Tetsuwan Atom

Tetsuwan Atom (鉄腕アトム) is an action game developed by Home Data and published by Konami for the Famicom in Japan early on in 1988. The game stars Tetsuwan Atom, a popular early anime character who is better known as Astro Boy outside of Japan. Tetsuwan Atom was originally created in 1951 by Osamu Tezuka. The successful series started as a comic strip and was turned into a black and white animated series in 1963. It was one of the first (if not the first) animated TV series produced in Japan, and has influenced countless Japanese animated series that followed. The little robot-boy is one of Japan's most recognizable character. The story takes place in the future, at a time where humans and robots live together in harmony. The powerful robot-boy Atom lives with Professor Ochanomizu, an old scientist who takes good care of the little robot, and helps him fight crime and injustice. 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.

The game is far from being a straight forward affair. 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 tricky to execute: the player has to jump three times consecutively and then press up to make Atom fly for a short amount of time, until he overheats and is forced to land. Atom uses uranium as his main source of energy, which slowly decreases as the game progresses, or when Atom receives any kind of damage, but Professor Ochanomizu can be called at any time during the game to restore the depleting energy (by crouching and pressing the action button).

Most enemies can be walked through, but enemy weapons kill Atom instantaneously with one hit. The game was never released outside of Japan, or translated from Japanese. It does not require knowledge of Japanese to play the game, only to understand what is going on. In some stages, without any clue or indication, it can be difficult to determine the objective. If you know where to go or what to do, the game can be completed in under ten minutes.