Kid Icarus - 1986 (FDS, NES)

KID ICARUS 光神話 パルテナの鏡 ©1986 Nintendo Version: Famicom Disk System (FCD) Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Publisher: NINTENDO CO., LTD. Production: NINTENDO - RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 1 DIVISION (R&D1) Development: NINTENDO CO., LTD. Additional Work: TOSE CO., LTD. INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS CO., LTD

KEY STAFF: NINTENDO CO., LTD. Director: Satoru Okada, Toru Osawa Planning: Masao Yamamoto, Yoshio Sakamoto, Kenji Nishizawa, Hiroji Kiyotake Visual: Toru Osawa, Makoto Kano Program: Kenji Nishizawa Sound: Hirokazu Tanaka Production: Gunpei Yokoi Executive: Hiroshi Yamauchi TOSE CO., LTD. Program: Yasu Shimokawa, Ichiro Takigawa, Hitoshi Banba INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS CO., LTD. Program: Tohru Narihiro

NOTES: Following the success of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., the Nintendo R&D1 team that previously developed arcade like titles, began working on their own larger scale "action games". Kid Icarus was the debut of Toru Osawa as a video game designer, and he was the only staff member working on the game at the beginning of the project. Originally Osawa wanted to make an action game with role-playing elements, and wrote a story rooted in Greek mythology, which he had always been fond of. Osawa drew the pixel art, and wrote the technical specifications, which were the basis for the original prototype. After Nintendo's action-adventure Metroid had been finished, more R&D1 staff members were allotted to the development of Kid Icarus. Yoshio Sakamoto and Hiroji Kiyotake joined the team upon return from vacation after the completion of Metroid. Sakamoto streamlined the development process, and made many decisions that affected the design of Kid Icarus. Several out-of-place elements were included in the game, such as credit cards, a wizard turning player character Pit into an eggplant, and a large, moving nose that was meant to resemble composer Tanaka. Sakamoto attributed this unrestrained humor to the former personnel of the R&D1 division, which he referred to as "strange". Osawa said that he had originally tried to make Kid Icarus completely serious, but opted for a more humorous approach after objections from the team. To meet the projected release date of December 19, 1986, the staff members worked overtime and often stayed in the office at night. They used torn cardboard boxes as beds, and covered themselves in curtains to resist the low temperatures of the unheated development building. Eventually, Kid Icarus was finished and entered production a mere three days before the release date. Several ideas for additional stages had to be dropped because of these scheduling conflicts. Programming was handled by Tose Co., Ltd. for the Famicom Disk System, with Tohru Narihiro from Intelligent Systems converting it to the NES cartridge format with help from Nintendo's Kenji Nishizawa password system. Full Staff List: Kid Icarus Credits

INFOBOX
Version: Famicom Disk System (FDS), Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Source: KRIRM. Nintendo JP. Sakamoto Interview: Wired.com.
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