Masahiro Sakurai on Kid Icarus: Uprising's tone, courtesy of MSNBC:
We didn’t make it too serious. This is evident in the situations where characters are joking while they fight. I feel like in recent games, the plot moves forward with too much angst and pain. I think it’s nice to have something bright for a change.
Are you a hardcore FPS player who wants to get into the newest Nintendo entry? Today is your lucky day! By changing one simple option you can play Kid Icarus: Uprising in the first-person perspective.
Navigate your way through Kid Icarus' menus to reach the control options (they are also available from the pause menu):
Options > Controls > Control Configuration
There you will be presented with two options for controlling Pit's movement. Select the default setting (Circle Pad). The next screen you will be taken to modifies the reticle controls. Selecting the last option will enable you to use both the face buttons on the 3DS and the touch screen to aim.
An interesting side effect of this is that the "View Change" button is remapped to Up on the D-Pad and its functionality altered. Prior to this change you would have to hold Y in order to enter FPS mode, now you can toggle it on or off by simply pressing Up on the D-Pad.
Upon activating this, you will stay in first-person mode as you shoot & dodge your way to victory.