Kid Icarus: Uprising soaring to 3DS

LOS ANGELES--Nintendo's Kid Icarus series, dormant since the 1986 NES classic came to Nintendo's Virtual Console in 2007, will be reborn on Nintendo's newest, 3D-enabled portable. The new installment in the franchise is titled Kid Icaraus: Uprising, and Nintendo indicated that it will launch alongside the 3DS, though no specific window was revealed.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata took the stage at its press briefing in the Nokia Theater this morning and spoke about the 3DS and Project Sora, a video game studio established for the sole purpose of creating games for the system.

Iwata said, "We felt such a project deserved to feature a character already familiar to many of you," later confirming a new Kid Icarus title for the portable. Kid Icarus: Uprising will feature both land based and flying combat, with its visuals resembling that of a PlayStation 2 title.

As Pit took to the screen in the trailer, he said "Sorry to keep you waiting," a light joke at the series' recent absence.

Iwata said the 3DS will feature a better sense of height, width, and depth in gaming worlds than its predecessors, which will in turn making it easier to navigate them. Further, he said in Uprising, this new technology will make it easier to judge distance between the player and floating objects, for example.

In 2009, Nintendo purchased a majority stake of Japanese developer Sora Ltd. to form a new subsidiary development house, the aforesaid Project Sora. Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Kirby and Super Smash Bros. Brawl director, is onboard with Uprising, which will launch when the 3DS is released at a to-be announced date in the future.