When we talk about “party games,” we often think of games that bring people together and create a great atmosphere. For example, Rock Band was synonymous with nights out with friends for many years. Astro Bot is a party game with a difference. It doesn’t make me want to gather my friends and open a beer, but every pixel is designed to convey a warm feeling of lightness and mischief. You can feel that in the upbeat soundtrack, the colorful, constantly moving graphics, and of course the gathering of countless characters from PlayStation history, making it a great tribute to the brand and an excellent platformer in its own right.
Astro’s road to fame was an arduous one. In 2016, the tiny robot debuted in the Robot Rescue minigame, a highlight of The Playroom VR collection. The character and formula showed so much potential that Asobi was given the green light to develop a full game based on the concept. The result was Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, which released in 2018 and received rave reviews, including a 9 from one server. However, it failed to carve out a larger niche, largely for the simple reason that, as the game was exclusive to PSVR, few could play it. 2020’s Astro’s Playroom didn’t have that problem, as it comes pre-installed on all PlayStation 5 consoles, but as a glorified tech demo, the excellent little game left us wanting much more.
And now we have it. In some ways, Astro Bot’s simple title feels like a new Year 0 in the Astro timeline, almost as if Asobi and Sony are telling us that this is, in my opinion, the true beginning of what they believe will become Astro Bot’s mascot and the focus of the PlayStation celebration. If they succeed, good for them. Astro Bot revives the 3D platformer with a collection of perfectly paced levels that constantly surprise with new twists and take the game’s simple core in exciting new directions.
Advertising:
At first glance, Astro Bot’s familiar content and colorful graphics may seem like a major break from the story-focused blockbusters Sony’s in-house studios have been synonymous with since the PlayStation 3. Asobi’s game is a welcome change from sad, abusive parents, young women, and code-breaking samurai, but behind the colors lies a bombastic 3D platformer with spectacular sets that would fit perfectly in Uncharted or God of War.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the six boss battles, which serve as climaxes to the galaxies the game is divided into. There are old favourites as well as brand new enemies, but what they all have in common is stunning graphics and varied combat designs. Most battles evolve as the game progresses, forcing you to switch from one combat scenario to another, for example. Combined with the bosses’ varying attack patterns, this gives the fights a wonderfully dynamic quality, aided by fabulous animations and camera work that sells the comedy brilliantly. The way you fire from a cannon and nearly take out the giant bird Falcon McFly, for example, is a costly introduction to the dynamic showdown, which takes place entirely at high speed high above the ground.
Advertising:
Each boss is also b ased on one of the few special abilities, which this time around offer much more room for exploration. While their use in Astro’s Playroom was promising but ultimately too superficial, here they live up to Nintendo’s design philosophy of introducing, expanding and distorting surprises. The metal ball initially serves to roll on the spikes before you realize that it naturally serves as a shield against the bullet-spewing enemies. Just when you think defense is its only function, Asobi introduces sequences where you roll through a 2D maze by tilting the DualSense controller – just one of several delightful uses of the motion control feature.
Other abilities, like the time-slowing VR goggles, are more one-dimensional, but still extremely satisfying when you turn, for example, fast-flying cars into usable platforms rather than the death traps they usually are. And then there are those that are primarily offensively fun, like the frog gloves that turn Astro into the robot equivalent of Mike Tyson, or the dog jetpack that lets you blast through enemies and walls.
The bombastic sets and costumes are the secret ingredients that enrich the experience, but it’s the rock-solid core that makes the game shine. There are more mechanically complex platformers on the market, but Astro Bot’s strength lies in its execution. As connoisseurs of the series will be used to, Astro in its basic form is controlled with just two buttons. One for jumping and one for punching. The first lets Astro float with an extra boost, while the second can also be used to pull things, depending on the context. No, it’s not really complex, but it’s pitch-perfect, and if you miss a jump or get hit by an enemy, the most important thing is that it feels like your fault, not the controller’s.
This mechanical minimalism is equally well executed. Whether Astro is rescuing his friends on tropical beaches, among gleaming skyscrapers or old haunted houses, the crisp graphics shine with their clean lines and broad but tasteful color palette. Additionally, there’s a sense of movement on the tracks in the form of thousands of fallen apples or snowdrifts to clear to find secrets, adding to the sense of life and joy that Astro Bot conveys so exemplarily. As does the stirring soundtrack. It’s not often that I find myself humming quietly while tapping my foot, but here it happened, and quite often. The sound design related to the effects coming out of the DualSense controller also deserves special praise. They often annoy me a lot, but here they contribute to an incredibly immersive and tactile use of the controller. DualSense seemed so promising years ago, but its special features, like haptic feedback, seem to have been forgotten. Here they shine. Asobi actually builds on the combination of speaker and rumble use that they did so well in “Astro’s Playroom,” but here everything is a bit crisper.
Structurally, Asobi doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but sticks with what works. The game is divided into a series of galaxies made up of a mix of required and optional levels. The first are the classic and longer ones, where the goal is to reach the end of the path and rescue as many robots in trouble as possible along the way. Other collectibles, such as puzzle pieces and coins that can be used mid-game (more on that later) and portals to secret paths, make exploring the corners of the levels a pleasure, but never escape us like the genre did in its heyday. The levels follow the design philosophy of Super Mario 3D World, with a linear design where the corners hide all sorts of secrets, but there’s also room for more open areas, where Asobi experiments with a design that’s more like a sandbox. Optional levels are shorter, but also more challenging, putting you to the test by using special skills or techniques.
The idea of splitting the game into separate galaxies makes sense thematically, but I wish Asobi had been a little more strict with the theming of the levels. Each galaxy has a colorful mix of visually distinct paths, as opposed to the biome approach used in, say, Super Mario Bros. Wonder. You could argue that the galaxies are diverse, but I would have liked a little more connective tissue to tie everything together and give each galaxy its own identity, in addition to the boss that visually symbolizes it and waits at the end of the path.
An interesting meeting point is the center of the game, a desert planet where you can open vending machines that let you buy various things with the coins you collect along the way. This is also where any robots you rescue are sent, and in true Pikmin style, you can use them to open up new parts of the planet. Seeing Kratos sit on Daxter’s shoulders while he carries Nathan Drake so they can build a robotic rope to climb is an experience that wasn’t on my bingo card, but I appreciate it nonetheless.
And now that we’ve opened the PlayStation Exchange, it’s fitting to confirm that Astro Bot is taking the celebration of the PlayStation brand and its wider ecosystem that launched Astro’s Playroom and taking it to the stars. You’ll be rescuing game characters in bot form, flying on a DualSense with the grand goal of repairing the mothership, which of course is, yes, you guessed it, a PlayStation 5 console, but the big draw is a handful of route characters whose visual and gameplay form is drawn from a number of PlayStation IPs. I won’t give anything away other than the fact that they’re absolutely wonderful, and thankfully there’s room for more than just the big guns. More Asobi please!
While the celebration of PlayStation as a brand sometimes threatens to get out of control and undermine Astro Bot’s own identity, it’s also wonderfully nostalgic to see the characters and series I’ve followed since the late ’90s brought together in one game, and it’s a much better platform for that celebration than PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale ever was.
Ultimately, though, Astro Bot is worth celebrating for its unique qualities. It’s something as rare as a AAA 3D platformer where Mario isn’t the protagonist. And not only that. Astro Bot is an exceptional game in its own right that will give your body pure happiness within 10-15 hours. With its bright, clear color display and simple yet varied gameplay, it’s exactly what Sony’s console needs right now. The course to the stars is set and I’m sure Astro will reach the summit.
