Masahiro Sakurai is best known for his work on the Super Smash Bros. series, but he took a detour in the early days of the Nintendo 3DS handheld. Between Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the Super Smash Bros. Wii U and 3DS games, Sakurai directed Kid Icarus: Uprising, a critically-acclaimed Nintendo 3DS exclusive that many hailed as a worthy revival to the original Kid Icarus series. Kid Icarus: Uprising remains a 3DS exclusive. Second-hand copies are expensive, and with the impending shutdown of the Nintendo 3DS eShop, it will soon be even more difficult for fans to get their hands on the game.
However, a new rumor suggests that Kid Icarus: Uprising may very well be getting a second lease on life in the form of a Nintendo Switch port or remaster. Frequent Nintendo leaker Zippo, who has made some accurate predictions in the past, claims that Bandai Namco is working on a Kid Icarus: Uprising remaster for the Nintendo Switch. According to Zippo, this remaster will include a new control scheme and improved graphics. It will also reportedly retain the original's online multiplayer functionality. The game is said to be releasing at some point next year, but fans should take this information with a massive grain of salt for now.
Bandai Namco and Nintendo have a strong working relationship, and beyond that, Bandai Namco has worked directly with Sakurai on the Super Smash Bros. series. Considering this, it's plausible that if a Kid Icarus: Uprising remaster was in development that Nintendo would trust Bandai Namco with it. Then again, Nintendo trusted Bandai Namco with Metroid Prime 4, yet development on that project had to be restarted at Retro Studios.
If the Kid Icarus: Uprising Switch port is real and Zippo's information is correct, it sounds like it will address one of the biggest complaints that fans and critics had about the original. Despite Kid Icarus: Uprising earning a lot of praise at the time of its release, the controls proved to be divisive. A revamped control scheme could make Kid Icarus: Uprising easier to control and therefore more accessible to a wider audience than the 3DS original.
As far as ports go, Nintendo has so far focused mainly on porting Wii U games to the Nintendo Switch, but it would be great to see some of the better 3DS games get a similar treatment. After all, Nintendo has discontinued the 3DS and is shutting down the handheld console's eShop, so many of its exclusive game are going to become much harder for fans to get their hands on in the near future.
Kid Icarus: Uprising is available now, exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS.
Source: Zippo