 |
|
|
| Astro Boy: Omega Factor A GameBoy Advance action game reviewed on 8/7/2009 by Wesley Pollow. |
|
"Astro Boy blasts his way onto the Gameboy Advance. Treasure really brings a lot to the table, and proves you can still have a fresh 2-D action experience. Who would have thought?"
There is so much I want to say about Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Most of it however would be me gushing about how awesome this game is. When I sit down to seriously play a Gameboy Advance title, I’m usually prepared for a mildly unoriginal experience, likely a sequel or remake of an old Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis favorite. When I first sat down to play Astro Boy, it was like being splashed with ice cold water. I found myself thinking “could this really be an original action title on a system devoted to 2-D gaming and sequels?!” Astro Boy (the game) follows the exploits of Astro Boy (the robot) through his mission to bring humanity and robots to a peaceful and understanding way of interacting. As things start to get out of hand, Astro is reluctantly forced to start fighting. He is equipped with a wide variety of abilities and weapons. The game features 43 levels. Thankfully, it isn’t necessarily as simple as all that. The gameplay itself is somewhat straight-forward. The levels blend all of Astro’s abilities and his mission into the gameplay making things a bit more interesting. In order to be more human, Astro is equipped with the “Omega Factor.” Using the Omega Factor, Astro is intended to bring humans and robots to an understanding with one another. As Astro meets new people in levels (sometimes they are hidden, sometimes they are just standing in your path), he learns to understand them. When this happens, you can upgrade the Omega Factor which results in better abilities. You can choose how you use each Omega point. Astro has about 7 abilities to choose to upgrade. All of them are important. Some are weapons, and others are special abilities like the Hyper Sensors which can alert you of secrets. Choose carefully though, or you may find yourself in touch situations without the proper tools to defend yourself. Also worth noting is that the characters you meet to complete Astro’s Omega Factor are not just “Astro Boy” characters. Some of them are from other Osamu Tezuka works. Treasure has managed to mix these characters and create a faithful story to go with Tezuka’s little wonder-bot. When meeting each character you will be let in on different parts of the plot and information about where other characters might be. For an action game, the plot is actually pretty heavy, and character interaction abounds. Astro Boy: Omega Factor doesn’t just have gameplay on its side. The detail put into this game rocks. All of the levels make pretty good use of parallax and what not. By doing so, the result is that the game feels like there is a lot going on other than just what is within Astro’s immediate path. All of the character animations are gorgeous. When you use Astro’s arm cannon, the action freezes for a moment while showing Astro’s hand transform into the gun and shoots an enormous beam of energy. The other EX attacks are both equally impressive. Bosses have similarly impressive attacks as well. The smaller non-boss enemies have some surprising detail as well. Typically, they will give various gestures, or prepare their weapons before attacking. When you attack them, they will show a look of pain. You often times will also find miniature or giant versions of enemies. Those ones are just as detailed as the regular sized enemies. To say the least, the graphics are good, but it’s a lot of the smaller attention to detail that truly make Astro Boy shine. The audio is also quite remarkable. I'm still find myself humming a few of the tunes in my head. The various sound effects for weapons and such are great as well. Be it gameplay, graphics, or sound, Treasure really knows what they are doing. Among all of this greatness, there is one minor complaint. The issue with the game is that it is just way too short. In Astro Boy’s defense, this may not be an issue to anyone who plans to play for a perfect game. Getting a perfect game requires at least two or three full play throughs. During this time, the character dialogue changes, as do some of the events. Due to this, it isn’t as if you are just mindlessly repeating the game. When doing all of this, actual play time should triple, and even after you complete the full game you will likely pick it up just to play more. It’s just that good!
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
