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Gameplay
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Graphics
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Replayability
Help guide Astro Boy through the streets of city by dodging potholes and leaping over and ducking under obstacles while picking up power-ups along the way. Just avoid getting Astro Boy caught by Prof. Ochanomizu, whose dull lectures he ditched to experience the world for himself.
In Astro Boy Dash, Atom the Astro Boy races throughout the city in order to escape Prof. Ochanomizu blandly discusses Atom’s safety and advanced robotic functionalities. While Prof. Ochanomizu is chasing after him, Astro Boy collects coins to spend on upgrades for his mechanical body. Once you collect enough coins, you can also purchase in-game power-ups such as Invisibility, Flying Boosts and Coin Magnets.
Later in the game, you will unlock his robot sister, Uran (a.k.a.: Astro Girl). If you log in with your Google+ account, can earn Google Play Games achievements (if you have the Google Play Games app installed) and compare your high score with other players on the Play Games leaderboard. You can also see how you matchup against users on the app’s public leaderboard.
When playing this game, the first thing I noticed is this third-person POV runner has a lot of similarities to Temple Run. A few of the parallels between the two games include a similar premise in the main character running away from an enemy, a similar game field layout, similar obstacles and coin configurations and the same tilting and swiping touch controls. Aside from that, Astro Boy Dash is a fun, time-killing game for fans of the original Astro Boy anime series. The game has a tutorial for first-time players and proves to be a challenge as you delve further into the levels. The game’s 3D graphics runs smoothly with very few lagging issues and the sensitivity controls can be adjusted in the Settings panel to help you in the game.
Two elements that would make this game more enjoyable to play are the addition of more characters and a better premise. I’m glad the developers decided to add Atom’s sister to the cast. However, it would benefit the die-hard Astro Boy fans more with a wider selection of their favorite characters with ranging strengths and weakness and would provide more hours of gameplay with each character having their own storyline.
This brings me to my next improvement: the less-than-impressive premise. Instead of Atom running away from boring lessons about his abilities, a brand new, brief plot could have been created to add to the Astro Boy series while keeping the same 3D runner format. For an iconic game, it would be ideal to use a few villainous characters from the Astro Boy series to give the game more depth and make it more exciting to play.
This 3D runner, adventure game is free to download, although you will have to pay extra for more coins if you want to step up your game and unlock more boosts faster.
App Name: Astro Boy Dash
Developer: Animoca
Market: Google Play
Cost: Free
