Astro Boy: Omega Factor - Discussion

[charlesr]

Lots of people recommending this, so I hope it lives up to expectations.

Here's our review: http://www.ntsc-uk.com/review.php?pl...&game=AstroBoy

[CrispyXUK]

It's awesome.

[Megamoppy]

Man I played that game to death, got everything in that game and the bosses were incredibly hard

[charlesr]

Just had my first go on this. I keep using my powerups on the L and R triggers by accident on the micro. Might have to break out the GBA SP.

Liking it so far. Reminds me of a 2D version of Gunvalkyrie, with the dashing jets.

Oh and do the spiders about 2 minutes in ever end or should I be doing something else?

[Dogg Thang]

For the first time ever, I'm playing the replay game! I'm on the fourth stage and breezing through, only having used about 478 continues so far. The bosses kick my ass, usually when they're about getting cornered.

The graphics are lovely though the main enemies are pretty dull and just scaling them up and down seems cheap. Could have done with more interesting looking enemies. The characters are all fun, though I've never watched any Astroboy.

[crocky-chocky]

Started playing this last night. I'd forgotten it was this months replay, but just wanted to try out my new GBA player for the GC...?1.99 from Gamestation!

Anyway, great game! I'm on level 6 I think. Like Dogg says, it's a shame about the re-scaled sprites and all that (though there is something oddly fun about beating up the tinier sprites), but the bosses are great. I'm really enjoying all the characters too. I'm a Tezuka noob, but I'm pretty sure there's appearances from characters outside of the Astro Boy universe. Looks ace too.

Great stuff...I've got a lot of Treasure love at the mo...just playing through Bangai-O for the first time having never bothered to get past level 6 previously...lovely game!

[abigsmurf]

Lots of Tezuka characters appear in multiple series with similar personalities (but they're essentially different people most of the time). Having a read through the encyclopedia once you've unlocked them all is fairly interesting.

[Ostrog]

Tezuka often used various characters like they were 'actors' playing different roles. So you might see that bloke with the candle on his head either as a villain or as someone else entirely. At least that's how it was in the manga. The fella with the mustache appeared in a few stories (like Metropolis and The Lost World) before he turned up in the Astro Boy books.

I need to play this game again. I got as far as this six-armed robot boss, but I couldn't progress further due to him repeatedly handing me my arse. It was quitea bit into the game, sometime after the time travel missions. Great game anyway.

[crocky-chocky]

That's cool that Tezuka treated characters as actors...I'd imagine it was so he could churn comics out as quickly as he did.

I'm just on to that six-armed fella...he's a chuff to beat.

Still enjoying it very much, though if it gets any tougher I'll probably not see the end.

[charlesr]

Holy moly. I've always been a bit rubbish at run/gun type things, but..... How the hell do you beat this multi armed walking bug thing (fairly early on in the game)? I always get within 1 blob of finishing him off and then run out of machine gun fire and eventually I mess up and he falls on me.

[crocky-chocky]

Think I know who you mean. You're probz better off using your Laser on him (the one assigned to the right shoulder button), rather than the machine gun. I think when you get his health down so far he starts jumping and falling on you repeatedly? Predict where he'll fall and dash to the opposite side of the screen then use your up+B laser. Keep doing that and you should do it...he starts jumping faster towards the end though!

[charlesr]

Ah, I'd completely forgotten about that particular laser. Nice one.

I've just vanquished it. Method I used was

->Open Spoiler<-

to jump up through the tail and there's a place you can stand on its back that the swinging leg can't reach you, and from there, persistently kick (not punch) the unit on its back. It throws you off every now and then, but I just got back on. If the beast got near the right edge of the screen I dashed away to the left because the screen edge pushes you into the range of the swinging leg! Once it started jumping off the screen, I moved to one side and then hammered the machine gun button until he had half a life left and then used the laser you memtioned (up and b) to finish him off with one shot.

Took 1m12s.

Really enjoying it so far.

[Dogg Thang]

I'm currently having my ass handed to me by loads of the coat-wearing guys flying on platform things. Endless continues. This is a tough game.

Playing it is making me want to check out some Astroboy DVDs or something. Or is the manga better?

[crocky-chocky]

Haven't read any of the mangas, and have only seen a wee bit of the newer Astro episodes...in Japanese.

Helpful eh? I'm in the middle of reading 'Buddha' though, it's supposedly the guys best and it's certainly very good so far. I really like his drawing style more than anything...I hear 'Phoenix' is a good one to check out too.

Anyways...still can't get past that six armed boss.

[Ostrog]

'Phoenix' is great from what I've read of it. I've got all of 'Buddha' as well, but I haven't got 'round to reading it yet. As for the Astro manga, it's great IMO. It's a pretty good read with a lot of the same humour and drama you'd find in his later works. Plenty of odd fourth wall moments too. I love those.
The various anime series are also worth a look, with the '60s and '80s series being closer to the manga. (Tezuka worked on both) but then if you don't care for the style of older anime you might not want to check them out. I love old anime though, so I really enjoyed 'em.
Also, both the '60s and 2003 series dvd releases don't have dual audio tracks - it's just english only. (the '80s dvds have both languages though) I'm just mentioning it as some folks might be concerned about that sort of thing.