Astro Boy: Omega Factor

Astro boy is a pretty well known name in Anime, although not nearly as renowned in the gaming world. This little trinket on the GBA brings Astro boy back in full force with an amazing Action-Platformer developed by none other than Treasure creator of such games as Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and Gunstar Heroes to name a few.

Similar to Treasure's other titles, this game boasts intense action, great visuals and MASSIVE explosions. Playing as Astro you must pulverize rogue robot's who are trying to harm humans while trying to sway the racist ideals of human's against robot kind. While the story itself simply serves a means to move from one boss fight to the next, it is quite interesting to see the very thought provoking plot play out to an unexpected climax.

The game play is comparable to Gunstar heroes (minus a majority of the fire power) in that you're advancing through different venues armed with punches, kicks, an arm cannon and also an machine guns, compartmentalized in your ass! The stages are completely linear in design with an almost completely left to right movement scheme, with some very minor alterations in the case of the cave and temple levels.

Overall Astro boy: Omega factor has a good amount of replayability since you need to complete the overall story twice through to see it all. You'll gain the option to free pick the order in which to complete the stages, also allowing you to return to old levels to complete level up objectives you may have missed. This is obtained after your finish completion of the story.

Highly recommended for action/shooter fans.

Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure

Henry Hatsworth is a puzzle/platforming game at heart. Having recently been playing more puzzle games, this is a nice change of pace from the usual slide Block A left until you match 3 and combo blocks to pile garbage on your enemies. The core game is actually the platformer where you play as the old, yet famed, adventurer Henry Hatsworth, who along with his chipper sidekick are in search of the legendary "gold suit" which is said to unlock a way into the puzzle realm a world of riches.

The main story kicks off with Hatsworth finding the golden derby (1st part of the gold suit) and as a result, becoming cursed by the puzzle realm. Monsters begin to appear all over the world in an effort to stop him from completing the suit. Not only that, but his arch nemesis Weezlby will try and squash Hatsworth plan to become the world's fanciest man.

Plot description aside, the actual game play is made of 2 games. The top screen is a platformer where you'll be running, jumping, shooting and slashing as Hatsworth and the other, a planet puzzle league style slide puzzle. The core mechanic to the hybrid style is that the puzzle monsters defeated on top will fall onto the bottom screen and become various blocks which can have both positive and negative effects. Since the puzzle on the bottom is actively shifting upwards towards your play field, it is your job to clear the monster blocks that fall before they advance upwards. If the monster blocks do reach the top, they'll appear as ghostly blocks that fly around in an attempt to damage you, which must be defeated again to be removed for good. Not to fear though, this isn't another "The World Ends with You" scenario where you have to be on the ball with both games at once. When it comes time for you to clear those monster blocks, you'll simple hit the X button and your main game will pause and the puzzle will become active. However, there is a limited window of time you can work in the puzzle and when this time runs out you're booted back to the main game. This time can be regained through inflicting damage to enemies.

There are other benefits playing the puzzle, an energy meter, located to the right of the puzzle, will fill based on the block type cleared and the number of combos made. This bar is used to power your gun, special attacks, as well as when completely full, will power your GIANT STEAM POWERED ROBOT ARMOR! Yes, you heard right, Mr. Hatsworth when full on the puzzle juice, can enter "Tea Time" an invincibility state where he becomes a giant steam robot with missile launches, rocket fists and extend-o arms.

Much of the games charm comes from it's unique art style, silly story telling, and interesting voice samples. The characters each have unique "voices" ala Okami where they blubber in a crazy (almost culturally offensive) way when text is being written out in the dialog window. Hatsworth sounds like your stereotypical British man, where as his sidekick sounds like the offspring of the bird Kazooie from Banjo and Kazooie. Each new character you meet has it's own insane squawk seems oddly appropriate which may seem annoying, but adds a certain level of amusement to the simple dialogs.

In short, I would highly recommend Henry Hatsworth to anyone looking for a good platformer, it takes the best of Mario and Mega man X and adds a fresh spin on things. The difficulty curve gets quite steep in places, however you get plenty of lives and get plenty of power ups to overcome most obstacles.