_____________ __ \_______ \ / / \_____ \ / / __ __ \____ \ / /____ /_/ / / \____ / ___/ __ ___ / / \__/ /\ \ / / / __ / / / \ \ / / / /_/ / /_/ \_\ /_/ /_____/ ____ / _/ ~ ~~~Angel land story~~~ ~ / / / / ____ ___ ____ __ __ _____ / / / __/ / | / __/ / / / / / ___/ _/ /_ / /_ / / \_ / / / /_/ / /__ / /____/ /___/ /___/\_/ /_/ /_____/ /____/ ~ A complete FAQ/guide by Daniel Remar ~ Last updated: Feb 21 2010 This guide now has the Wii Virtual Console equivalents of all my passwords that only worked on the NES before. Jean-Luc Romano, who I helped with the password system, is publishing his own password generator/decryption/completer program. ThisFAQ/guide is mainly dedicated to the game itself, not the password system. =============================== ][ ~ Table of contents ~ ][ =============================== 1. Introduction 2. Stages 3. Leveling, HP and Strength 4. Weapons 5. Special items 6. Hearts and shopping 7. The Holy chambers 8. The endings and how to get them 9. Enemy list 10. In-depth enemy descriptions 11. Fortress maps 12. Strategies 13. Miscellaneous fun (RAM editing, passwords etc) 14. Important game notes (loss of play data in passwords) 15. Wii Virtual Console differencies 16. Japanese version (Famicom) differencies 17. Copyright, contact, other FAQs 18. Epilogue and contributors =============================================================================== ][ 1. Introduction ][ =============================================================================== ~ Yes, I like the tilde key ~ Hello, and welcome to my Kid Icarus FAQ/Guide. Kid Icarus (First released 1986 in Japan) has always been one of my favourite games throughout the years. My goal with this FAQ is to cover everything there is to know about the game, even including the enemy stats, the requirements for getting Strength upgrades, haggling successfully and the requirements for getting the five endings. Either if you're new to the game or an experienced player, I hope this document will help you out, whether you want to complete it for the first time or gain further knowledge about this old-school classic. Since the game was re-released on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console system, people have been wondering why none of their old codes or the famous "cheat codes" work. See section 15 of the FAQ for help and insight on this subject. Let's begin with the story (freely after the instruction booklet): Long ago, in an age where gods and humans lived in harmony, there was a kingdom callad Angel Land. It was ruled by Palutena, who administered the light, and Medusa, ruler of darkness. Palutena lived in the Palace in the Sky, and with her light, the humans could grow food and live in happiness. Medusa, however, hated mankind. She dried up the crops, and turned people into stone statues. Enraged, Palutena turned Medusa into a horrible monster, and banished her to the Underworld. Medusa vowed to come back and take over the Palace in the Sky. In her struggle to do so, she joined the monsters and evil spirits of the Underworld. In time, Medusa's army became greater than Palutena's. A war began, and in the end, Medusa was victorious. But she wasn't satisfied. She took the three Sacred Treasures - the Mirror Shield, the Arrow of Light, and the Wings of Pegasus - and gave them to her most powerful underlings. She turned almost every one of Palutena's warriors into stone, and locked up the goddess herself in the depths of the Palace in the Sky. Angel Land became a dark realm of monsters, ruled by the wicked Medusa. Palutena's last stand was to seek the help of the young angel Pit, who'd been imprisoned in the Underworld. With her last bit of magical strength, she sent Pit a bow and arrow. Pit set out on a quest break out of the Underworld and get the three sacred treasures, defeat Medusa, rescue Palutena and bring peace to Angel Land. =============================================================================== ][ 2. Stages ][ =============================================================================== Kid Icarus is divided into 4 Stages. The first three are divided into 4 Sections: three normal ones, and a fortress. The fourth Stage only consists of one Section. Like so: |_|_|_| ________ | |_______________| | ~ANGEL | 3-4 | 4-1 Medusa | LAND~ |_____|________________________| | | 4.The Palace in the Sky |3-3| |___| | | Fortress |3-2| 3.SKYWORLD | |___| | | | | |3-1| V |___| |_|_|_| |_|_|_| | |___________| | | 1-4 |2-1|2-2|2-3| 2-4 | |_____|___|___|___|_____| | | 2.OVERWORLD |1-3| |___| | | (This image can be found in |1-2| the instruction booklet) |___| 1.UNDERWORLD | | |1-1| <-- normal Sections |___| Between each Section there's a checkpoint. When you pass it, your XP (called Score in the game) will be added to the total XP, which in turn determines your Level, see "3. Leveling, HP and Strength". Also, if you die, you will restart from the last checkpoint you passed, with all the items you had when you first passed it, but with your HP at 15 (or 7 if you are only Level 1). If this is your first time through the game, don't worry about all the referrings to other parts in the FAQ unless you want to find out more, or are stuck somewhere. ~ Stage 1 - The Underworld ~ The game makes it clear right from the start that you'll need some good platforming skills to survive - if you fall off the bottom of the screen even once, you lose. Of course, you can buy some feathers to help you out; each one will save you from a fall. Either way, you should reach a high Level as soon as possible by killing a lot of enemies. See "12. Strategies" for some tips that'll surely help you. When you beat the fortress of this Stage, you should have gotten a Strength upgrade and reached Level 5. ~ Stage 2 - The Overworld ~ Notably more difficult than Stage 1, it contains encounters with Pluton, and some tricky jumping because of the ice. You should have at least two feathers in store here. Note that if you duck while on the ice, you'll pass through it, so be careful. This does not apply to the moving platforms. When you exit this Stage, you should have gotten 2 more Strength upgrades. Make sure you have less than 920 hearts when entering Section 2-2, or getting that upgrade will be incredibly hard. See "3. Leveling, HP and Strength" below for more information. But if you're not a perfectionist, don't worry, you could always get it later when you replay the game. ~ Stage 3 - The Skyworld ~ A beautiful cloudy Stage, with the only real threat being falling off the clouds. If you duck while on the clouds, you'll fall through them. You'll also meet the Pluton fly, but it's pretty easy to avoid. Gather lots of hearts to fill your barrel with 8 bottles if you haven't already. There's a store just outside the boss room in the fortress here, so buy some bottles with the water of life if you need it - but don't spend too much money if you're hoping to get the best ending (more info on this can be found in "8. The endings and how to get them"). At the end of 3-1, you'll get your final Strength upgrade. Also, see "The room of death" under "12. Strategies" for some help on that tricky Eggplant Wizard room in the fortress. ~ Stage 4 - the Palace in the Sky ~ This final Stage is just one long side-scrolling shooter, with Medusa waiting at the end. Keep an eye out for enemies, and you should do fine. Note that you can't fall of the bottom of the screen; you'll bounce back up again. Something that makes this Stage more difficult is that you have to defeat at least 50 enemies before reaching the end, or the whole Stage will loop back to the start (but with the kill count intact). The higher your Strength, the easier it will be to defeat that many enemies. Just keep shooting. Don't worry about confronting Medusa, she's possibly the easiest boss in the game. For a trick on how to beat her quickly, see "10. In-depth enemy descriptions". =============================================================================== ][ 3. Leveling, HP and Strength ][ =============================================================================== ~ Leveling ~ In Kid Icarus, there are five "Levels", reached by earning Experience points (called "Score" in the game). Each time you defeat an enemy, you'll get an amount of XP. At the end of each Stage Section, the XP you earned will be added to the total. From here on I will refer to Score as "XP". Total XP required for reaching Levels: LV 2: 20'000 LV 3: 50'000 LV 4: 100'000 LV 5: 200'000 ~ HP ~ But what do Levels do? Well, for every new Level, a red block of health, or Hit Points (HP) will be added to your Endurance. Each block contains 8 HP with the exception of the left-most block, which contains only 7. When you get hit by an enemy, your HP decreases. Collect glasses with the water of life, or bathe in yellow hot springs to restore your health. With barrels and bottles, your maximum HP also increases (see "5. Special items"). So, you'd better gain Levels as fast as possible to survive, as you've already figured. If you think you'll need a lot of health, check out "12. Strategies" for some useful advice on fast Leveling, though it may take some skill. ~ Strength ~ The arrows on the pause screen show your Strength. The amount of arrows determine the amount of damage dealt to enemies per shot. If you have, say, a Strength of 3, and shoot at a Keron, which has 3 HP, it'll be destroyed in one shot. The names of the arrow upgrades are: Bronze arrows, silver arrows, gold arrows and sacred arrows. The maximum Strength is thus 5. Strength upgrades are given to you by a friendly god in the Sacred chambers if you fulfill certain requirements, which are detailed below. ~ How to get the Strength upgrades ~ NOTE: the following section is not neccesary to read, unless you're interested in the technical details of the exact requirements for getting the Strength upgrades. There is a "Quick guide" below this section, which casual players can read instead. A huge thanks to Disch Wersher for studying the ROM and finding that what actually determines if you get a Strength upgrade or not, is a hidden stat which keeps track of your "Skill", as Disch calls it. In short, how many enemies you destroy, how many hearts you collect, how much damage you take and how many arrows you fire, all in the same Section as the Strength upgrade chamber - whenever you finish a Section (where you can see your XP being tallied) your Skill is reset to zero. To get a Strength upgrade in a given Section, you must have at least 10000 Skill. Fortunately you cannot have a negative value. These things affect your Skill: -300 for taking damage, except for damage tiles like lava -10 for firing an arrow -500 for breaking a jar in the Treasure chamber +300 for entering a Holy chamber +100 for defeating an enemy that drops a small heart +300 for defeating an enemy that drops a half heart +500 for defeating an enemy that drops a big heart +100 for collecting a small heart (if you have less than 998) +300 for collecting a half heart (if you have less than 994) +500 for collecting a big heart (if you have less than 989) +100 for collecting a mallet +1000 for collecting or buying back a Weapon +100 for buying anything in a shop except a Glass or Weapon +300 for entering the Score tally screen (redundant) +8000 for killing a boss (redundant) Note that some enemies are special - if they don't give you any XP, they don't give you any Skill either. Damaging Medusa also doesn't affect your Skill, eventhough it gives you XP. If you successfully raid a Treasure chamber, you'll lose 1480 Skill. However, at the start of Section 2-2 you start out with 0 Skill, so you actually gain 2300 there. Also note that you only need 9700 Skill prior to entering the upgrade chamber, as entering it gives you 300. Cyn sent me an interesting e-mail, describing the fact that you can walk past the fourth chamber on Section 2-2 (the upgrade chamber) to find a group of 16 Rokmen falling from the sky. If you fight these without scrolling the screen too far to the right, you can actaully gain a whole ton of Skill before entering the upgrade chamber. I previously wrote that the margin for error is very tight for getting the Strength upgrade in Section 2-2, because you get a maximum of 8440 in the two two enemy nests, which together with the 2300 Skill from the treasure chamber makes for a maximum total of 10740 Skill. Essentially this also meant that you had to enter the Section with between 20 and 858 hearts. However, like Cyn says, you can fight the 16 Rokmen just to the right of the fourth chamber, which in theory could give you up to 15840 Skill (16 Rokmen x 500) + (16 big hearts x 500) - (16 arrows x 10). This means that the margin for error has widened a lot. If you enter Section 2-2 with 999 hearts, you have to kill 15 Rokmen out of 16 to get the total of 10000 Skill, but this is pretty much impossible to do. Logically, the less hearts you have when you enter the Section, the less Rokmen you have to shoot because then you get more Skill from collecting hearts. If you have 10 less hearts, you have to kill one less Rokman. Since it's relatively easy to kill half of them, which equals 80 hearts, you are pretty safe if you enter Section 2-2 with 920 hearts, and have the skills to fight the Specknoses and Rokmen well. Any more than that, however, and things start getting terribly hard, while 999 borders impossibility. ~ Quick Strength upgrade guide ~ Section 1-2 A pretty long Section, so just kill the enemies you encounter and you'll get the upgrade in the chamber. Section 2-1 Often stop and kill the Rokmen and Kerons until they run out to gather the most amount of XP and hearts. There are two places to get the upgrade - if you missed the first, you can visit the other. Section 2-2 Make sure you have less than 920 hearts when entering this Section. The more hearts above about 850 you have, the harder it will be to get the upgrade, while if you have 999 hearts it will be pretty much impossible. First get as much treasure as possible from the treasure chamber, using the trick mentioned in "7. The Holy chambers". Then collect as many hearts as possible in the enemy nests. The upgrade is in the fourth chamber, but don't enter it yet. Instead, walk past it a little, and Rokmen will start falling from the sky. 16 of them will appear in total, so shoot them and gather their hearts. Now go back into the upgrade chamber, and unless you entered the Section with 920 hearts or more, the upgrade should easily be yours (otherwise you should have defeated more Rokmen). The reason it gets exponentially harder when you have about 850 hearts or more, and why it's nigh-impossible with 999 hearts, is explained in the section "How to get the Strength upgrades" above. If you fail, jump into the water and try again. Don't worry, any spent feathers will return when the Section restarts. Section 3-1 Pretty simple. Just slay some Holers until you've got at least 10'000-20'000 XP and the final upgrade is definitely yours. You should now have gotten all Strength upgrades on the first trip through the game. If you missed one, don't worry - you can get it from any Sacred chamber when you replay the game, as most of your status will remain intact. Note: The very first room in the game is always empty. This is because it's a Strength upgrade room! No matter how hard you try though, you can't gain 10000 Skill before entering it. The enemies only spawn a set number of times until you scroll the screen further up. Jean-Luc Romano informed me that sometimes, you do get the upgrade after finishing the game and coming back to Section 1-1. My guess is that this is because of a glitch, since the Skill is reset both at the exact point where your XP has been added to your total when you finish a Stage, and when you enter Palutena's chamber after defeating Medusa. =============================================================================== ][ 4. Weapons ][ =============================================================================== These are the three objects that appear on the pause screen, under "weapons". They're gained by completing the training chamber (see "7. The Holy chambers"), and are invaluable if you want to complete the game. The weapons are: Shield, Sacred bow, and Fire arrows. Each time you complete a training chamber, you can pick one of your choice and add it to your arsenal. However, the first weapon picked requires a HP of 15 to be activated. The other two require 8 more respectively. After they've been activated, they will remain so for the rest of the game. However! The weapons can't be used in fortresses, because of the strength of the enemy magic (or something like that), making you much weaker. They'll be re-activated once you beat the fortress. Here's a rundown: ~ Protective crystal (Shield) ~ I like to call it "shield" for simplicity. Two protective crystals will revolve around Pit, doing damage to enemies equal to your Strength. Just don't think of it as your primary weapon; weak enemies can still slip past it. The first weapon you should get, in my opinion. ~ Sacred bow ~ Makes your arrows travel further and faster, attacking enemies from a whole screen away. The second weapon to pick. Take care not to shoot enemies so their hearts will be hard to reach. ~ Fire arrows ~ A fireball will rotate around every arrow fired, dealing damage equal to your Strength. If the fireball hits an enemy, the arrow will continue in its path. If the arrow hits the enemy first, though, the fireball will disappear. A really devastating weapon against groups of enemies, if your Strength is high enough. =============================================================================== ][ 5. Special items ][ =============================================================================== These are items you can collect or buy in stores. ~ Small heart ~ Left behind by defeated enemies. It's worth 1 heart. This is the currency used in Kid Icarus, and it doesn't affect your health. ~ Half big heart ~ A big heart broken in half. It's worth 5 hearts. ~ Big heart ~ Worth 10 hearts. ~ Harp ~ Found only in the normal Sections, it will turn all the enemies into mallets for a limited period of time. In Stage 2, you'll find a harp next to a Shemums' jar. Take the harp, then jump at the jar to grab a lot of mallets. ~ Mallet ~ Used in the fortresses. Select it with the select button, then press the B button to smash statues or enemies (deals 5 HP damage). When you destroy a statue, a Centurian will come out. These are Palutenas' soldiers who were turned into stone by Medusa. When you fight the boss of the fortress, the Centurians you've rescued will join the fight in groups of three. Their arrows have a Strength of 5, but they're easily swatted like flies by the bosses. If you have a lot of them (and I mean a lot, not just five or six), you'll slay the bosses. Note that the Centurains you've freed in one fortress won't follow you to the next. ~ Credit card ~ Credit cards? Anyway, this rare item can only be obtained by completing the treasure chamber (see "7. The Holy chambers"). It lets you shop on credit at the black marketeers, and it works like this: If you cannot afford an item, its cost will be saved on the credit card. You'll notice that you have 0 Hearts. When you collect hearts, you'll pay back the cost of the item you bought. Not until you've payed it all back will you be able to collect hearts like normal again. You can only buy one item at a time with this. Note: when you use passwords such as DANGER !!!!!! TERROR HORROR, it'll appear as if you cannot gather hearts at all. This is because the debt on the credit card is anything up to 4096, and you'll have to pay it all back first. ~ Angel's feather ~ If you have this in your inventory when you fall down the bottom of the screen in the normal Sections, you'll start flying. Press the A button to fly higher. Each time you fall down, a feather will be spent. A real life-saver, you'd better buy them as soon as you can. Note: If you press up and A as the feather runs out, you will get a speed boost upwards. ~ Water of life (glass) ~ A glass containing the water of life. It'll recover 7 HP. Note: If you see one of these on screen, and you enter a door and come out again, the glass will be gone, so always collect it as soon as you see it. ~ Water of life (bottle) ~ When your HP reaches zero, this item will take effect and recover 7 HP. ~ Barrel ~ With this, you can store 8 bottles, pushing your maximum HP to an incredible 95. You can only own 1 barrel, though. ~ Map ~ Found in the fortresses. It'll appear on the pause screen. ~ Torch ~ Bought in the fortress stores. With it, you can see your position on the map. Pretty useless. Its magical glow runs out when you leave the fortress. ~ Pencil ~ Also bought in the fortress stores. With this, all the rooms you have visited will turn green on your map. Like the torch, it's useless since you can draw your own maps (or watch the ones in this FAQ). The magic of the pencil runs out when you leave the fortress... I mean... you run out of pencil sharpeners? =============================================================================== ][ 6. Hearts and shopping ][ =============================================================================== The currency in Angel land is Hearts. You can have up too 999 of 'em, and the goods in the stores are very expensive, so gather a lot. Hearts are earned by defeating enemies. There are three kinds of places to spend the cash: Stores, fortress stores and the black market. Here's a list of what they sell: ~ STORE ~ Either: Bottle Mallet Feather 350 20 390 Or: Glass Bottle Feather 210 350 390 Or: Glass Mallet Feather 210 20 390 If you buy an item, new goods will soon appear, so you can buy as much as you want. ~ FORTRESS STORE ~ Either: Pencil Glass Torch 180 210 120 Or: Glass Mallet Bottle 210 20 350 If you press A+B on controller two at the stores, the owner will either raise or lower the prices, depending on your Strength. To haggle succesfully, your Strength must be one Level above the number of the Stage, which means that in Stage 2, you must have a Strength of 3 to haggle. In other words, you're appearantly not so much haggling as you are threatening to beat him up... If he lowers them, he says "I guess I can't win!". The new prices will be: Glass Bottle Mallet Feather Pencil Torch 100 270 10 150 180 120 However, if he raises them, saying "Go on! Who do you think I am?" The prices will be: Glass Bottle Mallet Feather Pencil Torch 400 760 50 630 250 200 While he's talking, the prices are still the same. If you notice that he is going to raise them, quickly buy something; you'll get it for the usual price. This way, you've got nothing to lose when haggling. ~ THE BLACK MARKET ~ Bottle Barrel Feather 480 500 450 The black market is the only store that sells the barrel. Also, if one of your weapons has been stolen by a Pluton or Pluton fly, it'll be sold at the black market. The prices on the weapons when bought back are: Fire Bow Shield 600 500 700 Alternatively, complete a Training chamber to earn the weapons again for free (see "7. The Holy chambers"). Note: You cannot haggle at the black market. Also, you can only buy one item per visit. Strange, I thought a black market is where you usually haggle.... =============================================================================== ][ 7. The Holy chambers ][ =============================================================================== These are accessed via the doors found in the normal Sections. Once you enter one of them and leave, you can never go back. Make the most out of each visit. Also note that when you enter a chamber, all objects including enemies, and glasses with the water of life, will be gone when you exit. Here's a description of the different chambers: ~ Store ~ See "6. Hearts and shopping". ~ Black market ~ See "6. Hearts and shopping". ~ Enemies' nest ~ A room with 8 Specknoses. Each one will give you 10 hearts when defeated, but no XP. You can leave this room whenever you want. Be careful in here near the beginning of the game, or just avoid these chambers completely until you're confident enough. ~ Sacred chamber / Strength upgrade chamber ~ A friendly god will give you a Strength upgrade. See "3. Leveling, HP and Strength" for info on the requirements to get the upgrades, and a quick guide to all the upgrades. ~ Training chamber ~ A god will let you pass a test to see if you're worthy of a Weapon. Pass the test, and you can pick a Weapon (see "4. Weapons"). You can exit this chamber whenever you like, but the god will call you a weakling. ~ Hot spring chamber ~ These contain a pool of yellow recovery water. Sit back and relax as your health is replenished. Ahhh! For some reason, Pit doesn't realize that he could just fill the barrel with this water instead of having to buy it. ~ Treasure chamber ~ A room with 8 jars, containing either big hearts or mallets. You need 5 hearts to break a pitcher and reveal the treasure. But - there's a catch. If you shoot the pitcher containing the god of poverty, all the treasures you've uncovered will be lost. Since you don't know where he is, it's a game of chance. However, if you manage to break 7 pitchers without uncovering the god of poverty, he will be replaced by either a feather, a bottle, a barrel or the credit card! This bonus treasure is yours if you shoot the final jar, something that beginners may never do because they think the last jar will hold the god. Since mallets and hearts are so easy to come by, it's always worth the try to break them all. If you feel like some cheating, there is a way to always get all the treasures. This is because there only are four places where the god of poverty can hide, depending on what Stage you're in (thanks to Disch Wersher for this information), and depending on where he hides the hearts and mallets will appear in set places. First, let's give the pitchers some numbers: ............... .1 2. .. .. .3 4. ... ... .5 6 . .... ... .... .7 8. ............... In the rooms in Stages 2 and 3 (overworld and skyworld), shoot the pitchers numbered 2, 3 and 4. In Stage 1 (underworld), shoot the pitchers 1, 3 and 8. Count how many mallets you've uncovered, then look up the god's position in the chart below. Stage 2 and 3 Mallets: 0 1 2 3 Position: 8 5 6 1 Stage 1 Mallets: 0 1 2 3 Position: 7 2 4 6 Here's a printable version of the above trick, so you don't have to check back here every now and then. Just mark everything between the brackets, copy it and paste it into Notepad, Emacs or a similar monospace text-editing program, then print it. { ............... Kid Icarus .1 2. Treasure chamber .. .. .3 4. Stage 2 and 3: 2, 3, 4. ... ... Stage 1: 1, 3, 8. .5 6 . .... ... .... Mallets: 0 1 2 3 .7 8. Pos(2 and 3): 8 5 6 1 ............... Pos(1): 7 2 4 6 } =============================================================================== ][ 8. The endings and how to get them ][ =============================================================================== There are five endings to watch when you complete the game. The ending requirements are based on "stat max-outs". You can have any combination, as long as you have a certain number of them. The four max-outs are: a. Hearts: 999 b. Strength: 5 c. Level: 5 d. All weapons acquired A giant thanks to Jean-Luc Romano for his password cracking skills. If you type these passwords in, you'll watch the ending, though without the music. When the endings are done the game will reset/crash. +------------------------------------------------------------+ | ORIGINAL NES VERSION | | | | The first letter on the second row in all passwords except | | the "Worst" one is a capital "o". | +========+======+============================+===============+ | | Max- | | Password to | | Ending | outs | Description | watch ending | +========+======+============================+===============+ | Worst | 0 | Pit gets a hat and a | 000000 000000 | | | | sickle (mop?). | M30000 G50CfV | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | Poor | 1 | Pit gets a helmet and a | 000000 000000 | | | | short stick (spear?). | O10000 K50C9G | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | Medium | 2 | Pit gets a helmet with a | 000000 000000 | | | | red tuft, and a spear. | O1000G K50C9H | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | Good | 3 | Pit becomes a big warrior | 000000 00dF00 | | | | and smiles. | O3000G K50Cfh | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | | | Pit becomes a big warrior, | | | | | gets a kiss from Palutena, | 6eW300 00dF00 | | Best | 4 | and angels fly around the | O3000G K50i9r | | | | screen as the background | | | | | changes. Very nice. | | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ | WII VIRTUAL CONSOLE VERSION | | | | The first letter on the second row in the "Good" password | | is a capital "o". | +========+======+============================+===============+ | | Max- | | Password to | | Ending | outs | Description | watch ending | +========+======+============================+===============+ | Worst | 0 | Pit gets a hat and a | 000000 000000 | | | | sickle (mop?). | 600000 G50Cfh | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | Poor | 1 | Pit gets a helmet and a | 000000 000000 | | | | short stick (spear?). | 800000 K50C9y | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | Medium | 2 | Pit gets a helmet with a | 000000 000000 | | | | red tuft, and a spear. | 80000G K50C9z | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | Good | 3 | Pit becomes a big warrior | 000000 00dF00 | | | | and smiles. | O0000G K50Cft | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ | | | Pit becomes a big warrior, | | | | | gets a kiss from Palutena, | IeW600 00dF00 | | Best | 4 | and angels fly around the | e0000G K50i97 | | | | screen as the background | | | | | changes. Very nice. | | +--------+------+----------------------------+---------------+ So, even if you have all weapons but one, a ton of items, 998 hearts, and a Strength and Level of 4 respectively, you still get the worst ending. Kind of good to keep in mind, huh? The shop just before the boss of the third fortress is pretty cunningly placed. If you buy alot of stuff there and kill the boss, you'll have trouble gathering enough hearts in the last Stage to get the best ending! =============================================================================== ][ 9. Enemy list ][ =============================================================================== This list contains all the information about all the enemies and bosses in the game. The names of the enemies were found in the official instruction booklet. STG = Stage HP = hit points DMG = Amount of damage the enemy can deal to pit H = Amount of Hearts dropped when defeated XP = Amount of Experience points (score) earned when defeated X = All Stages F = Fortress FX = All fortresses Enemy STG HP DMG H XP Shemum X 1 1 1 100 Specknose X 1 2 10 0 Reaper X 10 2 10 500 Reapette X 1 2 1 100 Monolith X 1or2 1 1 0 Eggplant Wizard FX 10 2 10 500 Monoeye 1 1 1 5 300 McGoo 1 1 1or2 5 300 Nettler 1 2 1 5 300 Commyloose 1 2 1 5 300 Ganawmede F1 1 1 5 300 Ganawmede2 F1 2 2 10 500 Kobil F1 2 1 1 100 Kobil2 F1 6 2 5 300 Twinbellows F1 100 2 0 8000 Rokman 2 2 3 10 500 Girin 2 1 1 5 300 Minos 2 2 1 5 300 Mick 2 2 1 5 300 Keron 2 3 1 5 300 Pluton 2 - 0 - - Snowman 2 10 1or3 10 500 Tamambo F2 2 1 5 300 Tamambo2 F2 3 2 10 500 Shulm F2 3 1 1 100 Shulm2 F2 8 2 5 300 Hewdraw F2 200 3 0 8000 Collin 3 1 3 10 500 Eeleye 3 1 2 1 0 Holer 3 1 1or2 5 300 Octos 3 4 3 10 500 Pluton fly 3 - 0 - - Keepah 3 1 3 10 0 Komayto 3 3 2 5 300 Tros F3 3 2 5 300 Tros2 F3 4 3 10 500 Uranos F3 4 2 1 100 Uranos2 F3 10 3 5 300 Pandora F3 200 5 0 8000 Totem 4 4 3 5 300 Moila 4 2 3 5 300 Syren 4 2 3 5 300 Erinus 4 4*1 1or4 3*1 4*500 Daphne 4 2 2 5 300 Zuree 4 1 2 1 100 Tanatos 4 1 3 0 100 Medusa 4 150 5 0 Hits*100 =============================================================================== ][ 10. In-depth enemy descriptions ][ =============================================================================== Since you may not know which enemies I'm talking about in the above section, here are the descriptions of 'em, complete with hints and strategies. STG = Stage HP = hit points DMG = Amount of damage the enemy can deal to pit H = Amount of Heart dropped when defeated XP = Amount of Experience points (score) earned when defeated X = All Stages F = Fortress FX = All fortresses ~ ALL STAGES ~ Shemum STG: X HP: 1 DMG: 1 H: 1 XP: 100 Looks like: A small, blue snake. The most common enemy in the game, it's easily defeated. See "12. Strategies" for some advice about the Shemum's jar. The instruction booklet refers to them as "extremely dangerous". Pfft. Specknose STG: X HP: 1 DMG: 2 H: 10 XP: 0 Looks like: A nose with two big eyes on top. These inhabit the Enemies' lair chambers. Note that they leave no XP, and that the Shield weapon is ineffective against them. They are pretty dangerous at the start of the game, so don't try to fight them unless you know what you're doing. Reaper STG: X HP: 10 DMG: 2 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: An old witch with a scythe. If it sees you, it'll summon four Reapettes telephatically. Avoid its look and shoot it in the back. Every now and then, it'll turn around, to see if anyone's there. Reapette STG: X HP: 1 DMG: 2 H: 1 XP: 100 Looks like: Small, blue flying reapers. Pretty easy to defeat, but they can deal some damage if you're not careful. 2 HP is quite a lot in the early Sections of the game. Monolith STG: X HP: 1or2 DMG: 1 H: 1 XP: 0 Looks like: A spinning steel plate. Used to train Pit in the training chambers. They appear out of thin air and fall down. Note that they cannot be harmed by the Shield weapon. Check "12. Strategies" for some more advice. Eggplant Wizard STG: FX HP: 10 DMG: 2 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A tall monster with a white robe and one eye. The single most irritating, annoying, and downright difficult enemy in the game. If you get hit by his spell, you'll be turned into an eggplant, a fate worse than death. If that happens, you'll have to find the hospital in the fortress to remove the spell, which makes you unable to shoot. Keep your distance, and never stand above an Eggplant Wizard. Be aware that they can either throw a low eggplant or a high one. Time your movements carefully, and avoid at all cost. Remember, it's better to suffer damage than being turned into an eggplant; if you're flashing, the eggplants can't hit you. For more help, see "The room of death" under "12. Strategies". ~ STAGE 1 ~ Monoeye STG: 1 HP: 1 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A red, flying enemy with one big eye. Simple enough. They fly in a pattern, and after a while they'll get bored and head for you instead. Sometimes, a few of them head for you immediately. Don't move too much. McGoo STG: 1 HP: 1 DMG: 1or2 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A small red plant that comes out of the ground. Read the "12. Strategies" section to find some useful advice on this enemy. Strangely, their fireballs travel faster to the left than they do to the right. If you get hit by the fireball you'll recieve 2 HP damage, but the McGoo itself deals only 1. Nettler STG: 1 HP: 2 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A red snail which ducks under your arrows. If you try to shoot it at close range, your arrows will fly over it, so shoot it from a distance. Commyloose STG: 1 HP: 2 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A high-jumping octopus. Their jumping pattern can be predicted. Watch out below, that's all there is to it. Don't fight them before you've got the first Strength upgrade. Ganawmede STG: F1 HP: 1 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A floating skull with tentacles. Flying around inside the fortress in groups of eight, it's better to fight them than to try to avoid them. Ganawmede2 STG: F1 HP: 2 DMG: 2 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A red Ganawmede. Same goes with these, the stronger version of the Ganawmede. Note that they leave a lot of hearts and XP behind, so exit and enter the room again to earn some more. Be careful not to get too hurt. Kobil STG: F1 HP: 2 DMG: 1 H: 1 XP: 100 Looks like: A small, slow devil. Very slow and easy to defeat, since you should have the first Strength upgrade by the time you face them. Kobil2 STG: F1 HP: 6 DMG: 2 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A red Kobil. Like the Kobil, but stronger. Twinbellows STG: F1 HP: 100 DMG: 2 H: 0 XP: 8000 Looks like: A red dog with two heads. The boss of the first fortress. Jump over the fireballs, and shoot him rapidly when he recharges. He's pretty slow, and shouldn't be tricky if you're high on HP, in which case you just have to fire away; most of the time his fireballs will pass over you, since he's pushed into the air when you hit him. If you bring alot of Centurians and hammer the fire button, he goes down in no time. Twinbellows seems to be based on Cerberus, the multi-headed beast of the underworld in the Greek myths. ~ STAGE 2 ~ Rokman STG: 2 HP: 2 DMG: 3 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A falling rock. It's heart harvesting time! Shoot as many as you can to reel in the cash, but beware; it's the first enemy that deals 3 HP damage if you touch it. A new wave will drop down when the hearts of the previous group of Rokmen are gone. Girin STG: 2 HP: 1 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A giant ant, emerging from the ground. Much like McGoo, but slower to appear, and with faster fireballs. Minos STG: 2 HP: 2 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A round, spiked enemy that jumps up from below. Jumps out when you least expect it. Watch them carefully; they appear in patterns. If you walk forward to make the screen scroll, their jumping pattern will be adjusted to the right. Mick STG: 2 HP: 2 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A flying enemy with a big mouth. These aren't too dangerous. They come flying at you in packs of four. Keron STG: 2 HP: 3 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A jumping frog. These roam the plains of the overworld, attacking Pit when he closes in. They're not very dangerous, but have high HP. Pluton STG: 2 HP: - DMG: 0 H: - XP: - Looks like: A small ogre with a sack. Watch out, he's invincible. If he touches you, he'll steal one of your weapons! They can be bought back at the black market, or aquired again in the training chambers. It can jump either fast or slow, and high or low. The best way to get past them is to scroll the screen very slowly, so that only one of them emerges at a time. This way, you'll usually face a smaller number of them as well. Snowman STG: 2 HP: 10 DMG: 1or3 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A snowman. Throws snowballs "Hadouken"-style, and causes general annoyance. The snowballs deal 1 HP damage, while touching the Snowman himself deals 3. Tamambo STG: F2 HP: 2 DMG: 1 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A round, flying enemy with one eye. The second fortress' equavilent of the Ganawmede. Piece of cake. Tamambo2 STG: F2 HP: 3 DMG: 2 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A red Tamambo. A tougher version. Shulm STG: F2 HP: 3 DMG: 1 H: 1 XP: 100 Looks like: A mushroom. Goomba, anyone? They are pretty slow and go down easily. Shulm2 STG: F2 HP: 8 DMG: 2 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A red Shulm. Much stronger than an ordinary Shulm, but no big deal. Hewdraw STG: F2 HP: 200 DMG: 3 H: 0 XP: 8000 Looks like: A long snake. Boss of the second fortress. Possibly the easiest of them all, just avoid him and fire. Centurians can be somewhat useful, but generally fall like flies to Hewdraw. When you defeat him, the lava turns yellow, but it does not work as a hot spring just because it's yellow... ~ STAGE 3 ~ Collin STG: 3 HP: 1 DMG: 3 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A flying warrior. Not much of a threat, since it won't attack you. It'll just hover in place, looking dumb (and it probably is). Eeleye STG: 3 HP: 1 DMG: 2 H: 1 XP: 0 Looks like: A small worm with an eye and a pair of wings. These spin around Collin's body, protecting him. If you defeat the Collin and collect his heart, or the heart disappears, the Eeleyes, too, will disappear. Note that they give you no XP. Holer STG: 3 HP: 1 DMG: 1or2 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A yellow plant that pops out of the ground. A god of plants, and the McGoo of the third Stage, appearing just about anywhere to cause you trouble. Try not to duck the fireballs it spits, since most of the time you'll be standing on clouds. It's got the slowest fireball attack of this kind of enemy, dealing 1 HP damage. If you tough the holer, it'll deal 2 HP damage. Octos STG: 3 HP: 4 DMG: 3 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A yellow, jumping octopus. Just like the Commyloose in Stage 1, these jump from the bottom of the screen and continue upwards, aiming for you. Pluton fly STG: 3 HP: - DMG: 0 H: - XP: - Looks like: A small ogre with wings. Very easy to avoid. Just jump up to the same level as the Pluton fly, fall down again, and it'll fly away. Keepah STG: 3 HP: 1 DMG: 3 H: 10 XP: 0 Looks like: A blue, flying Kobil. Strangely enough, it doesn't make a sound when you defeat it, and it gives you no XP. Also, they may sometimes self-destruct. On rare occasions they'll also shoot fireballs. Komayto STG: 3 HP: 3 DMG: 2 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A floating jellyfish. Well, if it isn't a Metroid! The instruction booklet says that they may come from a planet other than Earth. If you're a Metroid fan, you'll know the planet as SR-388. Lucky the Komayto aren't as dangerous as the real ones... If you don't know what a Metroid is, it's the main enemy of the Metroid series, made by Nintendo. That's another great NES game, but back to Kid Icarus. Tros STG: F3 HP: 3 DMG: 2 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A spiked, armoured ball. Another floating enemy, appearing in groups of eight. Tros2 STG: F3 HP: 4 DMG: 3 H: 10 XP: 500 Looks like: A red Tros. These can be quite dangerous because of the damage dealt. Shoot them quickly, gather the hearts and always watch their movement. Uranos STG: F3 HP: 4 DMG: 2 H: 1 XP: 100 Looks like: A small, slow dwarf. Where is the "terrible fighting power" that the instruction booklet speaks of? This enemy is easy to defeat, and shouldn't cause you any trouble. Uranos2 STG: F3 HP: 10 DMG: 3 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A red Uranos. Much stronger, but just as slow. Pandora STG: F3 HP: 200 DMG: 5 H: 0 XP: 8000 Looks like: A bubble-like monster. Boss of the third fortress, and "the source of all evil" according to the instruction booklet. It moves very slowly, but sometimes it turns black, making it difficult to see. Watch out for the bubbles, they will deal 5 HP damage upon contact, just like Pandora itself. Ouch! Don't worry though, your HP will be replenished when you defeat this boss. On a side note, the Centurians are next to worthless here - they rarely hit Pandora, and are usually swatted down by the bouncing bubbles. ~ STAGE 4 ~ Totem STG: 4 HP: 4 DMG: 3 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A green slab of stone. They fall down from the sky and form little pillars. Don't get too close to the ceiling. Moila STG: 4 HP: 2 DMG: 3 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A flying starfish. They attack from behind, and try to eat you. Keep to the right side of the screen at the start of the Stage. Syren STG: 4 HP: 2 DMG: 3 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A flying witch. Basically, it's a siren with wings, attacking Pit with claws of steel. They generally come at you four at a time. Erinus STG: 4 HP: 4*1 DMG: 1or4 H: 3*1 XP: 4*500 Looks like: A man with one eye. The first shot will shatter him, but as the god of revenge, he doesn't go down that easily. He'll split into three pieces, each one awarding you with 500 XP when destroyed! His fireballs, shot either straight forward or diagonally, only deal 1 HP damage, but touching him deals 4. If you don't shoot him, he'll reappear on the right side of the screen until you do so. Daphne STG: 4 HP: 2 DMG: 2 H: 5 XP: 300 Looks like: A green flower. They jump up from below and slowly float down again. Like Minos, they appear in patterns, so watch them closely. Zuree STG: 4 HP: 1 DMG: 2 H: 1 XP: 100 Looks like: A ghost. Simple to avoid and defeat. They just fly up and down, looking silly. See how many you can destroy in a row with one shot. Tanatos STG: 4 HP: 1 DMG: 3 H: 0 XP: 100 Looks like: A green snake. Tanatos is greek for "death", but this serpent, emerging from Medusa's hair, doesn't put up much of a fight. They'll usually get caught in your line of fire when you're pummeling Medusa. Medusa STG: 4 HP: 150 DMG: 5 H: 0 XP: Hits*100 Looks like: A giant face with one eye. Very easy, really. If you position yourself slightly under the center of the left-most part of the screen, her attacks will miss you. Just fire away! For every hit scored, you'll earn 100 XP. When she is no more, you've completed the game, and will earn yourself an ending. See "8. The endings and how to get them" for info on the endings. =============================================================================== ][ 11. Fortress maps ][ =============================================================================== Feel free to copy the maps to Notepad or another text-editing program and print them out. It's best to copy and print one map at a time, so they don't get chopped up. The total number of statues is 79, and the total number of rooms is 144. If you get lost, buy a torch in a store to see your position on the map. E = Entrance B = boss M = Map S = Store X = Eggplant H = Hot spring N = Nurse (hospital) number = Amount of statues V A ladder you can't reach from the room below; if you climb it, you can't get back up again. ^ You can't reach this ladder from above unless you just climbed it. > You can't cross this room from the right. < You can't cross this room from the left. / or \ This room is split in half. v This door can only be reached from the right if you entered the right-hand room from above. | The left door is sealed off from the rest of the room. % You can only enter this door from the left if you just emerged from it (by entering it from the room on the right). ~ Fortress 1 ~ Boss: Twinbellows Statues: 28 Rooms: 30 +---+ | S | +---+---+-.-+---+ | 1 . X2. X2. 2 | +-.-+---+---+-.-+---+ | |#######| 1 | N | +---+-V-+---+---+-.-+-.-+---+ | 1 v 2 | E . . M2. 1 . S | +-.-+-.-+---+---+-.-+-.-+---+ | 1 | 2 . 1 .1 1. | 2 | +---+-.-+---+---+-^-+---+-.-+ | H . . . . X1. 1 .1\1| +---+---+---+---+---+---+-.-+---+ | 2 . B | +---+---+ ~ Fortress 2 ~ Boss: Hewdraw Statues: 32 Rooms: 50 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | X2. H . . S . . X . 3 | +-^-+---+-V-+-.-+---+---+-.-+ | 2 |###| | . . 1 | | +-.-+---+-V-+-.-+---+-V-+-V-+---+ | | S . / % 2 . | 2 | 1 . N | +-.-+-V-+-^-+---+-.-+-.-+-.-+-.-+ | 1 | 2 | X | E | . 1 .1\1. | +-.-+-.-+-.-+-V-+---+---+-.-+-.-+ | X . \3. . . . S . .1|1| +---+-.-+---+-.-+---+---+---+-.-+ | 1 |###| M2|###| 1 . B | | +---+-.-+---+-V-+---+-.-+---+-.-+ | N . 2 . 1 . 1 . 5 means invincibility Strength *: 0152 (0=1, 1=2 etc) Skill: 0134, 0135 Mallets *: 014F Feathers *: 0150 Bottles *: 0151 Credit card: 014E 0=no, 1=yes Weapon1: 0141 (0, 1, 2 or 3) Weapon2: 0142 (0, 1, 2 or 3) Weapon3: 0143 (0, 1, 2 or 3) Kill count on 4-1: 00C9 You need 50 kills to get to Medusa Eggplanted: 006F 0=no, 1=yes (only in fortresses) Invulnerability*: 0728 Set to >2 to move through enemies Activated weapons*: 00A5 Pit's X position: 0723 Pit's Y position: 0720 Ending* 004B (0, 1, 2, 3 or 4) *Debt: the debt decreases as you collect hearts. When debt reaches zero, you can collect hearts as normal again. *Strength: this "wraps around" at every step of 8. It can't go any higher than 5 against regular enemies, but against bosses (except Medusa), it will deal as much as you type in (up to 254), plus 1. Entering 255 is not advised! *All values greater than 128 actually are 0 for feathers and 1 for mallets. *Bottles: add 64 to get a barrel. If you want a barrel with 8 bottles, enter 72. *Invulnerability: you're not invulnerable against "damage tiles", such as lava pools. *Activated weapons: try different combinations up to 7, which activates all weapons at once. Add 8 to whatever number you type in to make Pit fly (same as using a Feather). When flying, you can't enter doors or pass through the left side of the screen in vertically scrolling Sections. *Ending: This determines what ending you recieve upon entering Palutena's chamber. It overrides the regular ending requirements. If you set it to 5 or higher, very strange things may happen. Most high values will glitch out the graphics and sound for a few seconds, then play the fortress song during the credits. A value of 255 will explode the entire screen into glitched graphics and crash the game. ~ The myth of Perseus ~ Kid Icarus is loosely based on an ancient myth about Perseus, son of Zeus, and the one who killed Medusa. Here are some similarities with the game: Perseus recieved (among several things) a pair of winged sandals from Hermes, Zeus' messenger. He also got a shield of mirrors, which would reflect the image of Medusa, since her look turned you to stone. Also mentioned in the story is Pallas Athena. In the game, the kidnapped goddess' name is Palutena. On the island where Medusa lived, there were statues of stone, in the shape of humans. It turned out that they once had been warriors, who had been turned to stone when they saw Medusa. Since she had once been a human, she was the only Greae who was mortal; the two others weren't. Towards the end of the story, Perseus cut of Medusa's head with a scythe, and put her head in a bag. Perseus appeared in many other myths. In one of them, he felt sorry for Atlas when he saw him holding up the world, so Perseus showed him the head of Medusa and turned him to stone, so he wouldn't feel the weight of the burden. In the game, Pit destroys Twinbellows who is probably based upon Cerburus, the beast of the underworld. I cannot recall that Perseus ever did the same though, so Kid Icarus is a mix of several myths (like Pandora, "the source of evil", who also is the third boss). Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for the Gameboy was more based on the myth of a boy who made wings with wax that melted when he flew too close to the sun. ~ Where no-one has gone before ~ So, you've finished the game and explored every nook and cranny? Probably not; there are some places you may not have visited. What I'm talking about is the roof at the end of most normal Stages. Sure, there's no point in heading up there, but somehow I find it rewarding, as if I've been some-where I've never been before. To reach the very top of a Level, simply use a feather. Be careful at the end of Section 3-3, though. If you enter the next-to-last door (the shop) and then fly to the top of the screen, a glitch will cause the screen to continue scrolling, which means that you'll get trapped up there until your feathers run out, at which point you'll die. If the screen starts scrolling, quickly get back down again. ~ Extra difficult ~ Still not satisfied? Well, then try to get the worst ending. This means that you must finish the game at Level 4 or lower, without all three of the weapons, a Strength of 4 or lower, and less than 999 hearts. ~ Very extra crispy difficult ~ So you like a challenge, such as completing Zelda 2 with one or more of your stats kept at 1? Then try beating Kid Icarus the pacifist way - don't shoot anything except the bosses, and don't pick up any hammers. You'll essentially run through almost the entire game with a Level and Strength of one, completely unarmed. I've done it once, so it's not impossible - although it's more tedious than fun... ~ Instruction booklet and game box errors ~ Thanks to Shaughn Maguire for helping me with the following information. In the instruction booklets other than the Japanese, some mistakes were made. You can find this sentence in the booklet: "If you get a high score, your name might be registered in the best 5 in the select display." While the American and European games lack such a feature, it existed on the Japanese Famicom version, along with three save slots, just like the NES Zelda games. Appereantly, the translators weren't informed that these features were removed. The box claims that this is a "two player alternating game". Either this was a removed feature from an early version of the game, or it refers to the fact that you can haggle at the shops with the second controller. Since you can use the second controller for various stuff in other single-player games too, like getting your password in Metroid or controlling the ducks in Duck Hunt, it's possibly referring to that. Alternatively, it simply suggests that players can take turns playing the game, such as switching player when one of them gets Game Over. The screenshots on the European game box are also from an earlier version, given that the energy bar is blue. The "Stage" and "boss" text is also written in Japanese. One screenshot shows four Nettlers on screen at once - at first I thought that it was a removed feature, but it's actually happened to me a few times. I still don't know what triggers it, though. ~ Bugs and minor glitches ~ Falling Reapers Sometimes when Reapers appear, they'll do so slightly under the ground the are supposed to appear on. This makes them fall through the platform, often landing right on your head. Reincarnate Medusa Just when you've beaten Medusa and she disappears from the screen, pause the game, then unpause. A part of her will reappear on the screen. Disappearing stuff Pause and unpause the game at a shop, holy chamber or training chamber. Sometimes the shopkeeper/god will disappear. Also, when haggling at the shops, buy something while the shopkeeper is talking. What he'd said so far will disappear, but the remaining text will continue to be printed. When defeating a boss and the treasure chest appears, pause and unpause. The chest will disappear. Pause the game the moment you enter a door in a fortress, and all objects will disappear. Chest glitch Just when you've defeated Pandora (the third boss), hold down to make Pit duck. Sometimes the treasure chest will turn into a ducking Pit when it appears. Break through If you jump at the top corner of a block, you'll fall slightly into it. If used with skill at the top right corner of a block, you can pass through it entirely. When you do, you'll start sliding to the left, passing through eventual walls. If you leave the left side on the screen, you'll pop out on the right (this seems to be the default behavior for all objects in NES games). Note that this only works in certain Levels. There is only one appearant use of this bug, and it's very hard to pull off. In the first fortress, go two screens right, one down and one left. In this room, "break through" the upper left edge of the right-most mass of blocks. With perfect timing, you can jump while halfway inside the block - if you crouch-jump to the left at just the right angle, you will end up in the one-way route leading to the room below. Go down and head right, and you've just taken a massive shortcut to the boss - if the Eggplant Wizards don't nail you on the way. This is useful for (and has been used in) tool-assisted speedruns, but with practice it should be possible to pull off consistenly in a non-assisted run as well. Catch me if you can In Stage 4, you can go through the roof if you hold up and left/right. When you're about to enter Medusa's chamber, hold up and right. When Medusa's fully scrolled into the screen, you'll be sitting in the top right corner. If you let go of the controller, you'll slide back out again. Kill the mallets When you pick up a harp and turn the enemies to mallets, shoot a mallet. It will be destroyed and leave a heart behind, as if it still were the enemy. Ghost Tamambo In the third fortress (Section 3-4), there is a room with Red Tamambos and two statues. first, kill all the enemies. Then smash one of the statues. Another Red Tamambo will appear, but if you shoot it, it'll only leave one heart and 100 XP. If you destroy the second statue, it'll happen again. You'll note that you can't reach the top ladder when the statues are gone, but if you exit the room and re-enter it, a platform will be there instead, since the statues "overwrite" the platforms - the statues belong to the background, and can't share the tile with the platform tile. No lava damage Sometimes, when you duck and hold left or right against the wall when in the lava, you won't take any damage. This also applies to other "damage tiles" and the hot spring, but don't rely on it so keep you from taking damage. Strange pause sound Simply hit the Start button rapidly. The pause sound will be interrupted and distorted. *Bling* If you don't collect a harp or a glass with water of life, it'll make a sound as if you collected it when it leaves the screen. My hair's on fire! Simply use a feather to start flying, have the fire arrows activated, and press up. There is no animation for Pit flying and aiming upwards, so the fireball appears on top of his head. Disappearing enemies Sometimes you'll see enemies disappearing in Sections with moving platforms in them. I suspect this is because the platforms use the same pointers as the enemies, and if the enemies would not be destroyed, the lifts would never appear. So it's not a glitch, but more of an intentional bugfix. ~ Ultimate password ~ Need a little help beating the game? Here's a password I got together by "hacking" a bit. It has the maximum number of all equipment in the game possible to fit into a password. Stage: 1-2 (starting on Section 1-1 overrides all other stats) Weapons: All Activated weapons: All Stolen weapons: None Score: 16777215 (displayed as 9999999) Level: 5 Strength: 13 (can only do 5 against regular enemies, but you'll slay the bosses - no higher Strength is possible to achieve with a password, only with RAM editing) Hearts: 4095 (displayed as 095 in-game and 999 when paused (as with Strength, no higher is possible with a password)) Mallets: 128 (displayed as 99) Feathers: 128 (displayed as 99) Bottles: 63 (displayed as 8) Credit card: Yes Barrel: Yes ORIGINAL NES VERSION All "0" are zeros: 6eW3!! !!!!00 F38W!H C0042N WII VIRTUAL CONSOLE VERSION On the second row, the first character is a small "L" and the second character is the number "1": IeW6!! !!!!00 l18W!H C0042j ~ Technical notes on passwords ~ There is no such thing as an unlimited ammount of any item, nor is there any password-activated invincibility. If a password makes you unable to gather hearts, it's because your credit card debt is anything up to 4095. Technically, with RAM editing, your debt could be 65535, but the actual password can only save numbers up to 4095. When the number of mallets or feathers go beyond 99 (actually unallowed), the game will only display 99. Be warned that while you think you could technically have 255 feathers or mallets, more than 128 feathers means 0 feathers, and more than 128 mallets means 1 mallet. The only thing the game looks for when you enter a password, is if the checksum letters are correct. Think of it as a small ID tag that is calculated depending on the rest of the password. This means that you can make the game set several values to anything up to either 255 or 4095, if you know what you are doing, and it will still accept them. This is the case with passwords such as the famous "8uuuuu uuuuuu uuuuuu uuuuuu". It simply sets the values to things that are usually not allowed in the game, but accepted anyway since the checksum is correct. Thus you do not have infinite bottles, and you do not have an infite debt on your credit card - the numbers are just really, really high. Additionally, if you give the game an erroneous Section number (which is very common if you just type something random), it will crash. What the "ending passwords" I and Jean-Luc created really do is to skip to the ending seqence, which works like a regular Section. No passwords that spell something out are intentional to my knowledge, as the only thing required for a password to be accepted is the checksum. Kid Icarus accepts 64^22 out of 64^24 posssible passwords - that's a LOT. Just punch in whatever text you want, and as long as the last two characters (the checksum) are correct, the password is accepted. There are no hardcoded passwords that I know of either, unlike the only hardcoded one in Metroid (NARPASSWORD). ~ Into the unknown ~ Have you ever wondered what's inside all the "rooms" you cannot reach in the fortresses (outside the game world), or what would happen if you could keep scrolling the screen at the end of the Sections? I wondered, so I found out with an emulator. Unfortunately, the results were pretty boring. Every single potential fortress room you cannot normally reach is defined as an empty default room - it's the same one you see when you beat the fortress, where Pit runs through it while your XP is tallied. As for scrolling the screen past the game world borders, I've only managed to do it in Section 3-3. First you see the "end Section" corridor, but when passing it and scrolling it off the screen, the game immediately crashes. So unlike Metroid, there doesn't seem to be any glitched rooms, leftover rooms or "hidden worlds" to speak of. =============================================================================== ][ 14. Important game notes ][ =============================================================================== I decided to make this a little section of its own. After the ending, the game will start over, but with these things intact: Total score, weapons, hearts, Level, Strength and credit card debt. After completing the game, when you go back to Section 1-1, don't die and write down the password! You'll find that when you type it in, you'll begin at 1-1, but with none of the things you had when you got the password. This is because any password that starts you in 1-1 overrides absolutely everything else and starts you with nothing. Counter this by completing 1-1, then writing down the password you get when dying in 1-2. Many "game files" have been lost this way, so keep it in mind. This is the reason my "ultimate password" starts you in 1-2 instead of 1-1. All of this is possibly an artifact from the Japanese game, where save slots were used rather than passwords. Additionally, since the "Room of death" is a problem for many players, it has its own little section in "12. Strategies". I'm referring to a room in the third fortress, near the top-left corner, with two Eggplant Wizards guarding the way. =============================================================================== ][ 15. Wii Virtual Console differencies ][ =============================================================================== The Wii version of the game is subtly different from the original, but in a way that has major consequences. For some reason, the weapon bits and the checksum calculation have changed, making most old passwords unusable. This includes the well-known "cheat codes", although if you've read the "technical notes on passwords" above, you'll know they were not intentionally constructed in the first place. However, it's still a fair argument that the staff responsible should've taken care to keep the password system perfectly intact for the sake of the slightly older gamer generation, who may still have their old fond passwords written down, or those who want to try the famous codes. At the time of writing, Jean-Luc Romano is working on a program to translate passwords between the NES and Wii versions. In the meantime we've generated Wii versions of the instant ending and ultimate passwords in this FAQ, detailed in "8. The endings and how to get them" and "13. Miscellaneous fun". The only in-game difference in the Wii version, however, seems to be that the screen pulses red at the end, instead of flashing rapidly. I also do not know if the Famicom version of Kid Icarus was released on Japan's Virtual Console service or not (considering they got the Japanese GBA port), in which case the password system doesn't even exist, so it wouldn't be a problem. =============================================================================== ][ 16. Japanese version (Famicom) differencies ][ =============================================================================== Kid Icarus was released in Japan on the Famicom Disk System as "Hikari Shinwa: Palutena no Kagami", roughly "Myth of Light: The Mirror of Palutena". It has some major differencies from the game we know as Kid Icarus on the NES. As the game was stored on a rewritable disk, it had three save slots to record your progress instead of passwords. It also had a highscore list. When you beat the game and restarted on the same file, nothing carried over. Other notable differencies include better sound effects. You also had to eject the disk and swap sides a few times - the save menu, the final Stage and the ending were on side A, while the rest of the game was on side B. In the final Stage, you had to scroll the screen forward manually, just like in Stage 2. You also had to hold the jump button to fly, making Medusa more difficult, and you collided with the blocks and obstacles on the screen rather than passing through them. Some enemy patterns were different in this Stage as well. The Famicom version was later re-released on the Gameboy Advance on a yellow cartridge, as part of the Nintendo Classic Series. As far as I can tell, it even includes the complete original manual. However, this release was Japanese only. (I was fortunate enough to recieve my copy from someone visiting Japan). ~ Japanese version endings ~ It's worth noting that the endings were determined in a completely different way in the Japanese FDS version. Here's a quick guide. Simply add your Level together with your Strength, and you'll get a number from 3-10 (it's impossible finishing the game with a Level of 1 because of how much experience the bosses give you). Then check the list below to see what ending you get: +--------+----------+----------------------------+ | | Level+ | | | Ending | Strength | Description | +========+==========+============================+ | Worst | 3 to 5 | Pit's upper body is turned | | | | into a Specknose. | +--------+----------+----------------------------+ | Poor | 6 to 7 | Pit gets a hat and a | | | | sickle (mop?). | +--------+----------+----------------------------+ | Medium | 8 | Pit gets a helmet and a | | | | short stick (spear?). | +--------+----------+----------------------------+ | Good | 9 | Pit gets a helmet with a | | | | red tuft, and a spear. | +--------+----------+----------------------------+ | Best | 10 | Pit becomes a big warrior. | +--------+----------+----------------------------+ So the best NES ending does not exist, instead there's a different "worst" ending. The irony remains that getting the worst ending requires more playing skill than a better one. =============================================================================== ][ 17. Copyright, contact, other FAQs ][ =============================================================================== ~ Copyright ~ You may copy this file to your computer and spread it as much as you want, as long as you credit me. You may not sell this file for money, and you may not upload it on any site or similarly publish it without my permission. Only Gamefaqs.com, Neoseeker.com and my personal homepage have the right to host it. ~ Contact ~ E-mail: daniel.remar@gmail.com Homepage: http://www.remar.se/daniel/ GameFAQs forum nick: Ultimortal Please contact me if you have found any errors in this FAQ, or suggestions for improvements, and I'll include your name in the next update. Please write in English or Swedish. ~ Other FAQs by me ~ Enemy list and more (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, N64) As of writing this, the "Final Version" of this FAQ has been removed from my homepage due to how poorly written it was. Enemy list and more (The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, N64) Same as above, this FAQ has been pulled from my homepage and was never uploaded anywhere else. Something tells me that not a single person has read it, but at least it kept me occupied with something. :p =============================================================================== ][ 18. Epilogue and contributors ][ =============================================================================== Phew... I think I got everything covered now. If you still think there's something missing, or if something is wrong, drop me a line and I'll update with credits to you. This FAQ was originally constructed entirely by me, and a whole lot of intense Kid Icarus playing. Then Disch popped in and told me about the Skill stat, making me eager to take the game apart myself, so I started RAM editing until I found all the last pieces of information I could squeeze out. Since then, several more people have contributed, as listed below. I hope you enjoyed the guide! Thanks to GameFAQs user sp unit 262 for the quick leveling strategy on the Reapettes in Section 1-2. Thanks to Cyn (cynthiarose@gmail.com) for a better strategy to get the Strength upgrade in Section 2-2. Thanks to Disch Wersher for the Skill stat, and the truth about the treasure chamber rooms. I can't thank you enough! Thanks to Jean-Luc Romano for info on the first upgrade chamber, the section Ram editing under "Miscellaneous fun", and his password cracking that enabled me to create the passwords to view the different endings. Thanks to Björn De Meyer for reading this document and commenting on the spelling. I always miss those little things... Thanks to Michael Sarich on the GameFAQs board for helping me improve the layout and some small things of this FAQ. Thanks to loyalNESgamer on the GameFAQs board for pointing various things out. Thanks to Shaughn Maguire for the initial information on the Japanese Kid Icarus. Seems like the instruction booklet was right after all... well, sort of. :) There's always something new to learn about this game. Thanks to Nintendo for this wonderful but short game series that deserves another sequel. And some big thanks to Gamefaqs.com and Neoseeker.com, who happily update my FAQ and host it for me. _______________________________________________________________________________ End of document - Copyright Daniel Remar 2002-2010