An incredible platformer/IP graveyard.
For decades, Nintendo has been the de facto standard when it comes to platformers. There have been some to come close to creating similar and memorable experiences, but few have stood the test of time or really felt like genuine competitors. When it comes to some of Nintendo’s best, both Super Mario Odyssey and the Mario Galaxy series are two that are considered the best the genre has ever seen. Well, while Sony has largely been busy with crafting their unsustainable big-budget AAA action games, Team ASOBI casually drops what is likely the best release PlayStation has had in years, a technical feat that ticks all the right boxes, and a platformer that is as good, if not better, than anything Nintendo has ever produced. Not bad for a company whose CFO just publicly stated that the platform holder doesn’t have enough original IP.
Astro Bot is, at its core, a game built out of sheer creativity. Does it nick a few things from Mario Galaxy? Damn rights it does, but it puts them on display with a rare confidence few studios could pull off. Astro Bot revels in showing the player something new around almost every corner. Few ideas are even revisited, making some moments feel memorable and unique. While it can border on not allowing some of those ideas to creatively breathe, given how quickly they can be cast aside in favor of something new, I never felt robbed of my time with any moment, or spectacle.
The game is also a celebration of PlayStation’s history. While some particular characters and IP are oddly absent at the time of this review, namely Twisted Metal and Toshinden, a pair of games that have been there since the first days of PlayStation, the deep cuts are the ones that stand out the most, but not always in a positive light. This is because while Astro Bot is that celebration of PlayStation’s history, it’s also a visual graveyard of IP that will never again see the light of day, making their appearance absolutely sting. While there are some recent entries that we’ll never see revisited, such as Concrete Genie and Days Gone, we have appearances from Tearaway, Rogue Galaxy, Sly Cooper, Jax and Daxter, Vib-Ribbon, Legend of Dragoon, Dark Cloud, and Jumping Flash, that show that PlayStation has abandoned just a colossal amount of its past. It’s great to see ASOBI showing this level of appreciation of what has come before, but it also shows Sony’s very apparent inability to leverage what built them up in the first place.
Astro Bot continues its use of PlayStation aesthetics from previous entries in that the PlayStation VR headset-themed mascot is piloting a literal PS5 ship that comes under fire in the vast reaches of space, an attack perpetrated by Nebulax, a generic and incredibly boring green alien. As the PS5 ship crashes down below, you'll visit six themed galaxies that each hold a crucial component of the console-ship, and then bring the fight back to Nebulax, who personally holds onto one final part. Each of the over 80 levels plays host to several PlayStation-focused cameos that need to be rescued. The worlds often delight in their color, creativity, and charm, and each of the main worlds ends in a final level that is designed around one particular PlayStation franchise, such as God of War and Uncharted, to name a few. The final level of the fourth world has been reported to be many player's favorite, but it was a franchise that I was never remotely into, so its appearance here was nonetheless charming, but ultimately its effect was completely lost on me. Still, it offered up a compelling level that was nonetheless engaging.
Each world also has a series of bonus levels, challenges, and more, filling out a fairly brief adventure that can easily be pushed through over the course of a weekend. While the bulk of time will be spent hunting down every collectible and bot, as there are 304 of them at the time of this review, Astro Bot is roughly around 10 hours in length for a standard playthrough. Personally, that length worked well to not overstay its welcome or feel padded, especially as additional content like time trials is set to release for free. Astro’s Playroom, a game bundled in with every PS5 is approximately 3 hours long, and many spent double or triple in that world just exploring and attempting to beat other player's times at each level. Given the robust nature of what Astro Bot offers here, I could see many spending dozens of hours once that time trial mode is released.
Once the PS5 ship has crashed, Astro Bot will explore the space around the crash site. This is the hub world that allows you to unlock more of the galaxy map. You'll track down a satellite-centric bot and it will ping the next destination. These are structured in a certain order, so you'll need to beat each level to unlock the boss battle, something that requires a set number of bots to have been unlocked. Thankfully, should you return to a previously completed level, you can pay a small amount of PlayStation coin currency to have an assist bot show you where the remaining bots and puzzle pieces are.
The hub world also continues to grow as you progress through the game. New areas open up with additional bots, challenges, and more. As you rescue more bots, they will make their own little spaces out and about, all in the area around the ship. You'll track down puzzle pieces across each stage as well, with these working towards unlocking a habitat that grants you additional collectibles such as skins for Astro Bot or the controller you fly around on. The puzzle pieces unlock these areas in order, so you'll have these locations granted to you in the same order as everyone else.
Set across over 80 gorgeous worlds, Astro Bot will rely on a handful of abilities that are tailored made to each stage. One moment you’ll be stopping time and platforming across objects suspended in the air, inflating yourself to float upward, to shrinking down to the size of a mouse and taking in the world around you; the latter of which is shockingly used in just one single level. One ability that is also used sparingly is the Sponge, which has you soaking up water and becoming a massive version of Astro Bot. While Astro Bot could have gone the replayability road and provided a choice on letting you tackle worlds with any ability, I do like the focus here of making that world exclusive to that ability, allowing it to really use it to its full extent. Still, why the Mouse ability is only used a single time is bizarre, given that some abilities are used nearly a dozen times.
Other abilities, like the Monkey Climb has you scaling walls with long extended arms. The Frog punch is similar in appearance, but has you punching like the cast of Nintendo’s ARMS. Strapping a penguin to your back will allow you to swim faster, whereas a dog on the back of Astro can propel him further. One ability that joins Sponge and Mouse in that it isn’t used much is the Teddy Cymbol, an ability that is really only injected into the game should you discover all the secret levels. While there are a few other abilities you’ll discover, they are used well enough in their respective levels but don’t really feature the same creativity as some of the ones I’ve just mentioned.
The feel of Astro Bot is both incredible and incredibly frustrating, but not for the reasons you think. Everything from running, jumping, bashing, and using Astro Bot’s boot thrusters to clear a gap feels incredible. The precise movements the little bot makes is fine-tuned to perfection. The controller's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers are showcased in ways that show the relationship that Team Asobi has with the Dual Sense design team. The tiny vibrations when he runs, the way different objects cause the controller to rumble is immaculate and feels genuinely different to each obstacle. Tilting the controller to navigate your ship or hammer in nails, to the adaptive triggers and their use for a variety of his abilities is second to none. Where this becomes frustrating is that it shows how many teams, Sony's included, are flat-out ignoring this tech, making Astro Bot yet again feel like a tech demo for controller features that have been out for four years now. Regardless, Astro Bot has that Nintendo feel of Mario's best, and a controller that has features that are additive and immersive toward the whole experience.
Part of that Nintendo feel is also shown across the game's bosses. Astro Bot crams in nearly two dozen boss encounters, some that repeat in certain ways, but all of them are truly special events. From flying atop a bird as you smash away at its helmet, to a Djinn or a Gorilla, these fights are simple in their design, but due to the wondrous abilities and the slick controls, are engaging and often magical. That said, the final battle is likely the weakest, coming across as the less creative design of the entire bunch, which is a shame since the game goes to great lengths to show us Nebulax between each world. Still, the other fights are very impressive and constantly shine.
Astro Bot succeeds in so much of what it does that it feels traditional in both the best and worst ways. Back during the era of the platformer, when everyone was taking a swing at things, this was a point in gaming that hadn’t yet approached making certain aspects of its design built around accessibility. It’s surprising that despite Sony making huge strides and even remastering barely aged games like The Last of Us to add in these settings that Astro Bot features almost no modern accessibility toggles such as high contrast mode or allowing certain features that require particular motor skills to be skipped entirely. There are controller tilt settings that can be replaced with button presses, swapping camera settings the unused O button, or a visual assist setting that oddly combines a few visual cues with some UI enhancements instead of being individual toggles. Still, for as hard as Sony has been going with accessibility, I expected far more.
The game even features some collectibles that are locked behind blowing into the mic on the controller, an act that is not compatible with the PlayStation Access controller. While some features that were not compatible with the controller such as anything to do with the Touchpad were present in Astro’s playroom, these have thankfully been addressed in Astro Bot, making it more compatible with the Access controller despite the whole mic situation.
Astro Bot is frankly superb in its execution, offering delightful worlds, abilities, and charm. Its presentation across its celebration of PlayStation’s history is twofold; one where it honors what came before and the other side of the coin in that it shows how much IP PlayStation has intentionally left behind. Regardless, Astro Bot deserves to be in your collection, not just because of how great it is, but that it hopefully sells well enough to allow other teams at Sony to not follow the same basic third-person over-the-shoulder narrative trend the publisher has been clinging to for years. We need more charm and experimentation from Sony, and this game is hopefully just the start.
Developer - Team ASOBI.
Publisher - PlayStation Studios. Released - September 6th, 2024. Available On - PlayStation 5/Pro. Rated - (E 10+) - Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence. Platform Reviewed - Playstation 5. Review Access - Astro Bot was purchased by the review for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.