Kid Icarus DX Is Giving Pit the Game Boy Color Upgrade Nintendo Never Did

Homebrew developer Astronaut_Majestic develops Kid Icarus DX, a full-color Game Boy Color conversion of the 1991 handheld classic Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters.

The Game Boy Color library is receiving an unofficial addition that feels suspiciously like something Nintendo could have released in 1999. Homebrew developer Astronaut_Majestic is working on Kid Icarus DX, a colour conversion of the 1991 Game Boy title Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. Nintendo's transition from Game Boy to Game Boy Color produced enhanced editions and colour-aware releases for several major portable series, but Pit's handheld adventure never received the treatment. Kid Icarus DX aims to correct that omission more than three decades later by rebuilding the visual presentation around Game Boy Color capabilities while retaining the underlying adventure.

Of Myths and Monsters itself occupies an unusual position in Nintendo history. It was the second Kid Icarus game, arrived on Game Boy after the NES original and then became the franchise's final dedicated release for roughly two decades before Kid Icarus: Uprising appeared on Nintendo 3DS. That makes the portable instalment both historically interesting and surprisingly easy to overlook.

The DX project belongs to an increasingly accomplished class of ROM-hacking and homebrew work that effectively creates the enhanced rereleases publishers never made: colour conversions, bug fixes, localisation work and quality-of-life improvements designed to remain playable on period-compatible hardware. There is no need to pretend it is an official Nintendo product; it isn't. But as an exercise in answering the question 'what if Nintendo had done this in the Game Boy Color era?', it is an appealing little piece of alternate history.