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MIGHTY ATOM - TETSUWAN ATOM
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鉄腕 アトム
©Konami 1988
Release: 1988-02-26 (¥5500)
Cartdridge RC827
Platform/Action game
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Tetsuwan Atom is a side scrolling action game by Konami and
based on the 1960s popular science fiction series by Osamu Tezuka. The
story takes place in the future, at a time where humans and robots live together
in harmony. The powerful robot-boy Atom (aka Astro Boy) lives with
Professor Ochanomizu - the old scientist takes good care of the little robot,
and helps him find crime and injustice. But, one day, burglars break into
Professor Ochanomizu's lab and steal all of his money. It is now Atom's
duty to recover the stolen loot. But the game is far from being a straight forward
affair, and many levels require the player to fulfill given tasks, such as
collecting special items, punching particular locations, or in some instances, to
activate parts of a stage by performing unique tasks such as playing a song. Atom
can run, jump and punch his enemies. He can also fly using his rocket boots, but the
move is rather tricky to execute and the player has to quickly jump three times and
then press Up to make the little robot fly for a short amount of time.
Atom also uses uranium as his main source of energy. Uranium
slowly decreases as the game progresses, or when Atom receives any kind of
damage (some enemy weapons can kill Atom in one hit though), but
Professor Ochanomizu can be called at any time during the game, and restore
the depleting energy (by crouching and pressing the action button).
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Tetsuwan Atom (aka Astro Boy or Mighty Atom) was originally
created in the 1950's by the prolific Osamu Tezuka. The successful series
started as a comic strip and was turned into a black and white animated series in 1963.
Interestingly, it was one of the first (if not the first) animated TV series produced
in Japan, and undoubtedly served as a canon and influenced countless Japanese
animated series that followed. The little robot-boy is definitely one of Japan's most
recognizable characters and it has enjoyed numerous revivals since its debut. The
Famicom game tested here was probably the first video game to be ever released for the
Tetsuwan Atom franchise.
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Tetsuwan Atom Konami Cards
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Like several other early Konami games released in the 1980s/1990s, Tetsuwan Atom
included a numbered collector card also known in Japan as コナミ キャラカード (aka 'Konami Chara Cards' or 'Konami Character Cards').
Each card featured an illustration or a snapshot
from the game (picture on the right), and the back of each card showed a serial number as well as the
game's title. They were randomly included with the games and Konami
produced several variations of each card. That's it, each game included a
card from a series related to the game, it is however not known
how many different card variations were made for each game.
Apparently six cards (on average) were produced for each game, except
for Doremikko (1 card), Exciting Boxing (1 card) and Meikyujin Dababa
(which, curiously, only seem to feature five cards).
The list of
Konami games to include such cards are believed to be :
Ai Senshi Nicol (FDS),
Dracula II Noroi no Fuin (FDS),
Arumana no Kiseki (FDS),
Contra (FC),
Doremikko (FDS),
Dragon Scroll (FC),
Exciting Baseball (FDS),
Exciting Basketball (FDS),
Exciting Billard (FDS),
Exciting Boxing (FDS),
Exciting Soccer (FDS),
Falsion (FDS),
Getsu Fūma Den (FC),
Majō Densetsu II Daimashikyō Galious(FC),
Meikyū Jiin Dababa (FDS),
Metal Gear (FC),
Salamander (FC),
Tetsuwan Atom (FC),
Top Gun (FC)
and Wai Wai World (FC).
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G
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Japanese Guidebook
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Japanese Guidebook
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
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Tetsuwan Atom starts out promising enough - the soundtrack is surprisingly
faithful to the source material and the graphics are correct for an 8bit
game. And then things quickly spiral down hill. Let's start by the most
frustrating aspect of the game, shall we ? The rocket-pack. You have to
jump three times in one direction and then press up to fly. This combination
is utterly unnecessary and impossible to use. But the real tragedy of the
game are the tasks to fulfill in later stages, which are totally random and
annoying - like playing a song that some enemies whistle when they die,
or punching a random statue to release a pink running rodent (and no, I'm not
making this up). Finally, although you can touch enemies without much problem,
their weapons kill you in one hit! All in all, Tetsuwan Atom feels like
a charmless mess, and features weak platform action with tedious and random
puzzle-y moments. I expected a lot better from Konami.
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