Leave it to old-school, oddball developer Treasure to make a cartoon-based platformer for the Game Boy Advance that isn't unplayable shovelware. They accomplished this by marrying surprising reverence for the original anime with retro action gaming chops, making a solid game that inspires nostalgia two different, vastly satisfying ways.

The gameplay feels familiar. It feels like Gunstar Heroes or Vectorman, as Astro Boy can only jump, punch, kick, shoot his finger-laser, or use one of several super attacks, all of which are introduced immediately. (The only wrinkle introduced later would be the flying stages, which play like a side-scrolling shooter, but the controls and enemies don't change significantly, making the transition simple.) This resemblance is more than skin-deep; Omega Factor is the game those games have become after being polished by fond memory and nostalgia. It's old-school in the best way possible.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor is based on the remake of Osamu Tezuka's classic anime, Astro Boy. To do justice to this historic anime, Treasure crafted one of the slickest 2D brawlers since...well...Gunstar Heroes. Astro Boy brawls and flies and shoots through beautiful cities, busy factories, and other beautiful saturated-color landscapes. Omega Factor is full of Technology Is Your Friend and shiny robots and mafia goons with shadowy faces and the other Astro Boy tics.

The remake Astro Boy anime was fairly true to the original, except for the addition of numerous characters from Tezuka's large library of work. Not only are all these characters present in Astro Boy: Omega Factor, which should amuse series fans, but searching out these various references and cameos is actually rewarded. Astro's attacks, sensors, air dash, and so on are powered up by one step every time he adds a new character to his Omega Factor matrix (by meeting them or satisfying some story condition.)

While Astro Boy powers up, so do the challenges. Treasure has had trouble balancing difficulty curves in recent years, but Omega Factor manages to break the curse, as the Normal mode manages to stay consistently hard without ever becoming frustrating. (The Hard mode will likely be too hard for any but Treasure fans, and Easy will be a cinch for anyone who can figure out which way to hold the system.) Players may need several tries to finish a stage, but completion is never based on rote memorization, an "old-school" design element that is increasingly just feeling old. Instead, players will need to sharpen their timing and use of Astro's abilities: real skill building, something missing in many modern games.

All is not perfect in Astro Boy's world, however. Treasure's quirkiness gives Omega Factor much of its personality, but also brings many of its flaws. To start, just as the player gets into duking it out with the swarms of cannon fodder enemies, stages start being replaced with boss after boss after boss. Granted, the bosses are generally creative and interesting, but the final area (not counting the hidden ending stage) is simply five bosses in succession, broken only by short cut-scenes.

Treasure's level design problem also extends to the scenario design. Finishing Omega Factor only leads to a cheat ending and an unlocked level-select mode. To get unlock the final area (finishing which gives the real ending), the player has to replay the entire game, watching for hints in the dialogue. These hints will send the player searching through stages a third time to find certain hidden characters, who in turn will give new vague hints, until the whole story is told. It's a neat idea in theory, but, in practice, the only way to find the final area is to simply head straight to GameFAQs, as missing one subtle hint (or getting a hint at the wrong time) can leave the player floundering.

Less systemic, but still obnoxious, is the dodgy framerate in complicated battles, like those swarms of enemy goons. When dodging attacks is based on split-second timing, having the entire game come to a screeching halt for a moment is not exactly fun. This problem never becomes game-breaking, but certain stages and boss battles are a bit more annoying because of it.

Other than the occasional slowdown, Astro Boy: Omega Factor is graphically beautiful. Astro is very slickly animated (although the mirrored sprites are old hat), and the various bosses are creative and eye-catching. Just watching them battle through the beautifully-realized stages is a treat for the eyes. The rank-and-file enemies are less creative, but the genericness is almost gleefully seized upon, as Treasure palette-swapped and scaled a handful of basic sprites to make an almost-charming army of expandable goons.

Kicking one of these robots or bees into a swarm of its comrades is pure fun, as the bloop of kicking it is followed by the blip-blip-BLIP of it striking the others. The attack effects are silly fun, evoking a nostalgic feeling without ever sounding low-res or gritty. The music is equally high-energy and warm-sounding, adding to the general Genesis-brawler feeling, despite the lack of stick-in-the-head tunes.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor is old-school for non-fanboys, and has a lot to entertain Osamu Tezuka fans without alienating newcomers. It may alienate players who dislike cute games or who feel the need to have a great deal of complexity, but anyone who just wants to blow up robots, tiny or enormous, will find hours of entertainment. Treasure has released another gem, one which doesn't require a lengthy search on eBay and/or a Saturn to enjoy.


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