User blog comment:Stormjay Rider/3DS game/@comment-5698069-20130716183510/@comment-5698069-20130716185704

Yep. Now, Kid Icarus is what I would call a pure action game; there isn't much platforming, and though almost all weapons are ranged, it's not quite the same thing as a third-person shooter. The gameplay is simple: move with the circle pad, aim with the stylus, and shoot with the L-button, similar to Metroid Prime: Hunters, but done in a way that doesn't wear out that L-Button. You can switch between ranged and melee attacks, charge shots and continuous fire, and standing and dashing with separate side-, forward-, and backward-dash shots, giving a plethora of different types of moves to use, much like in the Super Smash Bros.

In addition, there are dozens upon dozens of different weapons to earn, and each one is unique; when you collect them, they are usually given a random set of stats, so you may have two copies of the same weapon, but one may be good at offense while the other excels at defense, or one may have better melee power and the other ranged. This makes collecting, buying, and fusing weapons endless fun, giving surprising depth to a game with simple gameplay mechanisms. It's almost like pokemon meets Super Smash Bros meets Kirby, with an extra squeeze of awesomeness thrown in there is that wasn't enough.

The plot is good, and the characters are great; almost all of them are very believable personalities. While the action happens on the top screen, dialogue is displayed on the bottom screen, along with hand-drawn images of the talking characters to show their expressions. And, though normally when a gamer hears the words "in-game dialogue" they groan, this game does it flwalessly; the gameplay is so seamless and instinctive that the dialogue doesn't get in the way at all, and it's easy to split your attention for that fraction of a second without facing consequences except on very high dificulty levels. And as for difficulty...

Shoot, I just half-wrote that review I warned about. Nuts.