About Tetsuwan Atom

A platform game from Konami based on Astro Boy... can't go much wrong I thought. Well, sadly I was wrong. Sure there are worse games on the NES/Famicom but for a Konami game it is quite disappointing. Not only doesn't it feature the great graphics of other Konami games of that time (like Contra or Salamander), but it is also not very well playable. Best example is the way how to activate the flight mode. Jump three times at exactly the right time to activate it. Try this in narrow spaces and you won't stop swearing. In some levels you have to figure out how to progress by solving little puzzles or retrieving certain items. Besides that the game is rather linear.

This reminds me of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64. What did you think of those restrictive flight activations?

Never played SM64 and I don't remember any problems with SMB3 at all (only problem with SMB3 was that it was just too long for having no way to save the game). The Astro Boy jumping issue... well, best watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwuyXHN1zvk
I vividly remember the scenes at 1:15 and 5:41. Took me many many minutes to pull the flight mode off in those places. And I am speaking of playing on an emulator with save states.