Overview and Gameplay
Astro fights to prevent war between humans and robots across side-scrolling combat stages, aerial shooting sections, and large boss battles. The Birth campaign spans seven chapters, while completing it unlocks stage selection and the Rebirth sequence with new events, routes, and characters.
Meeting characters from Osamu Tezuka’s works expands the Omega Factor chart and grants upgrade points. Life, Punch, Laser, Shot, Jet, and Sensor upgrades improve Astro’s health, attacks, flight, and ability to reveal hidden encounters.
Controls And Mechanics
Astro punches through enemies with a multi-hit combo, throws targets into nearby foes, fires a finger laser, dashes with temporary invulnerability, and uses rocket-powered flight. Shooting stages replace ground movement with free aerial control and rapid fire.
Successful attacks fill the EX Gauge. Stored EX Points power the EX Dash, machine gun, and Arm Cannon. Defeating enemies raises the score, while stage times and high scores are recorded separately. Losing all health allows a continue from the point of defeat.
Version Notes
This official North American release includes English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. It also adds three difficulty settings, boss health bars, revised enemy placement, stage adjustments, and reduced slowdown compared with the earlier Japanese version.
Release And Credits
- Release year: 2004
- Developer: Treasure and Hitmaker
- Publisher: Sega
- Original platform: Game Boy Advance
