Astro Robo SASA

Astro Robo SASA is a rather unique game for the Famicom.

Story
Sasa (and his partner Nana) must reclaim all of the energy capsules stolen from him by some unknown force. He must make it through the various traps that his enemy has set up for them, and arrive all the way to the location of a black hole in outer space where the final capsules are hidden. Even if Sasa completes his mission with one single unit of energy left, he will succeed. If he ever runs out of energy, he fails.

Gameplay
It involves a man (and a woman in the two player game) in an armored suit that carries a big gun. While this gun can be used to shoot things, its primary purpose is blast players in to the air by producing a massive kick-back whenever the gun is fired. By pointing the gun down at the ground and firing, the player is propelled off the ground. Continual bursts lift the player higher and higher, and firing left or right, or even up, send the player flying in the opposite directions.

Your seemingly one and only goal is to recapture the energy pods that power your gun. It's a rather self-fulfilling prophecy: You wouldn't need to collect those pods if you never fired your gun in the first place. Pods can be locked away behind barriers that you must shoot to destroy. Of course, every time you shoot at something, the gun propels you further away from it, forcing you to fire back in the opposite direction to correct your position. In addition, you'll need to pay attention to things like gravity and current, and avoid all the random objects that move about the screen and drain you of precious energy.

The first of the game's 16 stages start out easy enough, but the difficulty rapidly increases. You'll soon learn that holding on to as much energy as you can throughout each stage is vital to your ability to survive the later stages. Enter with too little energy, and you may not be skilled enough to get through the stage without running out of energy, which ends your game. Astro Robo SASA is a deceptively difficult game. A game simply entitled SASA first appeared on the MSX with a similar, but slightly different premise.


 * Sasa (and Nana) can walk left or right while standing on the ground.
 * Their primary mode of transportation is to fire their gun down to launch themselves in the air, and fire in the opposite direction they wish to travel in to propel themselves through the air.
 * They must collect each and every energy capsule on the stage to advance to the next one. It is possible to shoot them instead of collecting them, but that should be avoided.
 * Other than energy capsules, anything that moves can hurt Sasa and Nana, and drain them of energy.
 * Every shot fired costs 1 unit of energy. Every energy capsule reclaimed provides 100 units of energy (250 in a two player game, but only as long as both players are still alive).
 * Once Sasa and Nana's energy reaches 0, their game is over.