Review #708: Astro Boy - Omega Factor

 The awesome factor, the Treasure factor.

 Man, where is Treasure? Everything they ever made is a cult classic, and with good reason: their games are quirky but incredibly fun. Astro Boy - Omega Factor is no exception. This is an action/beat'em up game based on Osamu Tezuka's most famous creation, Astro Boy, and as soon as you pick up the game you can tell that this is as snappy and flashy as any other game Treasure ever made.

 Omega Factor features a completely original story, starting with Astro Boy's creation and discovering how he came to be as well as stopping a war between humans and robots. Osamu Tezuka loved using his characters as actors, so Tresure paid homage to that, if you're a Tezuka connoisseur you'll recognize a ton of the characters in this game, each one playing a different role. Finding these characters is a pretty major objective in the game, as each character you meet or find will allow you to upgrade Astro Boy.

 Gameplay is very simple, and very fun. A is used to jump, press it twice and you can air-dash, which grants you invincibility frames so that you can dodge attacks or enemies. B is a four hit combo, B+Up is a finger laser and B+Down is a kick that pushes back enemies onto other enemies. There's a very fun juggling system in the game, so you can knock enemies onto other enemies, and if you're fast enough, catch them with an attack on the rebound. You also have 5 EX attacks: A+B is a powerful dash, R is an arm laser and L is a butt-machingun that, while weak, stuns enemies and grants you temporary invincibility. You begin every stage with your SUPER gauge capped at 5, and each EX attacks cost you a gauge, but you can just fill it again by landing hits, so you can be pretty liberal with your super attacks.

 While you'll meet a few characters during the story mode, there are a ton of characters hidden on some stages. And it's in your best interest to find them, since they'll let you upgrade Astro Boy's different abilities: His health bar, his attack power, his special move power, the amount of dashes you can link together as well as a your 'senses', so that you can find characters more easily. It's a great system, and I loved being able to upgrade Astro Boy according to my own playstyle.

 If the game commits one sin, its gating the ending behind a second playthrough. Beating the game ends with Astro Boy dying.... but Phoenix comes in and grants you the ability to Stage Select, while keeping knowledge of the events that happened. The Story changes a bit, although most of the dialogue remains the same, and as you clear stages you are able to revisit them if you like. And you'll have to, as the only way to get the good ending is finding hints and revisiting stages after you cleared them a second time. It can be a bit dull, and some of it can be a bit too unclear, but pressing SELECT let's you see your found characters, and characters with a "!" above them could have hints for you.

 The game is a bit challenging on the Normal difficulty, but not too harsh.... but the second playthrough can be a bit unfair, with enemies taking huge chunks out of your health bar with a single hit. One of the latter bosses can kill you in two hits with a maxed out health bar. Unreal. I wished I could've lowered the difficulty, particularly because Stage 7's final boss is an absolute nightmare in this mode, but I pulled through and unlocked the true final stages. All in all, I think the difficulty setting is fine for the first playthrough, but too harsh during the second one.

 I'm not gonna beat around the bush, Astro Boy - Omega Factor is one of the best games on the Gameboy Advance, and one of the finest games Treasure has ever made. The action is fast, flashy and, above all, very fun, learning to juggle with enemies is very entertaining, and searching for hidden characters feels rewarding thanks to instant upgrades that lets you evolve Astro Boy as YOU see fit. The game is rather short and shouldn't take you more than 4 hours, both playthroughs included, but it's very replayable. A ton of years ago, when the game first released and I got myself a rom, I stayed all night playing the game to completion, highschool be damned. This time, I couldn't put my Gameboy down as soon as I put the cart in. It's that good.
 9.0 out of 10