Kid Icarus Concept Update
February 03, 2009
Last year Kombo had word of a new Kid Icarus adventure in the works by developer Factor 5 for the Nintendo Wii. The concept art revealed a grown up take on the game's angelic hero, Pit, and tied him to a story about crime and punishment in a particularly dark twist on conventional Nintendo lore. The game was apparently just a pitch from the developer to Nintendo (and as a developer from Bioware once told me, "everybody" has a made an Icarus pitch to Nintendo), but now more images from that pitch have made their way to the Internet. Kombo has the news.
...yeah, these do nothing for me. Besides the fact that I love the [Super Smash Bros.] Brawl design to death, I think there's a certain line of realism and redesign in reinvention of Nintendo's classic characters that should be adhered to, as seen with characters such as Link and Samus. This not only crosses that line, but takes a running, gliding leap over it. Assuming that the project does have any life left in it, then here's hoping these designs remain a part of the development hell so many other ideas are banished to.
These images are the real deal as far as I'm concerned. These images of "Man Icarus" match up to what was passed around the back alleys of the Kombo offices last year. So, to wrap it up, the way I understand it is that while this is not the Kid Icarus game that is coming to the Wii as developed by Factor 5 and published by Nintendo, but it is a Kid Icarus game that was in development as part of a project pitch. Maybe it's a good thing this incarnation of Pit is stalled in development hell. The concept art shows a project that could go either way from a quality point of view, but the actual character model seen here seems a little generic with his dark armor and Anakin Skywalker scowl. Based on what we've seen so far of this project, I think that Factor 5 had a long way to go to make this version of Pit an interesting character that stands out from other gaming heroes that follow a similar conceptual design. However, having said that, I'd still like to know about this Pit's supposed crime. Remember the storyline pitch about Pit being "cursed for thousands of years for a crime and becom[ing] a 'fallen angel'"? So just what did he do?