Astro Bot

When I first got my PS5, I seemed to shout from the mountain tops how great the included freebie, Astro's Playroom, was. Although I didn't review it, it won 2020's "Most Fun" Rath Award, for good reason. It was a huge display of the PS5's best feature - its controller - and was a shockingly competent platformer, steeped in nostalgia for the PlayStation brand.

It may come as no surprise that I'm a PlayStation loyalist...some may call "fanboy", if the console wars are still a thing. I love my Xbox when there's something to play (e.g. Forza Horizon is one of the best gaming series of all time), and Nintendo was fun for a time while I had a Switch, but I've had a PlayStation since the PS2 era, and arguably even the PS1 era given I played with my friends' so much. It's a brand with a deep history of fantastic stories, games, and genre-pushing IP that has provided me hours of wonderful gaming memories. Like...is anyone ever going to forget the first time they played Uncharted 2's opening train sequence? Or battled a hydra in the original God of War?

It constantly changes up gameplay

I digress a bit, but it's an important callout of how much I loved Astro Bot in comparison to someone who may just be joining the PlayStation brand. For newcomers, it's a gleefully fun and innovative platformer, but for those of us that have been with PS for years, it's a heartwarming nostalgia bomb too. 

One of my declarations with the Astro's Playroom "demo" (or whatever you want to call it) was: "This is as good as Mario...I sure hope they make a full game out of this!". The "they" in this sentence being Team ASOBI. PlayStation has long been looking for a friendly, "E for Everyone" mascot to rival Nintendo's. They tried and were mildly successful with LittleBigPlanet's Sackboy, but that platformer, despite having an insane ability to create, couldn't hold a candle to its rivals. Now with Astro Bot, I believe PlayStation has not only found their kid-friendly mascot, but they've gotten themselves an exclusive that is so damn good, it has already become one of my favorite PlayStation games ever.

Astro Bot is a wonder of a game and platformer. As with this genre, it's never all that difficult (which is honestly perfect for some of the low-stress gaming I need in my life right now), but it's consistently innovating on itself. The gameplay is built on a foundation of jumping and running around, but in many levels, that concept gets turned into fun quirks or all-out gameplay add-ons. There's a casino level where you receive a stopwatch gadget to greatly slow time and Astro Bot makes sure to create fun, inventive moments out of this. There're levels where you'll be outfitted with frog punching gloves and again, the game makes sure there are unique moments that take advantage of that. There's even moments where you get to assume the powers of various PlayStation brand heroes, much to my delight. I won't spoil those here, but they're unexpected, a ton of fun, and often funny in a similar vein of how Lego can take more dramatic IP and make it cute with some of their games. 

Tons of varied levels and locations

Sprinkled throughout the gameplay is your main objective: rescue as many Astro Bots as you can, while you repair the PS5 console spaceship that crashed due to a massive alien. While there's not much plot there, I found the approach heartwarming in a subtle way, as I pushed my quest to save all 300 Astro Bots, many of which are outfitted with character elements from PlayStation's history (e.g. Metal Gear Solid, Ghost of Tsushima, Ape Escape, and many, many more). As you play through the various levels, there are puzzle pieces to find (which unlock cool surprises back at the crash site), as well as "Lost Galaxy" levels that essentially all add up to a 6th "galaxy" of levels you can play through -- should you find them. I've heard complaints the game is short, but I think there's enough to hunt down here (not to mention, I wanted to start right away upon finishing) that I wouldn't necessarily call it "too" short. And there's free DLC coming in the coming weeks that makes it all the more worthwhile. 

In addition to innovative and fun gameplay, much like the demo, Astro Bot is the single best use of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller. This often underutilized tool is put to full use for the entirety of the game. There's thoughtful motion sensing, noticeable use of the haptic feedback triggers and vibration levels, microphone (in a couple segments you must blow on your controller to create wind!), and best of all: it's speakers. In wonderfully subtle, but effective ways, nearly every sound you do on screen comes across via a speaker in your controller. By reading that you may think it would be annoying, but it's instead very immersive. A perfect example would be in certain segments that require you to roll around as a metal ball. Across normal ground, the controller provides a soft tumbling noise that's otherwise imperceptible via your TV speakers. But roll that ball across metal spikes? You get loud tinging metal-on-metal noises that coincide with the speed at which you're rolling the ball. In Astro Bot the controller becomes an extension of the game in a way I've never seen done. 

The audio honey doesn't stop there either, as Astro Bot has a delightful amount of original music of the toe-tapping variety in nearly every screen or level. Some stick out more than others; a singing tree that's the equivalent of Rick Ross's "hooo!", but with melody, is my personal highlight. And if you're thinking: "Oh, it's a platformer. It won't have good graphics", then think again. Not only are the character, enemy, and level designs top notch, but the visuals are intricate and detailed. It's not going to catch your breath like Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon, but there's a more of a push than you'd anticipate, particularly when a lot of things are present on screen, like hundreds of apples, feathers, nuts, or confetti. 

Astro Bot just gets me

I could keep going with Astro Bot in some of the areas I didn't touch, but it's probably obvious how much I love it by now. The deep reach into PlayStation's past is extra nostalgia and "Oh wow!" points for someone like me that has been around for a while, but even if you don't fall in that camp, Astro Bot is basically a perfect game for all ages and many skills sets. It's colorful, can be funny, easy to pick up, endlessly fun to play, constantly pulling out new tricks, and has killer audio and visual design. It's a rare game where as soon as I beat it, I was hopping right back in. 

Rath's Review Score |

10/10 - Instant Classic

Enjoy some additional screenshots from my playthrough!