Like many people, my first introduction to Astro Bot was in his second outing, Astro’s Playroom, the pre-installed tech demo on the PS5. His first game didn’t set the community alight in 2018 since it was a PSVR exclusive. It reviewed well but with a potential market of only 5 million people it barely made a ripple in PS4 discourse. However, Astro Bot is back for his third crack at becoming Playstation’s character mascot and I have to say, he might have just done it!
Tale as old as time
There’s not much story to write home about for Astro Bot. There are 300 small bots, many of which are dressed up as characters from Sony exclusive titles, that have been scattered throughout space by an evil alien and your job is to rescue them. That’s literally all there is to it.
You have to repair your spaceship (which funnily enough looks like a PS5) to do this, collecting parts like the SSD and Graphics Card as you go. This is a game that really tries to put the gameplay front and centre, and I absolutely applaud it for that. If your gameplay is compelling enough, you don’t need the story to be in depth, or even noticeable, in my opinion.
Astro’s Play-World
Like its predecessor, Astro Bot is a linear 3D platformer. If I had to compare it to anything I’d say it’s world and level design are a near carbon-copy of the original Super Mario Galaxy. A central hub that reveals more and more of itself to you as you progress, and that lets you explore a number of galaxies that each house a number of planets that serve as the game’s levels. Each galaxy offers several “mainline” planets with a variety of special or challenge planets to try as well, with the obligatory boss stage once you’ve found enough bots on your journey.
As for the gameplay, well that’s exactly the same as last time. Super Mario Galaxy Adjacent as well but, for me, it’s more reminiscent of Super Mario Sunshine, your hover ability acting in a similar way to Mario’s FLUDD. The controls are super tight here. Every movement is deliberate and precise, the combat feels super responsive, and the jumping is absolutely spot on as well. Every time you die to an enemy or fall off a cliff you feel like it was because of a mistake you made, not the game being unfair or the controller not responding properly.
As you play through the different galaxies you’ll come across a variety of level-specific powerups that give you special abilities. Whether it’s a pair of froggy boxing gloves that let you punch a little harder, or a pug jetpack that gives you a huge vertical boost (not too dissimilar to the rocket FLUDD attachment in SMS). Every power up is designed in a way so as to be immediately obvious what it can or can’t do. Just one more piece of wonderfully well thought out design.
A new addition to the formula this time around is the ability to essentially cosplay as certain characters from throughout Sony’s history, right down to their signature moves and abilities. For example, when you clear the first galaxy, you’re treated to an updated version of the PS1 classic Ape Escape, taking on Spike’s classic look of a shock of red hair and a matching jacket. You get to play with his signature Monkey Radar and Time Net. You also get to play as Nathan Drake, Aloy and a LocoRoco, each representing the PS3, PS4 and PSP respectively. You also get to play as Kratos, ostensibly to represent the PS2 but you play as him in his current, soft reboot form. It’s a fun level, but I think the lack of any real PS2 God of War representation here is a small aspect of a much larger problem this game has. But more about that later.
Just Look at it!
There’s no denying that this game looks amazing. I’d expect nothing less, to be honest but I found myself being constantly blown away by how gorgeous it is. While, yes, there are particle effects galore, and the game will take any opportunity to show off a shiny surface it’s all the little details that make the difference for me. The way some of the glass textures will have the same little indents in the shape of the PlayStation face buttons as the Dualsense controller does is a particular highlight for me.
Despite a high level of graphical fidelity, Team Asobi have managed to lock Astro Bot to a buttery smooth 60FPS. I can say from my experience that when I say locked, I mean locked. I didn’t experience any dips or lag at all in my full playthrough. Again, this is despite an abundance of particle effects as well as physics objects everywhere and more fluid dynamics than you can shake a stick at.
In fact, I think Astro Bot’s performance and optimisation may be a problem for Sony. You see, Astro Bot launched about a week before the announcement of the PS5 Pro, the most powerful home console to date. As you’d expect it promises to play pretty much all your favourite games in a higher resolution and at higher framerates. The key drawback is that it costs €800!
I think this is an issue because I don’t see how you can justify that cost when a well optimised game looks and runs this good on 4 year old hardware. I don’t think this will make any kind of dent in the sales of the PS5 Pro but it’s certainly enough for me to be confident in my decision not to buy one.
The Elephant in the Room
Ok, there’s no way I can talk about how much I love this game (and I do genuinely love it) without talking about its most glaring issue. It’s teasing us. Let me explain.
Of the 300 bots you need to rescue, 169 of them are dressed up to resemble characters from over 100 games from Playstation’s 30 year history. Finding each of these bots is a joyous trip down memory lane. None of them are called their actual name (I’d assume this is a one-out, all-out approach to rights issues) but that only adds to the fun of figuring out who they are and where you know them from. Finding obscure characters like Vibri from Vib Ribbon or Dart from Legend of Dragoon (one of my favourite JRPGs) is an absolute treat.
So, what’s the problem? Well, a couple of days before Astro Bot launched, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki expressed concern over Sony’s lack of IP. For me, that’s a bit of an awkward statement to make when you’re just about to launch a game to celebrate 30 years of PlayStation that has over 100 unique IPs in it. Granted some of those may be unavailable due to rights and licensing (like Tomb Raider or Final Metal Gear) but there are many that are just sitting idle, ripe for a sequel or reboot. Hell, whenever a PlayStation State of Play presentation is announced Bloodborne trends on Twitter!
I know that nearly all of the featured games are either available to buy new or have been added to the Classics Catalogue section of PS+ but the vast majority haven’t been given a sequel or update in years. Who among us hasn’t wished for a new Jak and Daxter game? Or maybe a new Sly Cooper? Hell, I’d love a new batch of Katamari challenges! It feels a little disingenuous to me to show off all of these relics from the past 30 years and then complain that there’s no IP worth making games about.
In Conclusion
Overall, I think Astro Bot is a wonderful game. It’s rare that I get to review two absolute bangers back to back but between this and Space Marine 2 I’ve had a very good autumn so far! This is the kind of game I’ve been crying out for since I finished Crash Bandicoot 4. Just some straightforward, honest to goodness platforming with a great nod to Playstation’s legacy. It’s certainly better than what they did for the 20th anniversary, that’s for sure.
Astro Bot is only available on PS5 but you would honestly be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t give it a go today!
