- 20 hours ago
Astro Bot is everything you wanted and more.
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00:00Sometimes there's just a video game that you'll glad exists and I think I'm alongside millions of
00:05other people who came off 2020's Astro Bot pack-in game on the PlayStation 5 just yearning for more
00:10of that gameplay, that exquisitely tight platforming, super responsive DualSense haptics
00:14and an overall presentation that was just super inviting and rewarding in equal measure.
00:19Thankfully, developers Team Asobi are now fully able to shine. I like to think because that 2020
00:24game did so well and was so warmly received, it seemed like they were then able to play with the
00:28company credit card a little bit and put out a full release. Honestly, this is a playable love
00:33letter to PlayStation history but not just through the first party lens. There's also a huge amount
00:37of respect paid to third parties as well. Everyone from Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid characters
00:42to deep cuts like Ark the Lad or Toro Inoue slash the Sony cast. Bloodborne's Hunter even pops up as
00:48well. There are so many and I'm not going to spoil them. It's not like, you know, your mileage is
00:53going
00:53to vary in regards to how many of these characters you wouldn't know going in. There are literally
00:57hundreds of them. I think they've said there's like 150 or 180 VIP bot characters that you're
01:02going to be rescuing alongside the 300 characters or bots that you're going to be rescuing in general
01:06but I like the surprise. I loved all my time finding these various characters, realizing just
01:12how deep those cuts went and just having a giant smile on my face being like, oh my god,
01:16that's Solid Snake. Oh my god, that's Dracula or whatever from Castlevania. Stuff like that is just
01:22awesome. You're seeing Alucard in there or whatever and I think that's one of the biggest reasons
01:26to play this is just a pure celebration of gaming history. Yes, it is through a PlayStation lens
01:31but thankfully the vast majority of our favorite franchises graced the PlayStation at one time or
01:36another. In regards to levels, you have bite-sized approaches here. Something like a three to eight
01:40minutes per average for a level which I think is an awesome way to sort of tip the nod to
01:44the average
01:44age of gamers being in their phase. I'm pretty sure the average age of all gamers is like 34 right
01:49now
01:49which is interesting because in the likes of Astro Bot and PlayStation history, tons of us grew up with
01:54PlayStation and tons of us now have kids or busy lifestyles etc and you just want to nip in,
01:59play a game, have a few minutes with something and leave with a smile on your face. That's my overall
02:04thing with this is that it is very much designed to make sure you're having as much joy as possible
02:08even in small increments. I think the levels themselves are so expertly designed that I'm
02:12going to get to various reasons why across this review but I do love that general approach. It is a
02:183D
02:18platformer style approach but the general pace here which is something I'll bring back in
02:22in a minute, the general pace here is just thunderous. They want you to get in there,
02:26to hoover up different characters, to experiment different ways of getting around the levels,
02:30enjoy the power set that you're being given and just have an immediately positive good time.
02:35Astro's power set is the same as the 2020 game. Hitting jump again gives you a downward boost attack,
02:40you can spin in the air for more distance or you can hold the standard melee attack for a spin
02:44and outside of that you get powers on certain levels as well. A rocket jump, some spring-loaded fists,
02:49one where you turn into a sponge and have to weaponize soaking up and releasing water to
02:53douse fires and clean oil slicks. The overarching vibe is just one of inventiveness and I love,
02:58if you look into Team Asobi's history and Japan Studio's history, the individuals putting this
03:03game together have always been involved in refining things like the DualSense and the way that,
03:08you know, Sony's hardware works and you can just feel that in every single implementation here
03:12on the gameplay side. The way that the controller rumbles, the different feel of walking over
03:17ice or glass or walking through snow or what it feels like when the breeze kicks up or the wind
03:23flies past you or whatever, all of that stuff comes through in the controller, which I feel it was an
03:27early promise for the PlayStation 5 back when we had those technical showcases from Mark Cerny talking
03:31about how, you know, whatever's happening on screen would be represented in the controller.
03:35It's something like a Returnal or something like an Astro Bot that actually brings that stuff to the
03:39fore. Across all of this is Sony's branding being front and center and I'm interested to see what
03:44people think of this, the idea of just steering into your biggest branded elements, the fact that
03:48you do have the triangle, square, circle and X icons, the button icons, you know, being different
03:54interactable characters. They show up having eyes on them, they bounce all around you, they represent
03:59different levels that you can beam into and also the fact that Astro is just piloting alongside all
04:03the other bots in the spaceship is literally just the PlayStation 5 itself flying through the cosmos
04:08and then you pilot a DualSense to go from planet to planet. There's something kind of cool about
04:12this. I think if I was a kid growing up, if I was approaching Astro Bot at the same age
04:17that I
04:17played Spyro or Crash or whatever, I think I would fall in love with all of the general approach here
04:22and I'd be flying my DualSense around the room. For as much as I do think that this is massively
04:26enjoyable as a video game regardless, I just have to imagine the new generation coming up and the
04:30amount of fun they're going to have with this being their first premium 3D platformer. Like I
04:36mentioned, you know, Crash, Spyro, Banjo on the N64 or whatever. These give us very warm memories and
04:41phenomenal experiences when we played them across the 90s and Astro Bot is laser focused on doing
04:46that yet again, whether that's for someone who already has those memories like one of us, for
04:50example, or someone younger. The execution here is just so, so spot on. Alongside the array of standard
04:573D platforming levels that are more in line with what we had in 2020 are a series of additional
05:02levels, some of them being themed around specific pillar franchises, which I absolutely love and it's
05:07another thing that I don't want to spoil. I keep seeing Sony and various other outlets doing it on
05:12social media saying, hey, did you know there's an X level in there? I'm only going to mention one of
05:16them. It's one of those things that I think, you know, when you realize, oh my god, in this case,
05:21I'm playing a version of God of War Ragnarok, you know, but as Astro Bot, where they've done an
05:27Astro Bot version of the Leviathan Axe, you're throwing it and recalling it. When you're in a level that is
05:32entirely themed around God of War Ragnarok, that's just such a cool, really, really cool idea. I kind
05:37of hope they do a bit more DLC for the game, maybe flesh out different Sony IP. There's a specific
05:42level
05:42in here, and it is the first one you get, so you'll stumble upon it in the first world, that
05:47is just a
05:47direct nod to one of the greatest IP that used to be front and sender for PlayStation, you know,
05:53overall, and something that I hold near and dear to my heart, which again, I'm not going to spoil,
05:56but hopefully you love it as much as I do. All I'll say is dual analog sticks, and maybe that'll
06:02point you in that direction. Alongside this, if you were begging for a difficulty spike or something
06:07to get stuck into, that proves it's not just for the three-year-olds. There are additional secret
06:12levels that you can trigger by hanging out in some of the galaxy maps long enough. Sometimes
06:16collectibles will appear, sometimes meteors will appear that you can fly into, or certain star clusters
06:21will appear that you can fly through. Various different things, sometimes it's a collectible that you
06:25might need to get in one of the levels to open up a warp zone somewhere else, but this is
06:29where the
06:29difficulty starts to go a bit higher. There, as an array of secret levels, there are some other
06:33things like retro throwbacks and things like that, but overall, if you're looking for that really tight
06:383D platforming gauntlet energy, that's where this difficulty is housed. You need to seek it out.
06:44You know, if you go for 100% completion, you're going to find that stuff anyway, but still,
06:48it's really, really cool to see Team Asobi do the all-inviting, everybody come on in, look at all
06:53these franchises, have all this fun, and then for those of us who like tighter 3D platforming,
06:57you do get little examples of that as well. Obviously, the game does ramp up in difficulty
07:01across its entire playtime, but we are talking about something for all ages, and we are talking
07:05about something that is going to be played by a lot of kids, so in regards to the more difficult
07:09stuff, like the really tight stuff, those are the things that you're going to have to go out of
07:13your way to find. All of this feeds into base building, which is another cool reason to get out
07:18there and find every last puzzle piece, find every last gold coin, etc., because you're going back to
07:23this home planet, and you're building up the idea of the astrobot populace as they recover from being
07:28attacked by a random alien at the beginning of the game. The overall point, though, is that 2020's
07:33gacha machine returns, so you can unlock accessories and new animations for bots that you're rescuing,
07:38Snake gets a cardboard box, Jack gets Daxter, Spike from Apescape gets some cookies, etc.
07:43Again, I'm not going to spoil every last one of these, because it's just really cool. It's just
07:47cool collecting figures and, you know, different ephemera from PlayStation history, from gaming
07:52history, and one being amazed at just how many different publishers played ball here, you know,
07:59in an industry that is so forever walled off and so forever NDA'd, and we're not going to play well
08:04with the competition, etc. It's cool that so many behind-the-scenes conversations must have happened
08:09to bring this much IP together in one place, and as much as I, like many people in the modern
08:15day,
08:15are just sick of the brands getting involved in everything, there is a warmth here, there is a
08:20charm here that makes the collectible side of it very enjoyable, and once you have your team of
08:25multiple hundred characters all together, you know, comprising some of your favorites from various
08:30franchises over the years, all pitching in, all doing bespoke animations to help flesh out the
08:34base-building side of things, it is a goddamn good feeling. There's just a pace to this
08:39whole game that is non-stop. New levels, new mechanics, a thoroughly inviting presentation,
08:45a thumping soundtrack from Kenny Young, characters that you want to collect, etc.
08:49It always feels like one more level, one more boss, one more secret, it's immaculate. You can even
08:54trigger an optional helper robot to point you in the direction of whatever bots and collectibles you
08:59missed, so it's easy to mop up every last drop of this game. Astro Bot is just about the most
09:04perfectly made game on PlayStation 5. It really is that high bar of premium AAA quality for a
09:10platformer, like what we saw with God of War Ragnarok, The Last of Us 2, Spider-Man 2, etc. for
09:15third-person narrative action games. It represents a new era for PlayStation really coming into its own.
09:20Astro has been the most warmly received mascot in years, and I remember a time when there was the
09:25likes of Crash Bandicoot fronting the PlayStation branding overall. You know, that segued into someone
09:30like Sackboy for the PlayStation 3 and Aloy for the PlayStation 4, and now we have Astro for the
09:34PlayStation 5, which in himself connotes decades' worth of associations with PlayStation branding.
09:39I do think this also means something for the wider PlayStation feel. The Jim Ryan era was a cold,
09:45cold time. A CEO was saying all the wrong things, talking about why he'd never play classic old
09:50games, etc. And since he stepped down and was replaced by Herman Hulst and Hideaki Nishino,
09:55you've seen a wealth of PlayStation classics added to PlayStation Plus, like the Time Splitters trilogy
09:59and the PSP Resistance game. Now, Astro was clearly in development long before Hulst and Nishino took
10:04the reins of PlayStation, but this game representing the idea of saving every last first-party property
10:09across the last 30 years and unifying them under one banner of pure celebration for a series of
10:14systems that have come a long, long way is a very good foot to put forward. And Astro Bot feels
10:19like
10:20the perfect mix of old meets new, with a gameplay style that's inviting and rewarding in equal measure.
10:25It's exactly what you're expecting going in, with improvements and new ideas in all the right
10:29places. Long live 3D platformers, a staple part of every gamer's diet growing up, and one that has
10:36not been cooked up and served so well in way too damn long. The Crash trilogy, the Spyro trilogy,
10:43the Reignited stuff back in 2017 or whatever, that's how long we've had to wait. Astro Bot is
10:48absolutely stellar, five stars across the board, and you should play it right now.
10:52Astro Bot.
10:52Astro Bot.
10:52Astro Bot.
10:52Astro Bot.
10:52Astro Bot.
10:52Astro Bot.
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