Astro Bot – Review

There have been five PlayStation consoles, but fans will be hard-pressed to name a brand mascot that has grown with the hardware, until the debut of Astro’s Playroom (2020), a free 3D platformer full game that came pre-installed with the PlayStation 5, to showcase the capabilities of the next-generation console. The game touted fast and seamless gaming experiences through the console’s SSD, as the franchise’s protagonist Astro moves from one realm to another without the mire of loading screens. It even showcased a more immersive use of the new DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers and its in-built microphone and speakers coherently integrated into its gameplay. 

Unsurprisingly, there were calls for a sequel and Team Asobi did not disappoint, bringing to the table a full-fledged paid version that reminds players of what made Astro’s Playroom great, and building on the premise with Astro Bot.

While the main goal of Astro’s Playroom (2020) was to assemble the mothership (a spaceship shaped like a PS5.), Astro’s new objective in Astro Bot is to unite the mini robot versions of every character created under PlayStation’s belt, to defeat the green giant alien, Space Bully Nebulax. Nebulax holds the mothership’s CPU hostage, leaving the main components of the ship alongside all 300 of ASTRO’s robot family scattered across over 50 planets, which gives players an indicator of the size of the game and what’s needed to restore the status quo.

The game informs you of every collectable and robot discoverable per planet from the beginning and at each stage, you jump, roll, fly, grind, and fight to reach the end, sometimes defeating the occasional mini-boss before the next planet is unlocked. Rinse and repeat the process until you have collected everything the game has to offer and that’s about all you have to do in Astro Bot, all while you hang around the central hub and mingle with the robots you have rescued. It would seem like the game would be repetitive but Astro Bot keeps things fresh by encouraging players to explore every corner of every planet.

For PlayStation fans, the additional thrill is in rescuing the familiar, unknown robots as you’ll never know which cute and cuddly robot you’ll meet, even when the game says you can find several on a specific level. There’s a joy in rescuing the next robot, to discover that its  Nathan Drake from Uncharted (2007) or God of War’s (2018) Kratos and Atreus, or even more obscure characters like the Pomeranian from the PS3’s Tokyo Jungle (2012).

What’s even more impressive is how the game integrates multiple game mechanics into the narrative after you’ve found key robots. You know you’re in for a great time when the bot equivalent of Spike from Ape Escape (1999) hands you his net, so you can chase and catch monkeys like you’re in the 90s playing the PS1 again. Another stage will have you tilt your controller around as a LocoRoco (2006) just like when you’re playing the PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation fans who enjoy contemporary titles like Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017) or God of War (2018) will also get to play as Aloy or Kratos in simpler versions of their respective games. Aside from playing characters tied to novel game mechanics, Astro can also dress up as many other PlayStation fan favourites like The Hunter in Bloodborne (2015).

Additionally, the game also encourages players to find their own innovative solutions to tackle platforming challenges without the need for hand-holding. Most stages will come with its own special gadget, a power-up that accompanies Astro till he completes the level, like a robotic octopus that inflates Astro into a balloon or another that transforms Astro into a sponge that makes him bigger when he absorbs water. The game hardly instructs you on how you can reach a certain height or land on a seemingly obscure part of the stage, and should prompts come in, they do so at just the right time before you feel frustrated or stuck. 

When players are successful in reaching any obscure parts of a stage, they are always rewarded with coins that help unlock cosmetics for the rescued bots or for Astro. As such, it seems like Team Asobi has exhibited a deep understanding of helping gamers feel like they are always moving forward in their platforming one way or another, which is a commendable feat.

Yet, the more impressionable gadgets and mechanics are unfortunately short-lived, leaving players wanting more. The generic gadgets, like the robotic chicken that acts as a rocket which propels Astro up into the air, are featured more compared to others like the sponge and the special bot-specific game mechanics akin to other PlayStation titles. These limited gadgets are usually used once out of the over 50 stages, which is a shame and one can only hope Team Asobi would add additional stages for the underutilised gadgets in the future.

That said, each stage can be completed relatively quickly and usually in one sitting. If you’re thorough enough, you’ll be able to find all of the missing collectables in 15 to 20 minutes per planet. If you did not manage to do so, you can revisit the planet one more time, pay 200 coins, and detect the nearest missing collectable with ease before ducking out of the planet for good. Once all is said and done for each planet, it is highly unlikely you will visit the same stage again – unless you are a speedrunner, then revisiting stages and completing them in record time will be all you do.

The more challenging stages are also relatively easy to complete – and the hardest that required the most retries for us was a rhythm-based level that took a half-hour to conquer. It would be nice if a reason is given for players who are not speedrunners to revisit the stages aside from enjoying the vibes for each planet and plainly replaying the same platforming level again – A New Game+ for future patches would do the trick.

Another characteristic that makes Astro Bot amazing is in how it leverages on the PS5’s processing power to effortlessly pack countless elements on the screen. The game is so well optimised that commanding 300 robots to accomplish tasks, or having millions of coloured diamonds on screen, does not seem to be a problem for the console. Not once in our entire playthrough did the game dip in framerate nor lag because the screen was too busy. The DualSense controller is also always alive as there will always be something in the world that makes a sound and is reflected in the DualSense’s speakers. This constant flow of information, sights, and sounds keeps you going as a player, making completing a level a breeze while time flies.

The only downside to Astro Bot is in its enemy variety and while you’ll encounter every common goon possible by the time you reach the game’s midpoint, the enemies are just reskins of those you have already encountered, even if they may look different across the various biomes you’ve explored. 

Team Asobi has done a great job in elevating a mascot, with a robot this cute and a game that enjoyable, with a game that reminds players the legacy of the PlayStation brand.