshadowed Metroid clones to a quirky franchise with its own identity and lovable, unique characters.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • During a tutorial conversation with Pit, Palutena mentions Super Smash Bros. and gets the name wrong (calling it "Super Bash Sisters"). This becomes more amusing not only for the fact that she was confirmed to be a playable character in the fourth game, but because said game has a greater degree of gender balance in its roster (counting female variants of certain characters).
    • Those familiar with Homestuck got a big laugh out of the fact that there is a Capricorn Club.note  The same applies with the Pisces Healnote  and the Sagittarius Bownote , though the latter is much less apparent due to the Sagittarius sign being associated with archery already.
    • The previous attempt at a modern reimagining of the series (codenamed Icarus) was going to be a Darker and Edgier Third-Person Shooter with flight elements. Uprising ended up being a Third-Person Shooter with flight elements, but is far more lighthearted.
  • It Was His Sled: At the time the game was released, the very existence of Hades was considered a major spoiler, let alone him being the true main villain of the game. Nowadays, it's very common knowledge.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: The delightfully hammy Big Bad Hades is generally much better received than the pompous, misanthropic Karma Houdini Viridi, despite her eventually becoming an ally and somewhat softening up.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Pit is shipped with Palutena, Viridi, Magnus, Dark Pit, Phosphora, etc, etc.
  • Love to Hate: The true Big Bad of the game, Hades. He is by far the cruelest character in the series, starting wars partly to harvest souls to devour and to make into monsters for his personal army, and partly just For the Evulz. However, he is also one of the most popular characters too due to his hamminess, dark sense of humor, ladies' man personality and his temporary alliance with Palutena and Viridi to defeat the Aurum, after declaring himself as the only one fit to rule Angel Land and due to a case of Even Evil Has Standards.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Arlon the Serene is the commander of the Lunar Sanctum and the most affable out of the Forces of Nature, and indeed almost any villain in the game. A jailkeeper and military general who styles himself as an impeccable Battle Butler, Arlon deals with Pit's invasion of the Lunar Sanctum with his elaborate illusions, manipulating Pit's Evil Twin Dark Pit into impeding him with a Batman Gambit, and relentlessly stringing genuine compliments toward Pit and his resolve. Felled by the end, Arlon's demise only worsens the war as his presence is the only thing keeping the Chaos Kin sealed in the Lunar Sanctum, a fact Arlon only neglected to tell Palutena out of loyalty to his own master Viridi.
  • Memetic Molester: It's not hard to think of the Chaos Kin as one given the way it latches onto Palutena during battle and the way that it grabbed Dark Pit by the leg to throw him off the ledge and wrapping itself around him. According to the Petrified Palutena idol description, the Chaos Kin tried to drag her into the Chaos Vortex with it, but she turned herself to stone at the last minute so that it could only escape with her soul.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Haters of Dark Pit claim that he's nothing more than an edgy OC that's unoriginal and stereotypical, while fans love him for being so much Darker and Edgier...not realizing that Dark Pit's a parody of "dark" characters, with an uninspired name, characters that mock him for not caring and his dorkiness, and his attempts to be cool often falling flat. Case in point, he picks fights with Pit to prove that he's superior (he fails every time), his kick to a giant boss results in Palutena telling him it's a stupid idea that won't usually work (in the JA version it results in his leg getting broken), and his attempt to make a cool exit fails because he forgets he can't fly anymore.
  • Mis-blamed:
    • People have accused Uprising of straying from Medusa's original design when it actually accurately portrays Medusa's true form◊ seen upon her death. And her classic final boss form appears in the game, anyway.
    • The reason why there's no dual-analog controls is because the developers weren't aware of the Circle Pad Pro until late in development, and hastily added it in as a late solution for lefties.
  • Moe: One thing that the game has going for it is that the two lead characters are adorable.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Hades crosses it when he spreads the rumor about the Wish Seed to get the humans to kill each other, so he can in turn steal and consume their souls en-masse.
    • The Chaos Kin crosses it when it steals Palutena's soul and takes it to the Chaos Vortex, leaving her as a lifeless stone statue.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: The "KRACKYAK! BOOOOOOOOM!" sound of a boss being dealt the final blow. Except when fighting Palutena, as it signifies the player has triggered a Non-Standard Game Over.
  • Narm Charm:
    • Pit's victory song at the beginning of Chapter 13. It's cheesy, comes out of nowhere, and sounds like it belongs in a kids' show, but since it's Pit, it comes off as adorable and makes him even more lovable.
      Again today, I will go soaring through the sky!
      My enemies, I'll dish 'em up in a stir fry!
      Gracious Goddess of Light, watches from up above!
      At dinnertime, I always show the cook some love!
    • Pit and Palutena's song about "staying positive".
      Palutena: You gotta stay upbeat, upbeat, upbeat!
      Pit: Or you'll be dead meat, dead meat, dead meat!
  • Never Live It Down: Palutena's Revolting Dinner portrays the goddess as a very easily distracted cook, accidentally bringing vegetables to life with rejuvenation potion when she end up adding ttoo much of it. Yet it hasn't stopped some people from depicting Palutena (jokingly or not) as a full-on Lethal Chef who can't be trusted in the kitchen whatsoever as a result of that incident.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Here...
  • Nightmare Retardant: The Reapers look more frightening than other enemies and are very dangerous on their own, but their "piercing scream" is actually just their 8-bit theme from the NES game.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Treasure chests. They can contain genuine rewards, but they can also be bait for trap rooms, damage you, or be hard-hitting Mimicuties. The only way to tell the difference between a Mimicutie and a normal chest is minor size differences, and sometimes there is none.
  • Player Punch:
    • In Chapter 18.
      Palutena: You see, I'm tired of dealing with those pathetic humans, and I'm especially tired of dealing with you.
    • In Chapter 21, Pit flies longer than the given time in order to save Dark Pit from being pulled to his death, and his wings burn off. Palutena even pictures Pit talking about wanting to fly... yet his wings are burned up as a result of the heroic deed.
  • Recurring Fanon Character: Cloud Angle, the Marty Stu protagonist of the Troll Fic Kid Icarus Uprising 2: Hades Revenge, is a minor version of this. He is an angel with blonde hair and green wings who works alongside Pit. While he isn’t as popular as other badfic OCs, he has made some appearances in other fanfics like The Hot Topic Krew and Tingles Raveng The Tingling.
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • While it's usually unintentional, many fanfic writers (especially haters of her) will sometimes crank Palutena's trollish tendencies up to eleven to the point where it's less "teasing Pit but caring for him and others" and more "trying to kill Pit for shits and giggles".
    • Viridi tends to get this from her haters, likely as a response to her fans' treatment. She definitely has a hatred for humans and can be a real jerkass at times, but is willing to push that aside to fight much bigger threats and grows genuinely fond of Pit to the point she goes out her way to help him or save his life multiple times. Haters tend to blow the former out of proportion and make her a Card-Carrying Villain on par with Hades without the humor and taking away her better qualities and nice moments with Pit to make her wholly irredeemable.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Simply put, the controls in Uprising aren't designed for lefties in mind. There is an option to use the Circle Pad Pro on a "classic" 3DS, which costs about $20 USD, or the C-Stick on a New 3DS, which is smaller than the basic Circle Pad, feels more like the mouse nub on some notebook computers, and is overall less comfortable and precise. Using the buttons does work fairly well, but it's clunkier and it doesn't help that one of the first things the game tells you to do is move in a circle. Also you can't use the stand with a 3DS attached to a Circle Pad Pro, as the CPP adds extra thickness to the bottom half of the 3DS and is too curvy to lay steadily on the stand anyway.
    • The controls during the Land Battle sections are one of Uprising's most cited problems. Part of the "fun" is trying to change the camera direction, which is dissimilar to the way it's done in many other third-person shooters, while also having to aim at the various enemies. On top of that, it's easy to hurt your hands playing for long periods of time, which is most likely why physical copies ship with a 3DS stand. And if you're playing the game on an emulator, aiming and moving the camera is something that you just can't do with something like a mouse when you're already busy attacking.
    • Also, the weapon fusion system. Not only is there no way to find weapons that have specific mods, but being able to create the weapon you want becomes a nightmare. At least the game will tell you what you'll get from fusing two weapons before you commit, but you won't know how the new weapon will fuse with others until it's made, and at that point you won't be able to get the originals back.
    • If Pit constantly sprints for too long, he will start to tire out and will eventually stop to rest for a few moments. Now, this was made to balance the gameplay more, as the game itself points out, and of course to have the player focus on combat more. But this mechanic can be very dangerous when you're in the middle of a really intense battle, as the player has to focus on dodging and running away much more. If Pit gets exhausted, and he stops where anything can hit him, the enemy will get a free strike, which kind of takes away a lot of the skill involved in this game. This mechanic has probably led to a lot of game overs that for the most part weren't even the player's fault.
    • When continuing a stage after dying or otherwise losing, the Intensity is forced down an entire level. Restarting the entire stage is the only way to restore the player's chosen intensity level. This means the only way to record an Intensity 9.0 clear is to finish the stage at its highest difficulty without a single death!
    • When playing as Magnus in chapter 18, while the melee battle system is fairly intuitive, one infuriating aspect of the combat is the complete lack of a targeting reticule making it extremely difficult to keep the heat on enemies especially since melee targeting is now dependent on your ability to keep your character (not the camera) physically faced towards your enemies to be able to target them, indicated by a tiny arrow above their head to indicate that they're targeted. Consequently, it's all too easy to either miss your target completely or land one blow only for the enemy to be knocked out of the way and out of your targeting range. To add insult to injury your melee attacks are quite slow and it's very easy to press the attack button quickly in the heat of combat only for the lack of a reticule causing you to waste your combo swinging wildly at empty air when the enemy is perhaps only a step beside you all too ready to take advantage of you flailing like an idiot to take pot shots from your back or sides.
  • Sequel Displacement: The first two Kid Icarus games were merely cult classics that dropped off the radar due to being overshadowed by Metroid (which, fittingly, got its own revival long before Kid Icarus did). Uprising is not only completely different from Kid Icarus' former sister series, but introduced lots more characterization and quirky dialogue to the series.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Not as nasty as many other examples, but it's still pretty apparent. There is a myriad of ships duking it out, including Pit/Palutena, Pit/Viridi, Dark Pit/Viridi, Viridi/Phosphora, and Pit/Phosphora, among others. Then there’s the surprisingly popular Pitcest ship.
  • Signature Scene: Hades clawing his way through the credits screen at the end of Chapter 9, revealing himself as the true Big Bad of the game, is one of the most well-known parts of the game, for its nature as an incredibly memorable introduction for the new villain, its memetic value, and for setting the tone for the rest of the game while solidifying the end of this chapter as a Wham Episode.
  • Special Effect Failure:
    • The water you fight the boss of chapter 3 is a solid, opaque texture that does not move as he splashes around.
    • While the impact of the first Reset Bomb is devastating, the second one looks downright silly when you view it up close. Actually, most organic surfaces look a bit... odd.
    • Whenever you're flying over humans fighting a war, they're rendered as static, unmoving blocks.
    • Spherical objects are usually actually octagonal in order to preserve polygons. It's not usually noticeable, but it becomes a little blatant when you're flying over a moon.
      • The closeup shot of Medusa's head, with her snakes, is also especially noticeable of this.
    • The walls in the maze that use Depth Deception to trick people are flat billboard surfaces. On a system with real 3D.
    • The framerate drops that may happen during cutscenes of all things, since they can ruin the mood. This can be seen at the end of Chapter 15 when Pyrrhon catches Pit, and is even more evident at the end of Chapter 21 when Palutena holds Pit's critically-wounded body in her arms, potentially ruining the scene.
  • Strawman Has a Point:
    • While she is a colossal bitch about it, many of Viridi's views of humanity are shown to be absolutely correct. The human race devolved into a massive war with each other over nothing but rumors of an all-powerful wish-granting artifact, with no proof to back them up. Magnus, while definitely a nice and personable enough guy, flat-out admits that he fights for money, not justice.
    • During Chapter 20, Pit wonders why something as horrible as the Chaos Kin was ever created. Despite him being a remorseless villain most of the time, Hades makes a pretty good point when he says "who made you the final arbiter on which creatures live and which ones die?" and "You can't just wipe out every living thing that doesn't suit your liking".
    • Hades tries this on Pit in Chapter 23. When Pit calls him out on eating souls and removing them from existence, saying they can't move on or be reincarnated, Hades makes a pretty convincing argument on why reincarnation is no different than being removed from existence. Pit's reply is, "I... uh... Eating souls isn't right!"
  • Superlative Dubbing: Uprising's English localization is up there with the Mario & Luigi series as one of their funnier, more self-aware localizations. The dub is also a major step up from Nintendo's previous dubs, using mostly voice-acting veterans rather than newcomers.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The entire soundtrack of Chapter 13 is reminiscient of Star Wars, mostly because the chapter itself is supposed to be an homage to Star Wars.
  • That One Achievement:
    • Any achievement that requires you to go through a level without getting hit even once.
    • Trading weapon gems with a certain number of people. For some, it's really unlikely you'll be around another person with the game unless you participate in a convention where the chances of someone having Uprising in their 3DS is rather high for gem trading. This is why some gems are distributed by Palutena to make sure you can complete the achievement.
    • Pretty much any achievement that requires you defeat a boss while in Crisis Mode due to the rather unusual oversight of not having a health meter for bosses. Especially if it's chapter 19 and one tries to unlock Centurion Orbitars. For the same reason, the achievements for defeating a boss with a specific move, though to a lesser extent compared to the Crisis Mode ones.
    • Having to not let a single centurion fall in Chapter 17, given that the platform they are carrying (and you are riding) are very small, the enemies hit very hard, there are shields you have to shoot, etc.
  • That One Attack:
    • The Tempura Wizard's tempura transformation attack. If it hits you, you'll be turned into a continuously-tired tempura, and if he catches you, he eats you up for an instant "I'M FINISHED!"
    • Aurum Pyrrhon's ring of fire is one of his hardest attacks to avoid even when using the jump pad. Hope you brought Sky Jump or Jump Glide...
    • On higher difficulties, the Chaos Kin's bombs during the air segment certainly qualify, as they're difficult to shoot down, nearly impossible to avoid, can set you on fire, and are by far its most commonly used attack.
    • The Heart of Hades, the boss of the Womb Level, seems like a manageable boss considering it only uses two attacks: dropping mines with a small blast radius and forming a clone that explodes Bomberman-style. What makes it That One Boss is whenever it Turns Red. It becomes invincible and furiously rushes at you, which can only be avoided by dashing right into it. Just keeping an eye on it is difficult enough, but the real clincher is that it can still make clones in the middle of its rampage. And to top it all off, it uses this attack four times!
  • That One Boss:
    • Dark Pit can turn into this. While a really well done mirror match, it's the arena you're fighting on that makes it rather frustrating. Especially if you're on the highest platform, when you're too focused on fleeing from Dark Pit's attacks to focus on where you're running, you might either just hit an invisible wall, or accidentally land on a jump pad that takes you straight back. This will bite you really hard when Dark Pit charges up his arrow rain attack, which will hurt you through little fault of your own. Dark Pit, just like Pit, can also be seen dodging your charged shots once you release one forcing you to fire off several normal shots to stun him unless you are daring enough to use charged shots while dodging (which tires you out quite easily) but with your opponent constantly moving around on the ground and in the air, chances are that you won't have much success on difficulties above 6.0. An achievement also needs you to defeat him with the Paw Pad Orbitars, which are weak, small, lack range and their charge shots are inconsistent in terms of range with their bounces, which makes it difficult to hit him, and charged shots end up being unreliable against him..
    • The Phoenix can be absolutely nasty for those using close ranged or heavy weapons, especially on higher difficulties. While its wind strikes are fairly easy to avoid, its fire breath and its flaming divebomb attack are not unless you're using a weapon light enough to run out of the way (or, in the latter case, can run to the jump pad in time), and they definitely pack a punch. Plus, because it spends most of the fight flying around the outskirts of the arena, it can be very difficult to hit unless it decides to hang around the center after its talon strike, which it rarely does.
    • The Aurum Core is a nightmare to fight on higher difficulties. First you have to deal with a rotating shield that will block your shots if you don't time them correctly. Then you have to worry about the cannons on the walls and the center of the room. Finally, when it Turns Red and stays red, the rest of the boss fight becomes a 3D Bullet Hell as it launches giant explosives that roll throughout the room, tries to suck you into the center, electrifies the walls, and even electrify the floor. All while you're still dealing with the previous hazards.
    • Aurum Pyrrhon can be tricky, as some players might not realize that you're supposed to attack the poles that he's chained to before attacking him directly, during which you won't be able to see any of his attacks due to their placement. What's more, some of his attacks hit hard and are tricky to avoid in time — especially his ring of fire.
    • The battle against Pit's body in Chapter 18 is an absolute nightmare. Since you no longer have ranged weapons, you are forced to use melee attacks to defeat him, and getting up to him is a difficult task in itself. However, he does have ranged attacks that not only hit hard, but are rather difficult to dodge. Just getting close enough to attack is a massive challenge, but being able to land one is also a serious challenge, as he is very quick and swift, requiring some very tricky maneuvering. The worst part is though, on higher difficulties, if you're not careful, he can intercept your attacks. It's almost like fighting yourself.
    • Palutena in Chapter 20, mainly because you're supposed to attack the Chaos Kin, not her. In the beginning of the fight, the Chaos Kin hovers above in a very subtle purple smoke, and when revealed it will hover around her or even wrap itself around her. Weapons like clubs or cannons won't be very effective given their power and broad range, making it very easy to hit or even kill her by accident. Of course, this results in a Non-Standard Game Over.
    • Amazon Pandora is extremely agile, making her difficult to pin with ranged shots, and will deal out powerful counterattacks if you try and close in for melee, and needs to be defeated three times before she will go down permanently. She also spams Pandora's boxes, which are incredibly easy to open by accident and release a stream of balls of energy that are fairly powerful and difficult to dodge. Though, on the plus side, they also often provide loot once the attack is over.
    • The Heart of Hades. It's hard to pay attention to Pit's funny dialogue, calling it a "cute little monster", when the cardiovascular nightmare is busy trampling the player under several tons of berserk rage. If you come into the fight without anything that has a good shot range, homing attribute to it or has the ability to attack through walls with its charged shots (or regular shots), this adorable little boss will be a pain to defeat since you have to risk being blasted or trampled if your only other option is to melee it. Becomes even harder when it glows red which results in the boss charging at you even faster than before forcing you to stay ahead of it instead of pursuing it until it returns to normal.
    • Great Sacred Treasure is both very fast and incredibly powerful and is bound to keep you on your toes. It uses a variety of attacks ranging from rapid fire blasts (some of which can inflict the Burn status to you making the pressure even harder) to whirlwinds, to powerful beams of energy. It also has a unique attack that it uses once to destroy half the platform you're fighting on. Thankfully, the section of the stage that will be blown up is highlighted in a red color but if you fail to get out of the blast area or if you tired out in the process and can't escape, you're finished. To top it off, it can teleport randomly, meaning that you have to anticipate and predict where it'll appear next and what attack it will follow up with. Dodging most of the time isn't recommended since you don't want to tire yourself out too quickly, making strafing the ideal option, as Palutena comments.
  • That One Level: Although the game's adjustable difficulty means you can avert this trope entirely, on higher settings there are some noticeable examples.
    • Chapter 13. The air battle portion isn't difficult and neither is the boss at the end, but the stage itself is a nightmare. Tougher enemies introduced and there is a tricky mirror room where you'll fall into a pit and lose a lot of health if you don't pay attention to the reflections. However, the worst part is that, midway through the chapter, there is a boss battle against Dark Pit, who will pelt you with arrows as you try to focus on your real target, the generator in the middle of the room.
    • Chapter 17 for being an Escort Mission in a sense. If you lose all four Centurions carrying you toward Pyrrhon, you get a game over and given that you're fighting on a small platform, barely having room to dodge enemies that are coming at you and that the Centurions die easily, you'll be screaming at higher levels.
    • Chapter 18. Magnus is really underpowered compared to Pit, as he lacks a ranged attack, powers, speed (his BFS makes it harder for him to dodge) and modifiers. There are hardly any healing items in the level, and the designers deliberately programmed a Souflee to appear near the end to lure you away from the level's hot spring. Then the icing on the cake is the boss fight against Pit's body.
    • Chapter 19 is the Marathon Level where there are at least two checkpoints when climbing up the tower. It features some non-standard gameplay, including a section where you have to dash past a gust of wind three times on a catwalk. Fall and it's back to the start of the section. The catwalk isn't very narrow, which only makes it more infuriating until you get the hang of it. Likely worse for those using buttons/D-pad to move instead of analog. The sheer length of the level is even lampshaded by Pit, who constantly asks "Are We There Yet?"
    • Chapter 21. During the air portion, the game throws dozens of enemies at you, but the player actually has to ignore them and focus on inflicting enough damage to the Chaos Kin before time runs out, otherwise they will instantly be dealt a Game Over. Then there's the ground section, where you have to fight 13 sets of monsters from all the main armies in the game. Although Dark Pit joins you around the ninth wave to help out, by that point you might have dropped a difficulty level if you weren't prepared. Also, two waves feature the dreaded Ornes, one of which will actively chase you.
    • Chapter 24's land battle has Pit facing the 3 trials Dyntos has set up for him. The first one involves going through three rooms fighting the hardest enemies in the game with advanced AI and more HP. There is also a boss sandwiched between each room, namely the Phoenix, the Kraken and Cragalanche. The second trial has you fight Gaol and Magnus at the same time, followed by Pseudo-Palutena immediately afterwards, who has the same attacks as Palutena in chapter 20 and more. The final trial is to defeat the level's true boss, the Great Sacred Treasure, which has nasty attacks overall, including one that delivers a One-Hit Kill.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Dark Lord Gaol is set up early in the game as a major threat. However, the concept of a Dark Lord is deconstructed, the character is defeated pretty quickly and doesn't show up anymore for the majority of the game, save for a very brief rematch in Chapter 24. Her history with Magnus, loyalty to Medusa and Pit's brief Freak Out when he realizes that he might've killed her are all interesting concepts that could've been explored a lot more.
  • Toy Ship: Pit/Viridi and Dark Pit/Viridi are both popular ships that fit under this category. At least, in terms of the characters' appearances and personalities.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: For a 3DS game, it looks pretty good.
    • Chapter 5 uses a lot of visual tricks in the flight sequence. It's quite a sight to see in 3D.
    • Chapter 8. The Galactic Sea is gorgeous.
    • Chapter 10's air battle is largely based in a volcano, and the lava effects are definitely visually stunning. This gets lampshaded by Pit.
    • Of the side materials, special mentions go out to Medusa's Revenge by Studio 4°C and the commercial by The Mill.
  • Vindicated by History: Although the game did well in sales (selling over a million by 2013). The game at the time of its release received a lukewarm response from critics and players due to its unorthodox control scheme (where you control Pit with the circle pad and attack with the stylus), which received criticism for how unintuitive it is. Over time however, many players, especially those who got used to the controls, began to view the game more positively in retrospect, highlighting its fun shoot-em up/hack-n-slash gameplay, its memorable cast of characters and an hilarious and engaging story, all on top of having some of the best visuals on the 3DS. Nowadays, the game is considered by many to be one of the best 3DS games and a modern Nintendo classic. Unsurprisingly, fan cries for a sequel or a rerelease are incredibly commonplace today.
  • The Woobie: Pit bounces between this and the Chew Toy for the majority of Uprising. Mainly because of the touchy subject of him not being able to fly. By Chapter 18, though, you'll want to give him a hug. It gets worse in Chapter 21...
  • Woolseyism: Sakurai himself told the localization team to take as many liberties as needed, as the Japanese script (which Sakurai wrote himself) relied heavily on Japanese culture references. The character who benefited the most from this was Hades; his Japanese characterization is far less hammy and more of a straightforward villain.

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