Just Hold Square Kids!

Sonic Team apparently has met the challenge of free form flight and action head on enough to call it a success for what it is. Let me explain. You see, Astro Boy is a kid's game. It's meant for five to twelve year olds and Astro Boy fanatics. It's an action adventure game. The license itself dictated how the game had to play, but also the target audience. Sonic Team didn't stray from this at all, they didn't even try. This would be like an American developer making a Mickey Mouse game. They wouldn't, or couldn't, make Mickey Mouse's Grand Theft Auto in the Magic Kingdom. The game holds your hand in moving you along from goal to goal. If you were to just follow the story, you could plow through this game in three or four hours. They have put in a bunch of optional quests, and there are eighty-three cards for you to collect. The cards are character profiles from the history of the Astro Boy comics and shows. You're rewarded with cards for completing quests and finding them hidden throughout the levels. The game uses a hub from which you access the other levels. The hub is Metro City itself. Other levels are opened as you progress the story. You'll have access to your home, the Bay Area, Industrial Zone, Bokken Volcano, and the Eagle Building. As you progress through the game, Astro learns new abilities. The very first thing Astro learns is how to fly. Flying is initiated with the right stick. Pressing up on the stick will launch Astro into the air. The left stick controls his direction and altitude.  While hovering the right stick will control altitude. Hitting the square button will cause Astro to punch. He has a three punch combo. Holding square causes Astro to rocket boost around, flying must faster. L1 will lock Astro on to a target. L2 and R2 will rotate the camera left and right respectively. Flight works surprisingly well. Keeping in mind this is a kids game, it's all very basic in what you can do.  Locking on allows you to not have to worry too much about the camera. When locked on, you'll fly towards whatever you've locked on to. It results in a cinematic sort of combat. Because of this, the combat is rather simplistic. You can lock on and just hold square to rocket punch and Astro will continually fly around slamming into his target, which is good enough for everything but the bosses. With each boss, Astro earns another ability. He'll get Supersonic Hearing, Power of Analyzation, One-Million Horsepower Strength, Arm Cannon, Digibeam, and X-ray Vision. The vision, cannon, and digibeam are all assigned to their own buttons. The others are automatically integrated into gameplay. The simplistic controls and mechanics work well for the children's game Astro Boy is.  

Next up is the story and characters of Astro Boy.