Astro Bot is a dream 3D platformer. Review

PlayStation 5 played

The release of Astro Bot very well coincided with the announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro. While the charismatic Mark Cerny was rapturously talking about increased teraflops, threads and other characteristics incomprehensible to the average person, which meant slightly clearer graphics in the same games, the Team ASOBI team made a real diamond. A game in which graphics are certainly not in the first place – it looks, of course, amazing, but that’s not what makes it stand out. Something else is impressive here: the level design, variety, exciting gameplay – everything that makes games stick in your soul for a long time and make you want to return to them.

⇡#New world of PlayStation

We first learned about Astrobot in 2020, when a free Astro’s Playroom was included in the PlayStation 5 box. It is still jokingly called the best PS5 exclusive, although this is not entirely a joke – it is a truly great game. It’s both a good platformer in its own right and a great showcase for the DualSense gamepad’s features. And adaptive triggers, and gyroscopic control, and funny sounds from the speaker, and vibration that changes on the fly – with this game it’s as if they were trying to sell you a gamepad that you already have.

They look like someone…

Astro’s Playroom was a kind of PlayStation museum – everything in it was built around Sony’s long-standing heritage such as audio players, record players, portable consoles and so on. Astro Bot moved away from this topic – the new game is dedicated not to the past, but to the present and future. Even the title of the game seems to speak to us of a new start, of the developers’ desire to make this series something more than a place for nostalgia for Sony fans. At the same time, they have not yet begun to abandon their roots, so here a ship in the form of a giant PlayStation 5 crashes, and we race around the universe on a speeder, very similar to the modernized DualSense. Well, we couldn’t do without many characters from other games.

The essence remains the same: there is a central location where all sorts of entertainment gradually opens up, and there is the opportunity to fly on a speeder outside the planet, where we will one by one unlock galaxies with new levels. On each of them are hidden several bots that need our help – as before, it’s enough to hit them once for the touchpad of our virtual DualSense to rise and the poor fellows to jump into the gamepad. Sometimes bots are surrounded by enemies, sometimes they can’t get down from a tree they climbed for some reason – everyone has their own problems.

The rescued bots are sent to the central planet, where they will come in handy in large quantities more than once

If you replace bots with stars, Astro Bot becomes similar to Super Mario Galaxy, where we also traveled to different galaxies and surprises awaited us on each planet. Team Asobi understands better than anyone what makes 3D Super Mario such a beloved game – the amazing variety of situations, and the boldness with which the designers use some gameplay mechanics only once and discard them later. There are so many interesting and unusual ideas in the game that the developers did not cling to any of them – it is much better to constantly switch between them.

In some world, you will learn to greatly shrink in size, which will allow you to penetrate hard-to-reach places and climb onto high platforms using air currents. In another, on the contrary, you will increase and at any moment “deflate” back. In the third, you will be allowed to slow down time to slip past space traffic and defeat fast-firing enemies. Unique transformations, different melee weapons, changing conditions – including within the same level – are countless, new mechanics are introduced at every step.

Each level begins with a speeder flight – sometimes you find collectibles before landing

⇡#Master class

If you just run forward and are not distracted by anything, all these advantages will not be completely missed – the main path to the goal is always full of funny situations. But Astro Bot reveals itself much better to meticulous level researchers. The creators of the game seem to read your mind every time you want to do something, and reward you for it. There are several rocks in the water that don’t have any coins or collectibles on them, but if you jump on one of them, coins will appear out of thin air. You can climb onto the treetops using the boxes standing nearby – you will definitely either find a chest there, or you will be able to jump to a platform that you have not seen before. Curiosity is always rewarded with some kind of bonus – even if it’s a plot bot, you enjoy any pleasant surprises.

Sometimes curiosity and attention to suspicious details allow you to unlock bonus levels – there are very tiny episodes that are hidden near planets, and there are full-fledged locations available in a separate “Lost Galaxy”. The latter are no different from the story levels – there are plenty of bots, platform episodes, and even unique skills that can give out. So if you beat the game and came across only a couple of bonus entertainment, the remaining content will be enough for another whole evening.

Weather phenomena in this game are also different

The vast majority of levels are original and have very little connection to franchises from Sony and other publishers associated with the PlayStation. For example, in one of the worlds you will go to a casino and meet the Joker from Persona 5 among the bots – the gambling establishment there was one of the story locations. However, this is the only thing that connects this world with Persona – it is full of its own ideas, like cards that enemies throw and which you use as platforms, as well as slot machines where the prizes can be either coins or a group of enemies.

At the same time, there are levels entirely dedicated to game series, and they turned out, without exaggeration, amazing. It would be mean to talk about everyone, but take, for example, the world of God of War – you will meet familiar creatures there (the local version of a turtle with a tree on its shell is a masterpiece), and the game mechanics are appropriate, and there are plenty of references. These levels are like good parodies – not caricatures where developers poke fun at popular games, focusing on their shortcomings, but charming homages made with great love for the original source. But, I repeat, the beauty of Astro Bot as a whole is far from being in these levels; the game does not “excel” only due to numerous references (although it’s nice to see them).

Some mechanics were carried over from Astro’s Playroom, but such levels play no less fresh than then

It’s impossible to talk about “Astrobot” without mentioning other gameplay “features” – those associated with the gamepad. Many developers still don’t make great use of the DualSense’s features (usually limiting themselves to pressing the triggers when shooting a bow), but Astro Bot’s controls are just as delightful as Astro’s Playroom. Triggers constantly need to be pressed with different strength – sometimes you push something, sometimes you pull, sometimes you shoot. The vibration is also constantly different – sometimes so strong that the gamepad makes noise, sometimes barely noticeable, allowing you to immerse yourself in the world and feel the surface on which the hero walks with your palms. Sometimes you even have to blow into the gamepad!

The sound design is equally great. Usually, a character contacted by radio is yelling from the speaker in the DualSense (and you are looking in the settings for how to reduce the volume). In Astro Bot, the water gurgles, the grass crushes, the speeder engines hum, or comedic sounds are heard, like being hit with a rubber mallet when defeating a boss. All this makes the world very alive, especially when the environment reacts to our actions: trees shake when struck, robotic animals jump, soft surfaces sag under the weight of the bot. The developers really like to put the player in rooms where the floor is littered with a bunch of rubbish, be it hundreds of gold coins, cups or balls – as if you find yourself in a children’s room with a mountain of toys, where no one can stop you from fooling around.

The combat system is simple, but the developers were able to come up with a sufficient number of different enemies

***

If Astro’s Playroom was called one of the best PS5 exclusives, then Astro Bot this characteristic fits even more. The game puts much less pressure on nostalgia and looks like a much more independent platformer. There are still a lot of references to other PlayStation projects, including some that only very old audiences will remember. Yes, and we are looking for parts of the huge PlayStation 5, flying on the DualSense gamepad. But in Astro Bot you enjoy not only meeting familiar heroes in the form of bots – every location is thought out to the smallest detail, and every gameplay mechanic is implemented at the highest level. If this game doesn’t deserve a top score, then why give it at all?

Advantages:

• A wide variety of skills that make each region unique;
• Dozens of different locations;
• Great environmental design that encourages curiosity;
• Delightful parodies of famous PlayStation games;
• An excellent demonstration of all the features of the DualSense – both adaptive triggers and changing vibration;

Disadvantages:

• Not found.

Graphic arts

Bright, cheerful and positive – like Astro’s Playroom, the new part of the series instantly lifts your spirits. The regions are visually diverse, the boss fights are epic, and the levels that reference famous Sony games are filled with fun details that only fans will understand.

Sound

If you usually write in this column about the work of the actors and the soundtrack, then in the case of Astro Bot the first thing you need to mention is DualSense. The gamepad’s speaker works tirelessly and doesn’t irritate, as is often the case, and the changing vibration also contributes to immersion – when the gamepad shakes so much that it makes noise, it always happens at the most opportune moments.

Single player game

Dozens of different levels – including secret ones – at each of which some surprises and unusual ideas await. Some game mechanics are repeated, and some are unique to one or two locations – there are so many of them that the creators could afford it.

Estimated time of completion

About 12 hours to complete the story, plus another evening to find collectibles and all the secrets.

Collective game

Not foreseen.

General impression

A stunning 3D platformer in the spirit of the best Nintendo games. It turned out that the success of Astro’s Playroom was not an accident – these developers really know how to create such games and why they are loved.

Rating: 10/10

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