Astro Boy: Omega Factor (2003)

Beat it at 1am on a Sunday night. Astro Boy Omega Factor is way harder than I anticipated. I died dozens of times while trying to beat the final bosses, the final final bosses and especially the final final final boss. It had been a journey. I loved the first play through. It was tough but feels reasonable. The second play through was meant to be a different timeline but the stages are almost identical and therefore felt repetitive. And unlocking the hidden stages and to the true ending was close to impossible without checking a strategy guide. I would have dropped the game soon after the first play though but I stuck to it because of RetroAchievement. And because of RetroAchievement, I even went onto find all the characters and completed the Omega Factor. But again, some of these characters are impossible to find unless you read a strategy guide, especially the last one: Sharaku. You have to collected everything else, and then beat the game, and DO NOTHING for 2 minutes when "The End" is shown on the screen. Anyway, overall an enjoyable experience especially considering that it's a license game.

Turn the clock back to 2004 and it would be no contest; Astro Boy: Omega Factor would be at that point the finest licensed game in all of creation. Sporting a dizzying cast of characters in such a short game, weaving a large portion of Osamu Tezuka's works together would be difficult. Treasure managed not only to do that, creating a memorable adventure of Astro Boy discovering his purpose and fighting through time and space, but created a mechanical beauty that stands this up as one of the best (if not the best) Gameboy Advance games.

The action is fairly intense and difficult in Astro Boy, featuring punches, kicks, and a long-distance laser with an invincibility dash. It's necessary to master these moves quickly, as enemies come in at all sides and sport a variety of attacks to keep the player on their toes. Upon meeting any new character in the game, Astro gets upgrades to any of his skills to keep the player strategizing how to move forward.

Not content with a single playthrough, the game also has the player weaving back and forth through levels to find every secret and unlock the heart of every character. Normally this would be tedious, but Astro Boy succeeds at a powerful plot that even makes returning to old stages fresh.

Given that this is Treasure, expect a LOT of bosses. Most of them aren't any pushovers either (looking at you, Pluto), and may require plenty of tries to take down. Luckily, apart from a score penalty the player can start over at short stage lengths, keeping frustration to a minimum.

I can't really find much bad to say about this game; it's a miracle Treasure was able to compress such solid action and a fantastic story within such a little cartridge. This magic wonder would be the target for licensed games to strive to, at least till the likes of the Arkham series came out. And as for Treasure games, it remains their finest 2D title to date.