Stage Notes!
The Tokugawa Lunar Mine & spaceport is but one of the many holdings of the Tokugawa Corporation, a world-spanning conglomerate with fingers in many of the world’s technological and resource-related pies. Its President and CEO, Mr. Tokugawa, is a self-made man who has devoted his entire life towards building the company towards ever further heights, and has since been rewarded handsomely; he’s the single richest man in the world, and one of its most influential figures.
The Lunar Mine is both the top-earning facility of the corporation and the main headquarters of the same. With a complex extending over 1,500 meters below the surface of the moon, and with a myriad of branching offices and stations, it is so efficient and high-yield it single-handedly produces enough energy and fuel to power the entirety of Metro City – one of the largest and most technologically advanced metropolises on the planet. Because of this (and other feats), the Tokugawa group is world-renowned for their business acumen and contributions to society; recently, however, the aging Mr. Tokugawa has been grooming his son Daichi to take the wheel in his stead, despite some misgivings within the upper management relating to said son’s history and activities…
The Tokugawa Mine, and this story’s main premise as a whole, is lifted more-or-less wholesale from a pair of 2003 episodes (numbered 6 and 7 in the English release) created for the third animated Astro Boy show. Notably, however, while both Daichi and his father are new characters, the MAIN focus of the story – Atlas – is a very important recurring cast member, and through his mere presence makes the episodes into something of a reimagining of older plots. Moreover, the whole “moon base” vibe, plus the numerous cameos from entirely unrelated works, make this stage in particular feel like it doesn’t belong to any one distinctive show.
See, Astro Boy’s a series from the 50s and 60s. During this time, certain things had happened, and certain things had yet to happen. It was a time of wonder and scientific discovery, and as a work of science fiction, Astro frequently found himself heading the journey into the vast depths of the final frontier. From tightly-controlled journeys to the distant surface of Mars, to brightly-lit and bustling commercial spaceports, to, yes, expeditions to the moon and whatever secrets it might hide, space has always held a special place within the adventures of Mighty Atom, and the Tokugawa plant is just the latest in a time-honored tradition.
The stage has got some nice scenes and a low gravity gimmick (the artificial gravity device is broken!), but to be honest, it’s also one of my favorite examples of where this game is lacking in polish. Omega Factor’s strengths lie the research and love given to Tezuka’s work history, its strong plotting (for the genre), its charming visuals, and its amazing boss fights, but I cannot deny it’s majorly lacking in the STAGE DESIGN department. Fighting in this game is simplistic and fast; enemies are fodder, nothing more, and serve only as a passage from one section to another. In Metro City and Cruciform Island, they got it right, throwing only a few enemies at a time at you and allowing the player to straight-up skip a large fight scene if they so choose, but HERE the screen has a nasty habit of locking on you, forcing you to sit your ass down and pick off the enemies one by one, and the stage just does NOT accommodate this. Early-on, there’s a big vertical section with a bunch of giant mooks spawning in from nowhere, and because the screen arbitrarily locks on you, you have to spend a minute and a half slooooowly jumping up, punching a few of them, falling down, punching a few more, rinse, repeat. It’s not especially fun, and they really should have either spiced the place up a bit, allowed you to move on, or given you an extra way to bypass the annoyance. And it keeps happening after that too; walk forward, lock, fight lower enemies, fight upper enemies, move forward a bit more – and then they throw godawful bat enemies at you in an environment not at all suited to fighting them!
It just really annoys me, because there’s bits and pieces of what could have been there; the stage follows the layout seen in the pic at the very top of all these words for the most part, but leaves out the cool little vent passages that would’ve let a savvy player bypass the annoying bits! They include environmental obstacles that could’ve been used to make some sort of platforming challenge, but never really get capitalized on! It’s grating at best, but at the very least it culminates in a VERY fun boss battle and a cool scene, so it’s not a total wash.
…now I just have to wait for someone to inform me I’ve missed some giant shortcut all this time.
Chapter names:
3 – 1: Tokugawa Plant on the Moon; 3 – 2: Goblin Roboid; 3 – 3: Power Plant Reactor; 3 – 4: Observation Deck; 3 – 5: Astro Vs. Atlas
Boss bios!
Goblin Roboid
Moveset:
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Slam: Rears back and tenses for a moment before slamming one of its beam swords into the ground in front of it. Does a decent amount of damage, but is very highly telegraphed, so just dash through and punish it. The Roboid moves forward a bit upon use, so don’t underestimate its range.
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Lunge: Poses with both of its swords behind its back, then attempts a lunging stab low to the ground. Used exclusively when Astro’s a fair distance away from it and covers a decent amount of horizontal ground, but like the slam it’s telegraphed for a good second, so dashing towards and through the Roboid will get you out safely.
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Super combo: Rears back while its eye shines a bright red, then immediately performs a slam followed by a lunge. This is the one to watch out for, as it comes out quick and with very little warning; make sure not to commit to a longer punch combo if you’re hurting, as this can easily kill.
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Goblin minions: A series of Roboids half the size of the main one will stream in from the sides of the arena as long as the main one survives; each possesses the same moves as the main one, but goes down to a single hit, so just turn around whenever one approaches and smack it.
Astro Boy manga, Duke Goblin manga appearance!
“The Roboids that appear on the moon are the robots from “Duke Goblin.” Since they are controlled by psy power, they cannot act through their own will. The original Astro Boy story features an episode entitled “Roboids” as well. They are super robots who evolved to have the ability to self-reproduce.”
That quote’s an excerpt from Mr. Tokugawa’s extended bio in-game. It is also, incidentally, the only real info you get on these things. I’ve always found their presence to be one of the biggest enigmas in the game; I mean, the V3 robots were justified as being bought by Kim, they went out of their way to establish that, but here it’s just “SUDDENLY: MINIBOSS”. There’s no reason for them to be here, and Astro straight up goes “Goblin shaped Roboid!” like it aint’ no thang, and it’s just ugh, UGH, why are you here Roboid, stop.
REGARDLESS. Roboids are something of an enigma to me outside of the game as well; Duke Goblin’s another one of those lesser-known series, and as such is lacking in both English adaptions and in animations, primarily due to the fact that Tezuka bit the dust shortly after making it. From what I can gather, the Goblin itself is a giant bronze statue created in ancient China, possessing extreme psychic and destructive power but no conscious will or means of animation on its own; it seems like an interesting enough story, but the Roboid seen here only bears a passing resemblance to all the pictures I’ve managed to dredge up of the original Goblin, which makes me suspect that it’s merely a hastily shoehorned-in reference.
Much more relevant, in my opinion, is the Astro Boy story titled “Roboids”, but again, they don’t really resemble the ones seen here, and in fact each have their own distinct look and personality rather than all being carbon copies of each other. The name is a sort of derivative of android, in that androids are robots that look like humans while Roboids are things that look like robots but aren’t, and they starred in a rather lengthy story involving their quest to gather resources from Earth and DESTROY THE HUMAN RACE. They “evolved” from normal robots on a distant planet where their creators died out, and, like the Duke Goblin version, possess some psychic abilities, which is presumably why the two characters are being crossed over here. They’re capable of reproduction, but the force sent down to Earth is pretty soundly routed by Astro and a hodgepodge of other battle bots, leaving Astro the sole survivor, not including a couple non-battle Roboids who skedaddle.
As for the fight against them, they’re more of a threat than the V3s were I’ll give em that, but at the same time there’s only really one attack you have to watch out for, and you’re given more than ample time between enemy attacks to strike back so it’s not too big an issue. They’re very raucous and wield twin lightsabers though, so you certainly won’t be bored.
Atlas
Moveset:
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EX dash: Pauses in the air for a moment, then boosts in any of the 8 primary directions at high speed, while holding his fist in an extended position not unlike our own EX dash. Initially only performs a single dash, but as his health depletes, Atlas will begin stringing multiple EX dashes seamlessly together, each time targeting whichever direction will bring him closest to Astro’s current location. On normal mode, it seems he’ll cut it off at four dashes, but on hard, be prepared to dodge SEVEN of these things in a row once he’s hurting. Also, he’s invincible while performing the move. Try your best to guide his dashes away from you, and finish him off before he starts the really nasty chains.
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Arm cannon: Pauses in midair, swiftly converts his forearm into a cannon, charges, and fires a MASSIVE blast of energy that covers over half the screen. Extremely damaging, but possesses the same weakness as Astro’s version: Atlas’s back remains vulnerable, so maneuvering around behind him can score you a free hit. Furthermore, your arm cannon actually takes priority and will shield you from his attack, meaning using it upon the move’s activation will allow you to both avoid damage AND counterattack. He’ll often quickly transition into this move whenever his EX Dash lands him in a position with a clear shot, so be ready.
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Factor overload: Used upon reaching 50% health, and after the conclusion of the mid-battle dialogue. Becomes briefly invincible, charges up an aura, and produces a large beam of energy which slowly orbits around Atlas’s body for the duration of the second half of the battle. This form removes his ability to use his arm cannon, meaning he’ll do nothing but EX dashes, but this is actually potentially more problematic as Atlas’s rapid movement means you’ll have to predict both the position of Atlas himself AND his energy beam. To make matters worse, while his number of EX dashes resets to 1 upon overloading, both that number and the speed of his beam’s orbit will increase as he’s damaged further, meaning you’ll want to take this form out ASAP. Dashing towards (and through) him, angling in a clockwise/counter-clockwise direction, and simply running away as fast as you can until he stops dashing are all valid tactics for this one.
Manga, 1980 young/grown, 2003 Daichi/Atlas appearances!
See him in action!
Both Atlas AND Daichi are actually getting their own bios, so there’s not much to put here as far as backstory goes. Suffice it to say, Atlas is a major figure in Astro Boy, introduced first as a minor story villain in the comic but then given a repeated role as major antagonist within the 1980s series, to the point that nine of the fifty-two total episodes were devoted solely to the various conflicts between them.
This version, Daichi-Atlas, is a separate character from that Atlas, but carries many of the same traits and motivations. One of the biggest links between him and Astro is the idea that they’re “brothers” in a way; in the 1980s, this was due to being based on the same blueprints, but here, it due to the fact that they were both commissioned for building by grieving fathers and created by the same man – Dr. Tenma, as Atlas so dramatically reveals. Daichi died a while back in an accident, which lead Tokugawa to approach the erstwhile director of the Ministry and request a replica be made, complete with Daichi’s old memories. While people who watched the anime episodes he’s first featured in might be a bit confused by this due to the fact that he’s presented as a mistreated robot kid from the start, rest assured this is just one of those dubbing things where implied death is considered not acceptable for children’s programming and rewritten.
Tenma creates Atlas for two reasons: out of pity for Tokugawa, and out of a desire to see Astro grow and reach his full potential. Atlas represents a lot of major milestones for Astro and possesses many of the same abilities, through his battles with the young robot unwittingly awakening Astro’s own arm cannon ability in a highly-cinematic battle sequence, but his most distinctive ability is probably his possession of a soul, or kokoro, or – as it is presented in the original story and the 1980s anime – his Omega Factor.
The Omega Factor was, initially, the only thing differentiating Atlas from Astro, a device removing the boundary between human and robot by allowing him to perform evil thoughts and actions independently, placing no limitation on Atlas’s free will. It’s a very interesting inversion that the power of unlimited growth and choice was instead given to Astro here, and is the first instance in which Astro Boy: Omega Factor begins to step outside the boundaries of already-existing material to create its own story, its own niche within the various versions of the saga. In the same way, it’s a good example of how close the characters of Astro and Atlas are in terms of their history. This won’t be the last we see of Atlas, by any means.
NERDY STORY ANALYSIS ASIDE. The fight against Atlas is difficult. That’s the truth of the matter. He’s highly mobile, hits hard and fast, uses your own tricks against you, and has a wide-open space in which to chase you down. This also, incidentally, makes the fight against him really, really fun, as you’re given free rein to jet wildly around the screen right along with him and counter his supers with your own versions. This is the kind of non-stop action the game really excels at, and coupled with the amazing boss theme (and stupid amounts of attention to detail when it came to some of his sprites and dialogue), Atlas washes the moderately mediocre taste of his stage right out of my mouth and is just a straight-up treat to fight. Nothing beats predicting his movements and ending point only to get there first and EX dash right through him, or counter his cannon with your own, and as the difficulty level also adjusts the properties of some of his moves you can treat yourself with as easy or as grueling a fight as you want. I can’t even get mad at him when I die, because Astro sloooowly spirals down until he reaches the bottom of the screen while Atlas follows at a distance watching and it’s all great, ALL GREAT.
…and then he goes super mode. This game’s bosses often have surprisingly few powers, but those they do have cover a lot of bases, so even though Atlas doesn’t have a dozen separate attacks you’ll still feel threatened at any given moment. His overload adds another element to watch for and makes it even more important to zip around super fast, and when coupled with the intense (if a little cheesy) speech mid-fight, this is easily the most high-energy fight in game so far.
Music!
Tokugawa plant doesn’t really do anything for me, but I suppose it’s got a decent space vibe going, and the periodic clapping sound is interesting at least, although a different clapping song has already captured my heart. Atlas’s theme has a delightfully epic sound to it though, and continues the trend of really memorable boss themes.
#22: Tokugawa plant
#23: Boss theme 5 – Atlas
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