The plot of Kid Icarus revolves around protagonist Pit's quest for three sacred treasures, which he must equip to rescue the Greek-inspired fantasy world Angel Land and its ruler, the goddess Palutena.

A third entry in the series, Kid Icarus: Uprising, was released for Nintendo 3DS in March 2012, after Pit's inclusion as a playable character in the 2008 game Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Treasure chambers contain items, enemy nests give the player an opportunity to earn extra hearts, and hot springs restore Pit's health.

[7][8][12] In the god's chamber, the strength of Pit's bow and arrow may be increased depending on several factors, such as the number of enemies defeated and the amount of damage taken in battle.

[8] A single-use item, the hammer, can destroy stone statues, which frees a flying soldier called a Centurion that will aid the player in boss battles.

[8][16] For each of the bosses destroyed, Pit receives one of three sacred treasures that are needed to access the fourth and final stage, the sky temple.

[18] She launched a surprise attack, and stole the three sacred treasures — the Mirror Shield, the Light Arrows and the Wings of Pegasus — which deprived Palutena's army of its power.

[17] Originally he 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.

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.

[17] 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.

[26] In August 2004, Kid Icarus was re-released in the Famicom Mini Disk System Selection for the Game Boy Advance.

It was available early for free via download code to users who registered two selected 3DS games with Nintendo in Japan, Europe, and Australia.

In October 1992, a staff writer of the UK publication Nintendo Magazine System said that it was "pretty good fun", but did not "compare too well" to other platform games, due in part to its "rather dated" graphics.

Although he considered the blend of gameplay elements from different genres a success, he said that it suffered from "frustrating" design flaws, such as its high difficulty level.

He found it to be "underwhelming", "buggy", and "pretty annoying", because of "shrill music, loose controls, and some weird design decisions".

He recommended players to buy the Virtual Console version, if only because it allowed them to experience Kid Icarus "with a fresh perspective".

Though favoring the Grecian scenery, he criticized the graphics for the small, bicolored, and barely animated sprites, the black backgrounds, and the absence of multiple scrolling layers.

He was dissatisfied with the emulation, because the Virtual Console release preserves the slowdown problems of the NES, and removed its cheat codes.

He found it to be "not an issue worthy of a prolonged rant", but said that "[Nintendo has] willfully edited its product, and damaged its nostalgic value in the process".

[7][43] Nintendo Power also listed it as the 20th best NES video game, and praised it for its "unique vertically scrolling stages, fun platforming, and infectious 8-bit tunes", but with "unmerciful difficulty".

[51] However, the game was said to be in production without the approval of Nintendo, and Factor 5 canceled multiple projects following the closure of its American branch in early 2009.

[52][53][54] In a 2010 interview, Yoshio Sakamoto was asked about a Kid Icarus game for the Wii, to which he replied that he was not aware of any plans to revive the franchise.

[56] The game is a third-person shooter, and was developed by Project Sora, the company of Super Smash Bros. designer Masahiro Sakurai.

[58][59][51][60] In May 2011, independent developer Flip Industries released Super Kid Icarus, an unofficial Flash game with a SNES style.