Robot Parade

The following boss fight was fantastic. The enemy robot's patterns and the various ways that Astro Boy can defeat it (punch it, use the flying Spin Attack, chuck cars at it, grab its robotic tentacles and pull) made the game feel like a great old school platformer. After the fight was over (yes, I won), I expected the game to take off from there and become more and more exciting. Strangely enough, however, the game slammed on the brakes and returned to being a slow-paced chore.

This is Magnamite, the first boss in the game. He's big, but Astro Boy can take him.

There aren't any "levels" in the game, you see. If you're not fighting a boss, you're flying around Astro Boy's all-too-small world looking to talk to the proper person who will advance the story, which leads to another boss fight. At set points throughout the game, Astro also "discovers" his powers, giving him new abilities as he goes.

Everything is Slow, Astro Boy

Although the game is extremely linear, you can make a few detours to complete some sidequests. Many of these quests require specific powers, so you won't be able to complete several of them until late in the game. Sure, the idea of multiple sidequests sounds like a good idea, but these challenges are more annoying than entertaining. An extremely slow and obnoxious Rock-Paper-Scissors type game where you play against a flailing person against an empty, black background? A thirty question quiz where the questions appear on the screen so slowly that the robotic technology featured in the game will actually exist by the time you've answered them all? That's not fun.Towards the end of the game, there are a couple of actual stages. One in a volcano and one inside a futuristic base. You'd think that these levels would break up the monotony, but they don't. The volcano, for instance, is comprised of about three different rooms that you fight your way through around a dozen times before reaching the end. At first, I thought that I was doing something wrong since I kept appearing in a room that I had been in a couple minutes ago. It didn't take me too long to realize that it wasn't some sort of maze; it was just terrible level design.

The Silver Lining

Yeah, Astro Boy is chock full of problems (did I mention the horrible camera?), but I must admit that it wasn't all bad. The flight engine in the game is fantastic, and after a couple minutes to become acclimated with it, I was zipping around Metro City (Astro's home turf) like a pro. The flying is actually very reminiscent of the Saturn classic, NiGHTS, and it made me pine for NiGHTS 2. The aforementioned Spin Attack is also a very fun offensive move. Basically, Astro locks onto an enemy and continuously flies at it, bashing it and rebounding off for another attack. It looks fantastic in action and makes the game feel more like the anime that it's based on.

The boss fights (of which there are several) are terrific fun. All the bosses have patterns that aren't overly complex, but require just the right amount of thought to overcome. It's just a shame that the rest of the game couldn't keep up with the standard set by these enemy encounters.

Remember the cartoon where Bugs Bunny outwitted that bull? This boss battle is like that only with more robots.

And then, just when the game felt like it was starting, it ended. The average gamer should be able to plow through this in about four hours. What's up with that? When your game is roughly as long as the extended DVD version of The Two Towers, something is seriously wrong.