Astro Bot

(available for PlayStation 5 only)

Astro Bot is the latest game from Team Asobi, one of PlayStation’s few remaining Japanese studios. The team previously worked on the VR demo Astro Bot Rescue Mission, as well as the PlayStation title Astro’s Playroom- which if you’ve done everything there is to do on that game prior to buying this one, you can now go back into that and get a few extra collectables for this game, though they don’t tie into any trophies and are purely optional. 

This game, unlike the previous two, isn’t a tech demo- this is a full release for the team, and it does take most of the controls from Astro’s Playroom, and you’re playing a basic platformer for the most part. It’s basically punches, kicks, and occasionally you’ll have to float over enemies to do a kind of feet-laser attack.

The gameplay is incredibly good! This might be a basic platformer, but there are a lot of creative ideas here. You don’t have to have played the previous games to enjoy this one, but I think it helps. 

You’ll be doing various levels across five galaxies, each culminating in a boss fight, and of course, each of the levels have collectables, which I would recommend getting, since parts of the game are blocked off without them; you need to get the puzzle pieces for the various facilities and some of the areas and boss fights are locked behind rescuing a certain number of robots in each mission. The level tells you exactly how many there are, including the special robots, and because of the way they’re ticked off, it’s easy to find out where the ones you have missed are in the level.

The plotline is pretty simple, the PlayStation 5 Space Station that Astro is piloting gets ripped apart by an alien bully who then steals a CPU and scatters the parts across various galaxies. Astro now has to rescue all of the robots that have gone missing as well as fix the PS5. Personally, I really enjoyed the game, and this is going to be a bit of a gush fest.

PROS

• Gameplay and Controls

I set out what the gameplay is mostly centred around, but there’s so much to do exploring these levels. I just loved going to each of the planets to see what creative ideas the team had. I should probably lump the level design in with this point, since they are all designed expertly, including some of the levels that you get through just exploring galaxies and hitting comments (you can get some extra levels that way that act as sort of challenges, including more difficult ones which are centred around the buttons on a PlayStation controller).

There are tons of great ideas and creativity, including some temporary power ups that you get for each of the levels that I don’t want to spoil, but it all has a great level of interactivity that the Playroom tech demo had as well. 

I can’t think of a single level where I thought, ‘Oh, that one didn’t work well’, or ‘that one didn’t have a great idea behind it’; they just worked so well and were so well put together.

• Use of the DualSense Controller

The controls in this game are fantastic, everything controls very buttery smooth, and I have no issues- but while many games have done a pretty decent job working with the DualSense controls, this has been the best use of it so far. The haptic triggers are done very well, the rumble really adds to the levels, and it uses the speakers in the controller- it even uses the microphone too in a way that hasn’t been used in any PlayStation 5 game (as far as I’m aware).

• Visuals

Astro Bot is a brilliant looking game. It just looks so bright and colourful, and all of the various creative designs have translated very well to the Astro Bot universe. You also don’t need to go into the settings to choose between Performance Mode or Fidelity Mode- this game runs at 4K 60FPS on a base PS5. This is a game where you’ll get the best visuals and framerate without having to upgrade to the seemingly unnecessary PS5 Pro.

• PlayStation History Celebration

Sony has never really done a celebration of their own history compared to the likes of Nintendo with their games like Smash Brothers, they tried something similar with PlayStation All Stars, but they’ve never quite hit that note. Astro Bot is the closest they have ever come, and this is mainly down to the special robots who are each dressed up as a cameo character from PlayStation history.

There are 300 bots in total, 150 of them being cameos. I don’t want to spoil what some of them are, but I will stress that they are all decently easy to spot, but you might end up missing a few of them and having to repeat some levels, but getting all of them makes the need of the game so much better. 

If you do end up missing any of them or any of the puzzle pieces or even the secret exits that lead you to the secret galaxy levels (which are some of the best in the game), you can pay 200 coins at the start of a level which gives you a bird which helps you to find them.

There are some obvious choices in there, and it is great to see them in action, particularly when you unlock the gacha machine which unlocks some puzzle pieces, and eventually you will unlock an item which makes them perform actions from their respective games. You get some amazing results, especially if you punch them at the crash site.

Man, they didn’t just get the first party stuff, there are some third party characters to, some of which I really wasn’t expecting to show up, and it really feels like a celebration of the history of the company as we approach their 30th anniversary, It really reminds me of the trophies in Smash Bros, and I don’t say that likely, I always looked forward to finding a new cameo bot, but I will say that some of them, were so obscure that I had to look up what games they were from! 

You really had to be deep into PlayStation lore to know what some of them are from. And it wasn’t just the classics or recent games either, there are characters from throughout PlayStation history, and a few of them even get special levels dedicated to their games, one from franchises that started on each of the individual consoles on the lead up to the PS5, and they were awesome to play.

• Soundtrack

Astro Bot has an excellent soundtrack, and some of the soundtrack is carried on from the previous Astro Bot games, but even the new stuff is excellent too. I was glad I got the deluxe version which meant that I got access to the digital artbook and the soundtrack, because I did actually go back and listen to a few of the songs after I got the platinum trophy. 

MIXED

• Backtracking and Repeating Levels

I put this in because it didn’t really bother me too much, but I could see it bothering people. If you’re going for 100%, you’re going to have to repeat some levels. It’s not as if there are branching pathways and some of the bots require being rescued, but you may discover the secret exit before you rescued all of the bots and have finished the level, so you may have to go back and get the robots that would have gone past that point. Though some levels did have the secret exit past the point of all of the collectables. 

I did mention that you can get a Bird Bot that helps you to get anything that you missed after you completed a level once, so this didn’t really bother me too much in general. It didn’t feel too much like busy work until I was getting the last few trophies for the platinum, but to be fair not everyone is going to want to do that and it’s my fault I didn’t get them when I played the levels previously. 

Though I will stress I rarely had to follow a guide, there were only a few trophies towards the end that I needed a guide for. I will say that getting all of the collectables is worth it, especially for that final sequence. The only thing is though, if you don’t want to repeat a bunch of levels very often, you might be a bit annoyed. Again, some levels do require it because of the different exits.

CONS

• None!

I really couldn’t think of anything to put in this section! I was wracking my brain but there wasn’t anything that I would count as a complete downright negative, so I just settled for the repeating levels in the Mixed section. I can’t say it’s the game length because I think 15 hours for a 100% is a really good length of time, though it did leave me wanting more, which is going to be answered sometime later this year or next year with DLC that has already been confirmed.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Astro Bot is one of the best games on the PlayStation 5 and you absolutely should pick up a copy if you have a PS5. I admit that this is a game that feels more catered to me and not everyone might have the same experience, but I really, really liked this excellent platformer that feels like a spiritual successor to Mario Galaxy. It’s a great celebration of PlayStation’s history and I just loved every moment of playing it, and I can’t wait for the DLC to come out.

This is visually, audibly, and interactively a brilliant experience.

FINAL SCORE: 9.8/10

And now Reece’s review

Astro Bot is mascot platformer game for the PlayStation 5, and serves as a direct follow-up to Astro’s Playroom, launch title of the PS5. The game sees Astro embark on a mission to repair the damaged PS5 spacecraft by collecting pieces of the console from across the 6 main zones of the game called Nebula. Along the way the player is tasked with collecting the scattered members of Astro’s crew who were lost when the ship was damaged. There are a total of 301 bots to rescue with over 160 of them being references to various games from PlayStation’s 30-year catalogue.

Pros:

• Graphical fidelity.

Graphically Astro Bot is the best-looking game on PS5. Not only does it have a cute flawless art style that ages perfectly (As evident by Astro’s playroom still looking gorgeous and that was a launch title) but I never.

noticed any jagged pixels or edges from the anti-aliasing mechanics. The game ran at a dynamic 4K for my play through with HDR activated and even when the screen quality dipped slightly in more hectic and action-packed sections, it wasn’t that noticeable since the frame rate remained locked at 60fps and the image quality would nearly instantly jump back up to 4K.

• Frame rate.

During my play through I never saw the game drop below 60fps as it remains consistent during the entire time playing. Even when first loading into the massive worlds or numerous bosses to the times when the players screen is flooded with physics-based objects that all render and move separately in real time.

• Level design.

There are 80 levels spread across the games 6 main nebulae that feature a wide variety of environments from grass plains to volcanic Badlands. Players will rarely see the same type of environments outside of the symbol challenge levels that act as a mix of all environments and hazards to get to the end. Even the bosses tie into the level design and environments, as Mighty Chewy is a giant robotic gorilla who inhabits a skyscraper city landscape that he jumps between to get around the level, acting as a homage to King Kong and his rampage through New York with the finale of his fight taking place with him hanging onto the side of a building like King Kong did on the Empire State building. Players will enjoy the sheer amount of variety in the levels, as most even had Astro.

specific gimmicks with the power ups Astro can acquire on select levels. This was a highlight for me when playing on the Casino level with the ability to slow down time around Astro as everything in the Casino moves at a blistering pace that can’t be navigated normally. So, the level design ties into the environments as with the previous mentioned Casino.

level featured in the trailers, it sees the Players navigating across huge gambling machines and dealing with enemies that tie into the level design and environment as they can fire playing cards like you see from Blackjack or Poker in a typical Casino, which the player can stand on in frozen time to act as platforms and navigate the rest of the level.

• Loading times.

Just like Astro’s Playroom the sequel has incredibly fast loading times considering how vast and detailed all the levels are. Even when the player dies as Astro in non-boss fights due to the 1 hit point the

player has, the reload from a checkpoint only lasts a second before the player is back on the action again. This means however, that death is not that big of a deal due to the fast loading of the game, unless the player is playing one of the symbol challenge levels or the final level in the game. Where if they die once, they have to restart from the beginning of the level, but the restart is quick no matter the scale of the level or how far the player progressed, as it will be near instantaneous.

• Boss fights.

The big new highlight of this game compared to Astro’s Playroom is the new bosses that serve as the end for each of the various nebula that Astro travels through and also the occasional mini boss in several of the worlds. While not difficult to beat The bosses are all visual feats that impact the boss arenas to make all their fights dynamic and never dull, that players of any ability should be able to defeat with little trouble and instead focus on the amazing boss music that players with each boss having their own distinct music track. The first major boss is a returning boss from Astro’s earlier game in Rescue Mission with the giant gorilla Mighty Chewy who features in earlier missions tearing through the construction worlds before the player confronts him in his boss arena. Then when the player defeats him by destroying his eyes and teeth, they become physics-based objects and during the rest of the fight Astro can move his destroyed body parts round the rest of the area with full physics mechanics.

• Throwback levels.

A new feature to this game is the throwback levels that sees Astro take on the form and powers of certain PlayStation icons from over the series 30-year history. The one that most players will know is the God of War throwback level that has been featured in all the trailers and see Astro take on the appearance of Kratos along with gaining possession of his Leviathan Axe. So not only do you have a change in appearance but the new weapons Astro receives in throwback levels also change level design since the Leviathan Axe allows Astro to freeze enemies, solid for additional platforms but also to throw the axe like Kratos does to interact with the environment to open up new platforming pathways but also to hit collectibles in the levels.

Con:

• Battery drain.

I was really struggling to think of a negative to this game with the only one that came to mind was how intensive the haptic feedback from the controller is. But if the player plays with the controller charger plugged in or turning the haptics off then this downside is mitigated. I would not recommend turning them off though, as they add so much enjoyment to

the experience as the player can feel the different textures of the ground that Astro walks over and with certain later mini games.

Conclusion:

Easily the best game currently on the PS5 and I would recommend it as the first game for any person wanting to enter the world of gaming.

I could not think of any major flaw with the game aside from a minor issue with the haptics draining the battery quickly, but that can easily be solved by just turning the haptic feedback off and enjoying the game for longer sessions. Astro Bot is a game that is a love letter to gaming as a whole and a celebration of PlayStation and it’s 30 year history, and while it takes heavy inspiration from Super Mario and Kirby games it brings enough new to the platforming genre to stand apart and is undoubtedly the best platformer game on PS5 and I would recommend players get the Platinum trophy for the game as it only took me 15 hours without a guide.

Score: 10.0