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The best GBA game you didn't play...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

And I almost didn't either until a few years back when seeing it used in my GameStop. The game only cost me $10 but y'know, if I paid attention when this game actually came out, I would have readily payed $30.

This game... I mean, it's Astro Boy, an anime icon, the game though has its own storyline (and character designs) seems closer to the recent 2003 anime the game accompanied. Anyway, back to this game, this wonderful gem of a game... It's gonna be hard not spoiling this wonderful game for you.

Story:

After the game prologue Astro starts his training in Dr. Elephun's lab this is basically just helping you get into the games controls and you'll need it. Right after you'll be swept into Stage 1 and onward through an excellent story full cameos and roles from characters of the Osamu Tezuka universe.

The games story is quite interesting especially a certain turning point where you're lead to believe is the final battle only to learn well... just wow. Very strong message the Astro Boy games are known for and the endings (yes, this alludes to what I said earlier) are real emotion bringers.

Gameplay:
Like I said, this game is a gem. It's part side scroll beat 'em up, part side scroll shooter, part explorer in one nifty little game. The game has three modes. Easy (I haven't played this), Normal (which is quite hard) and Hard (which is a nightmare). Hard lives up to its title as enemies hit hard and bosses can pretty much 1HKO you if you don't upgrade Astro's health.

And to upgrade Astro's health and everything else is in the title. The Omega factor is quite a unique customize system. To utilize it, Astro needs to meet many different characters who'll all fall into certain places in Astro's judgment (Friend, love, enemy etc) Astro makes these judgments and each confirmation meeting allows you to access Astro's Omega Factor and upgrade his Health, Power, Laser, and Bullet weapons. Some people you meet start as "???" But don't worry, as the game moves along, Astro (and you) will see these people for what they are and the call is made there.

Replay Value:
It depends on you. I fell in love with this game and all the extra challenges (and lovely story) in the game made me play over and over until hard mode and its insanity made me stop. Try seeing if you can beat Stage 1 to the final areas, the game even times you for it. Good luck.

Astro Boy Omega Factor: One of the best GBA games made that was shunned due to all the hype around other games. It's a shame, but if you can, pick this game up! You'll love it.

ASTRO BOY VEACA!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

An excelent game, I recomend this product to everyone that enjoy playing with robots. Even though astro boy don't look like your every day robot, he's more like a little kid with a strange haircut.

Treasure does it again

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Though you'd be pained to actually find their logo somewhere on the game's box, Treasure developed this amazing title - one of the few licensed games to really go above and beyond in the gameplay department. In fact, this is one of the few GAMES period to go above and beyond in the gameplay department. Taking cues from the Konami classic Rocket Knight Adventures, Astro Boy: Omega Factor features great ground- and air-based combat with massive, exciting bosses. Astro Boy saves your progress automatically, which is a good thing. This game is HARD - but never at the expense of fun! You will travel all over the world (even through time) to try and get the humans and robots to cooperate in Omega Factor's charming story.

This game has it all - addictive short-term gameplay, a massive upgrades system that has drastic affects on your abilities, and probably the coolest replay motivator in any platform game ever. Once you finish the game the first time through, you go on a scavenger hunt through time and space to try and correct the damage the twisted villain has committed - each of the levels changes slightly, with some completely new levels and many new boss fights being revealed along the way. Completing this scavenger hunt will grant you access to the final, incredibly difficult area, and finally the game's good ending.

I almost forgot to mention how fun the actual combat is - this is one of the few sidescrolling games ever to even slightly capture the feel of anime combat. A great balance of make believe and real physics mean that you do a lot of your ground combat in the air still - air attacks let you hover for a short amount of time, allowing you to engage any enemy on the screen in any way you choose. A powerful dodge move lets you take on groups of 20 enemies at a time, even if they are as tall as the screen (and they will be!) The game is also tuned for the heavy use of special moves - every 10 or 20 punches charges your power meter, allowing you to do a devastating attack that is not just meant for bosses. Even using your special attacks charges the meter, so the regular gameplay takes on a really addictive, rhythmic quality as you decide who to punch and who to blast.

If you like GBA action games at all, this belongs in your system, along with Gunstar Super Heroes, Warioland 4, Drill Dozer, and Dawn of Sorrow.

great underrated game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

i love this game on the gameboy sp. i tried it on the ps2 and it wasn't that great. but playing it on the gba was cool and made up for it. thanks

Awesome but really short

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

There is a lot of text in the game, but you can skip through it very quickly if you want too. Amazingly fun and original with beautiful graphics. Cons are it is a very repetitive button masher, and it is wicked short. It took me two hours to beat the game on normal and I'm just an okay gamer. Each level was ridiculously short and flew byin a minute. The boss levels were cool by even the hardest ones were really easy to figure out how to beat. You pretty much only use one button when attacking.

MegaMan meets Rocket Knight Adventures.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: March 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I doubt many people will remember that game, but Rocket Knight Adventures was a great Genesis game in the mid-90's. You played as an opossum knight with a rocket pack. Some levels had you running around, platforming and bustin' up the bad guys. Others were strictly side-scrolling flying/shooter levels. Upon playing Astro Boy here, that's what it reminded me of. It was fun back then, and it's still fun now. While you might be turned off by a game about Astro Boy, who isn't exactly what most would consider a cool idea for a game character, you can rest assured that this is a fun game that has tons of things that make you come back for more. For a handheld game, this sucker is pretty long. Especially considering it's not one of the GBA's many rpg ports.

The game starts out with a brief story of why Astro Boy was created. We then go through a training level where you learn all of his useful moves. From the simple jump, punch and kick to the finger laser and rocket dash. He even has 3 special attacks: the arm cannon, machine gun and EX Dash. The arm cannon is a beefed up version of the finger laser, taking out tons of enemies at once directly in front of you. But, you can be hit from behind, canceling out the attack completely. The machine gun stuns more powerful enemies and takes out the weaker ones most of the time. It's a great set up for bosses, stunning them and then busting out the arm cannon. Finally is the EX Dash, which isn't -that- useful compared to the other two, but it can be used as an extra boost for those hard-to-reach places, or to go through larger enemies later on in the game. What was impressive was that each of Astro's moves do come in handy on a regular basis. There were some levels where I had to use the EX Dash instead of the arm cannon because a massive stone was rolling my way. But after the basics, Astro goes to the city where someone's been kidnapped. Leave it up to the do-gooder robot to serve justice. The rest of the story can be complicated, as there are many supporting characters you meet along the way, some of which double-crossing you. It's nice to see that a lot of time went into not only the gameplay, but the story as well. I won't bother to give you the details after the first level, because there are A LOT of things that happen. At one point, you'll even fight farm animals in a bouncing tire. And the "ending" was a total shock, something I didn't see coming at all. But fortunately, there was much more. After this, there's a stage select mode, but you have to go through the stages one more time as part of the story. And you know what? I didn't care. The gameplay was so much fun that I enjoyed going back. Kicking enemies into others, knocking them around the screen. Taking out waves of oncoming robots with the finger laser one after the other. Thinking up quicker ways to take out the bosses, getting higher scores, sometimes not even getting hit. There was so much to do.

There are 2 more key elements in the game that are related to eachother. Meeting characters, and raising your stats. The Omega Factor is a part of Astro that takes note of everyone he meets, making him stronger. Usually after meeting someone (not all the time though), you can raise one stat for Astro. Health, Punch, Laser, Machine Gun, Sense and Rockets. All of these are important to making gameplay easier. Well, excetp Sense. You really only need to boost that once and ignore it until you've maxed out everything else. Health doesn't need an explanation, Punch raises the strength of your physical attacks, Laser raises how long it fires while holding the 'B' button during flying stages and how stong it is overall (including the arm cannon), Machine Gun strengthens its attack and how long it stuns enemies, Rockets allow you to dash in the air more times in a row, and Sense just lets you see in the dark. The cool thing about the rocket dash is that it lets you go past enemies and attacks. It might not seem important at first, but it's a very important stat to raise. Especially early in the game if you're playing on Hard mode. Yes, this game can be difficult at times. Some enemies kill Astro in one hit, other times you'll be overwhelmed with the enemies that you'll fall down once you get back up from an attack. And hard mode, for most people, makes it worse. I didn't have a problem myself, as I boosted the Rocket and Health stats right away, but the AI can get cheap at times. Some bosses get faster even, giving you less time to recover from an attack.

Graphically, Treasure did a great job as usual. There's rarely any slowdown, regardless of how many enemies appear on-screen. The arm cannon looks great, and reminded me of some of MegaMan's charged up blasts. Astro has very fluid movement, and there's some good detail that went into the enemies and backgrounds. No complaints here. The music...get this...there's a soundtrack for this game. Yes, a GBA game has its own soundtrack. That's how good it is. While you'd do better to play the game on the DS since it isn't stuck with one speaker, the music is still enjoyable on the GBA. A lot of tracks are memorable, and I still hum along some of the music that plays during cutscene where Astro talks to others. Sound effects are just as enjoyable, ranging from painful sounding crushes to high-pitched lasers.

I'm glad I picked up Astro Boy: The Omega Factor. I haven't had as much fun playing a straight up GBA game (no SNES/Genesis ports) as I did here. Even after beating it on Normal and Hard modes, I still go back for more. Making sure to get all the characters and going for the high score. Trust me, it's addicting. And I should make note that this is the first GBA game since Puzzle Fighter where I've played for more than a half hour at a time. No playing for a few minutes, shutting it off, and coming back to it later. I wanted to keep playing. And that doesn't happen much with handhelds for me. If I had the GameBoy Player for the GameCube, it'd be even worse. I probably would've beat it in one sitting. But pick up this game while you can. It's published by Sega, so you can expect it to vanish before the end of the year. Show some support for them, and Treasure, another fantastic company.

Astro Boy going for gold

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As a review once said, it's worth getting a GBA just to play this game. From the very first level, there is a satasfaction with kicking robots into each other, before wading in with your cannon and blowing them to bits. The gameplay itself is very well done, although some of levels can get tedious at times. A nice feature is meeting the characters and gaining more power, as well as reading about them once collected. The bosses are very well programmed, you don't mind going back a 2nd time to lay waste to them again. Overall, a good game with the potential for a sequal.

I would give it a perfect but

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: February 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

A nice a little game, but it's to short I still don't know how to fight that pegasus guy and I beat it twice on easy the story changed, but he still wasn't playable. Anyways it's probably the best side scroller I ever played for GBA he has seven special abilitys which you probably already know I might as will name them. Theres the arm cannon,sensors,fingerlaser,jets,he shoots bullets from his (...),his life, turbo attack. Also sometimes it temporarily slows down.

One of My 10 Best Games of 2004...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

While Astro Boy may not be one of the top animé franchises today here in the States, he sells like hotcakes over in the Land of the Rising Sun, where he's received fame status equivalent to that of the lovable Disney rodent Mickey Mouse. The little robot boy known as Astro was created by Dr. Tenma in memory of his son, Tobio, who was killed in a car accident. Raised by Dr. O'Shay, Astro has quickly become something of a moderator between humans and robots, with one group not entirely sure how to relate the other, except with fear. Through a series of events, Astro ends up at the heart of this struggle, and, through a dazzling number of plot twists, ends up in different realities and times in the war as well.

The game overall plays like a quirky beat-em-up, but because it's developed by the same team that headed the manic Gunstar Heroes for the Sega Genesis, surprises are pretty much guaranteed. And Astro Boy delivers. If you're a fan of animé, beat-em-up video games, or even the famed Mega Man series, Astro Boy will not disappoint.

In defeating Astro's enemies that come in all shapes and sizes, you have a wide range of moves at your disposal. There is the standard punch-kick combo, a laser for attacking faraway enemies, and the cool boost jets on Astro's feet will allow you to zoom past your enemies, or dodge their attacks. As you attack, you also build up a super meter at the top of the screen that can be later used to power a variety of special moves.

In addition to the standard side-scrolling, beat-em-up action, Astro Boy does attempt to break things up every now and then with some horizontal-shooter-style gameplay, and even a few challenging mid-air battles.

Despite the game's wackiness (fighting through screens of tiny little men, for example), the plot takes itself seriously, and the difficulty remains very real, meaning that you will die a lot in this game before you get the hang of how exactly to kill each enemy. Near the end of the game, for instance, you do battle with a giant samurai robot that can kill you in one hit, so you must learn his attack patterns and know them from rote.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the gameplay here is the ongoing quest during the game to meet as many people as you can. All of the characters in the game are creations of the mind behind Astro Boy, Tezuka Osamu. Meeting the various characters may or may not help the plot along, depending primarily on who you find and when you find them. However, when you do meet many of these hidden characters, you will be given a chance to boost your various abilities up one notch, so it's a good idea to find as many as you can throughout the game.

If you're fond of old-school-feeling games like the Contra series, Mega Man, and Final Fight, give Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the GBA a shot. And hey, the fact that you have to play through the thing at least twice to flesh out all of the story is a neat gimmick, and it really does add significantly to the total playtime. It's a solid title, and--from what I've heard--a lot better than its next-gen cousin.

Charming but short

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Astro Boy is a short but fun experience. Be aware when you plunk down your hard earned cash that this game can be won in an afternoon or two. The short play time is padded by having players repeat all the levels and sometimes visiting them a third time.

The game is a side scrolling platform/shooter. There are both walking and flying levels and by and large the control feels very good. The punching feels correct and the flying levels are well done. The bosses are old school. Some can be beaten in one attempt but others may require dozens of tries.

The one thing I enjoyed about the game was the general feel. I'm rather ignorant when it comes to Astro Boy and it was fun collecting the various characters from the series. The game even offers short bios including when characters appeared in the Anime and Manga. For instance tt was mentioned that the character of Red Duke has been reused by Astro Boy's creator Osamu Tezuka in other stories including the recent movie Metropolis. The character of Alejo is thought to be Osamu Tezuka himself.

The game has considerable charm and actually inspired me to learn more about Astro Boy but I just wish the game could have been longer.

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