Sakurai: No Uprising sequel planned, respecting original Kid Icarus important, leeway for NOA
Masahiro Sakurai along with the staff at Project Sora managed to successfully revive the once-dormant franchise, Kid Icarus. Uprising has been selling well around the world, and let’s not forget that it’s an incredible game.
Even with the game’s warm reception, Sakurai told IGN that he has no plans for a sequel.
He explained:
“If by ‘lasting universe’ you mean to ask if there’s a sequel, the answer is no. …we pushed a lot into the game in order to let people have this short yet deep experience, but the novelty of that would likely grow thin in the next game. For now, my thought is that perhaps we’ll see someone else besides me make another Kid Icarus in another 25 years.”
Uprising pays homage to the original game in a number of ways. Classic enemies return, pixel art appears throughout the adventure, and the “game over” music is taken straight out of the original NES title.
Sakurai commented on how its important to “never lose your respect for the original game” in the same interview:
“No matter how much you change a game’s genre and whatnot for the times, I think it’s vital you never lose your respect for the original game. With the first Kid Icarus, it’s not a serious adventure – it has a more humorous bent to it, one you don’t see in the original Legend of Zelda and Metroid that came out that generation. To embody that in a modern style, we made efforts not to have it seem like a run-of-the-mill battle – the story flow is really daring and unfolds in crazy ways that don’t pay too much attention to the setting.”
Lastly, Sakurai discussed how localization was handled for Uprising. He gave Nintendo of America quite a bit of leeway in translating the title:
“The Japanese version is definitely very comedic too. It’s something that takes advantage of the nuances of Japanese conversation, and not all of it works directly in English. We had NOA handle the localization, and I told them to change the meaning and content as much as they want – that I wanted conversations that sound natural and enjoyable to a native speaker.”
