Astro Boy (PS2) - Chapter 1
1Osamu Tezuka might be the seen by many as the Japanese equivalent of Walt Disney, so it is fitting his most famous creation, Astro Boy (or Mighty Atom) is often regarded as Japan’s equivalent of Mickey Mouse. In actuality, I think it is more apt to call Astro Boy a “reverse Pinnochio” – where an automaton learns to bridge the gap between what it means to be human and what it means to be synthetic. In anycase, fast forward several decades from it’s debut in the 1950s, Astro Boy has seen numerous adaptations and tie-ins, and it should come of no surprise that one of those tie-ins would relate to the 2003 anime, and on PlayStation 2 no less.
Handled directly by Sonic Team, and coming in hot off hits like Sonic Heroes, Puyo Puyo Fever and Billy Hatcher, there is an obvious expectation from a game of this calibre. As Astro, you’re gently introduced to a Metro City that you can freely fly around and access at leisure, with each area being accessed atleast once, including a story relevant mission. This part of the game isn’t much to write home about sadly. While the cinematics around these missions are visually very impressive for PlayStation 2, they more or less only abridge the 2003 anime’s plot. The cinematics introduce important story elements and characters without properly giving them the weight or depth that Tezuka’s writing originally intended. It feels unfinished, we’ll come back to that later.
The majority of Astro Boy’s playtime is actually spent investigating the nooks and crannies of each area, with hidden collectibles stashed around the environment, doing a little investigation work with the side-quests. Thing is, Astro Boy does a poor job of cataloguing this information for you and the collectibles, or cards, do not net any gameplay specific rewards. Worse still, many of these side-quests can’t be completed fully until you unlock the necessary power-ups, ala Metroidvania, which ironically means you’re offsetting them until the end of the game (much as I had done in this playthrough).
By far the most insulting of these side-quests are the flying ring races, feeling eerily similar to Superman 64. In true Sonic Team fashion, you will be battling the camera in these ring races first and foremost, with the navigation between hoops being virtually non-existent. Astro Boy does not track your race progress, nor lap records, and it is confusing knowing exactly how much time you have left between checkpoints in some instances. The lack of waypointing makes an already laborious series of tasks more harrowing to complete, asking patience from an experience that would otherwise only clock in at a couple hours at most. And again, it lacks polish, or balance, making the whole ordeal feel incomplete.
While Sonic Team recognises the Osamu Tezuka Star System for all it’s value, it must be mentioned that many of it’s character stories would have benefited from the same cinematic treatment as the story missions, such as those relating to Hosuke Sharaku and Black Jack. Although even Astro Boy specific characters like Epsilon and Wally Kisaragi are relegated to basic sidequest content at the most. This is not discussing the obvious omissions, such as Rock Holmes and Rag. Again, the feeling that there was something more planned just continues to linger…
Astro Boy on PlayStation 2 was intended as a celebration of Tezuka’s most recognisable character and the properties around it. As this video series launches, on 17th April 2024, it follows twenty years after the original launch of the game in Japan. Back in 2004, Astro Boy actually missed the anniversary by atleast a couple weeks and, worse still, the fortieth anniversary of Astro Boy’s first anime by a whole year! Sonic Team would continue to be a victim of these kind of deadlines, most infamously with Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 – a game desperate to make it in time for an anniversary, and becoming an absolute disaster as a consequence of this. In a weird way, Astro Boy represents the prototype of that disaster in making. It saddens me since the potential is very obviously on display, as it were with Sonic 06, but the outcome of hastily readying Astro Boy in a state when it wasn’t had hurt absolutely every bit of whatever potential was apparent in the first place.
This is a game I can only suggest avoiding, even if you happen to be the most ardent Tezuka fan, and that is a crying shame.
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A LEGAL NOTICE:
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Any copyrighted footage I use is covered under fair use laws, or more specifically those listed under Section 30(1) of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1989 and under section 107 of US Copyright Act 1976. This video exists purely for the purpose of research and criticism. I do not make a profit from any uploaded content, nor do I intend to. Thank you for watching.
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