Astro Bot is supposed to feel cynical, a by-the-book 3D platformer designed to tap into nostalgia for the 30-year-old PlayStation—the Deadpool and Wolverine of video games. It’s a money-making game that borrows ideas from other games and puts some iconic flourishes on them, like a plain old Victoria sponge cake covered in yellow Minion frosting. Enjoy this cake because you love Minions so much, don’t you, Timmy! Enjoy what you like and share it all over social media!
Astro Bot, however, is definitely not any of those games. It’s a colorful and joyful leap from PlayStation past to present, and it exudes a love for the medium that’s usually only felt in the best titles from Nintendo or Sega at their peak.
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As a modern 3D platformer, the game’s basics are as tight as you’d expect, like Nathan Drake’s eyelids in a sandstorm. Jump and dash through levels, perform jet hovers (which explode anything below you to death), spin, and use whatever power-ups the level design provides. If you’re desperate for a comparison, Astro Bot is most similar to Mario Odyssey than the more action-focused Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart – though it has its own highlights. Given the variety of gadgets on display, you’d be hard-pressed to convince yourself that developer Team Asobi has created a pure platformer, but this is about as close as we’ll get.
To extend the comparison further, I’d say that Astro Bot’s hidden robots (the actual little robots, based on the famous PlayStation character about 50% of the time) aren’t too far from Odyssey’s moon. There aren’t a lot of them here, so they don’t appear a lot, but they can usually be found by completing small challenges or searching secret areas. These robots then allow you to unlock new areas from within your “home” area, which is also where you store many of the game’s other unlockables – the Gacha machine from the Playroom is back, which is a fun way to use the coins you earn a lot in general play, plus picture fragments can unlock new buildings and features.
It’s easy to spoil the plot of Astro Bot, especially if you’re familiar with PlayStation history. There are clever uses of multiple classic games in the game that put the “guest character” and “classic skin” fan service you see in other games to shame. There’s real gameplay in Astro Bot, not just a knowing wink or a tip of the hat designed to stimulate your historical receptors and make you feel something without any actual presence. Importantly, Astro treats its fans well, but it also doesn’t rely on players wearing rose-colored glasses.
If you’re reading this with a twitchy eye and desperately trying not to Google which classic games Astro Bot is the source of its most memorable moments, I strongly urge you not to. Go into the game knowing that you’re in for an entertaining ride, and you won’t find much more than what the rest of this review has to say. This is the kind of game you’ll talk about with friends with vague questions: “Have you played the classic series and the cool mechanics?” “Have you played the big shot?” “Yeah, when that robot showed up, I knew what was going to happen next and I couldn’t help but laugh.”
It would be unfair to chalk up Astro Bot’s success entirely to a nod to PlayStation history, as much of what we see here is anything but that. Moreover, it shows a great deal of respect for the platformer genre, whether intentional or not. The unhappy, callous, and downright petty-minded might say that Astro Bot rips off too many great works of the genre, but that’s simply not the case. It feels like a work that belongs to it, rather than a patchwork of classic ideas thrown together and called Ready Player One. This is a game that players of all ages and experience levels can enjoy and have fun with, so don’t let anyone tell you that you need an encyclopedic knowledge of PlayStation history.
A slight rebuttal, but definitely not a spoiler: Astro Bot has its share of challenging levels that will test you. For the most part, I found the core levels to be a lovely, enjoyable jaunt, but the special areas can be unsettling for the robot pigeon. There are no requirements to completing these tougher special levels, and most people will just hand in a robot when they do, but they add excellent value to the endgame if you want to complete everything Astro Bot has to offer – in fact, unlocking some of these levels is a challenge in itself.
Despite my enthusiasm for the DualSense controller at PS5 launch, I’ve grown a bit sour on it over the years, but it works wonders in Astro Bot. The controller feels like it was made for the game, connecting you to the world and the experience in a clever way. It’s top-notch stuff, and it serves as a selling point for the entire game, as do the bold visuals and dynamic soundtrack.
Astro Bot doesn’t really push the boundaries of visuals, but its levels are full of personality, rich in detail, and provide just the right amount of spectacle when needed.
I’m not as disappointed with the PS5’s game lineup as some people are, and I generally like most of the games Sony has released, but I won’t deny that I feel a lack of unbridled excitement. Part of this is because the games are getting older and it’s hard to do something truly unique, but a lot of it is because the burden of AAA games is too heavy nowadays.
Take God of War: Ragnarok: a fantastic game with a rich story, great acting, top-notch combat, and a ton of content… but also a game that struggles at times, as is often the case with big trilogies.oneTo address this problem, Astro Bot can act as a placebo.
Astro Bot doesn’t care about these burdens, but if it did, you’d probably use its robotic arms to throw it at a giant robot ape, then smash that ape’s teeth and shove yourself into its exploding head. Astro Bot is all about having fun, and I can’t really think of a single moment where I wished something could have been handled differently, tweaked more easily, or expanded upon. It’s simply perfect.
Astro Bot will be released exclusively on PS5 on September 6, 2024. PS5 review copy provided by the publisher.
