I went into Astro Bot expecting it to be absolutely amazing. To my complete surprise, it was. The odds were always stacked against me; Astro’s Playroom may have been a stripped-down package, but it won the hearts of many with its whimsical visuals, on-point cameos, and music that still lives on in my melon without a fee. (All of which is back with a vengeance, by the way.)
What has surprised me, many times and more often than I would like to admit, is how delightfully cunning this full-fledged sequel is. If you want something a little more challenging than a stroll through the (beautifully rendered and reactive) park of pink PSPosies, Astro Bot has you covered. Impressive 3D platformer Pants awaits you here in the sinister outer reaches of these unlockable asteroid galaxies/levels.
I’ll talk more about that in a moment, but for now let’s talk about the best prices. You can skip the window shopping, by clicking here.
PS5
Before we get into the meat of this sequel, let me first assure fresh paddlers: there’s a ton of fun to be had in the paddling pool. Easygoing players and younger kids will have a blast, because it’s basically the same marathon of punching and gap-hopping you’ve come to expect.
And I say that without any disdain, because I’m not immune to the charms of the low-stress sections of this package. Even on a basic level, Astro Bot impresses with its endearing, playable Pixar aesthetic in its gorgeous and incredibly physics-packed levels. Just as I did way back when the PS5 launched in 2020, I spent way too much time marveling at Team Asobi’s attention to detail in grass and mud technology.
Then there was my insistence on causing a commotion around every living (and inanimate) thing to see if the game designer had adapted a comical reaction animation for it. The answer was yes 95% of the time.
Speaking of uncomplicated pleasures and stupid compulsions, I also spent way too many minutes walking on metal floors again just because their tactile texture and the “buzz” of the DualSense speaker tickled my hands and brain just like that. Even after all these years, I still think Team Asobi has the best grasp of “DualSensations” out of all the first-party developers. Absolute craftsmen
And hey, that’s not to say there aren’t deaths to be had in the early and mid-game. Astro Bot still unleashes a horde of beasts that require specific tactics to take down. In areas with minimal surface area, often in very tight quarters and over bottomless pits, you’ll need to quickly remember to properly punch/strike/laser your opponents.
There are also a bunch of fresh workers that need to be eliminated with quick combinations of the above tactics. Personally, my fresh favorite is the stocky sumo wrestler who thwarts your double jumps and tries to E. Honda you with his metal hands. If you try to “El Toro” bypass his charges and hit him in the back, your only reward will be some hilariously gelatinous wobble physics applied to his tattooed ass.
To be completely straightforward, there are still a few deaths (and thankfully brief checkpoint reloads) to endure on Normal-rated difficulty levels, usually whenever a fresh power-up appears. I sampled a few of these palate cleansers during my 7-mission playthrough, and I’m ecstatic to report that they appear and disappear as you progress through tiny sections. At this point in the game, I don’t think they’re overly welcome.
These included basic jump boosters, such as holding R2 to inflate Astro, then up to effectively triple his typical vertical reach. From there, his rise will slowly decay, or you can manipulate his descent with strategic R2 taps that kick up air.
I liked the side jumps/attack boosts better. Astro can get a fresh backpack dog that for some reason has a jet turbine as the back. In edged contrast to the balloon boost, there is no granular control over the triggering explosion. You’ll basically be hitting like a robo-projectile in any direction you choose. For tighter scaffolding and with little to no restriction, you can get out of pockets and fall down in the blink of an eye.
Interestingly, it seems like the astro-transforming power-ups take a backseat to the moments I’ll live (read: die) for in this sequel — the challenging difficulty levels. The first thing you should know is that you can kiss checkpoints goodbye on medium difficulty. A quick example: After five minutes of grueling jumping, I reached the last gap to my final goal, and then my reptilian brain suddenly forgot that two presses of the X button does not equal a double jumpIt just cuts your jump in half and sends you to hell.
Boom. Toast. Do it all again.
While these challenges aren’t quite as massive as, say, Crash’s “Stormy Ascent,” even I, a Bandicoot veteran, was surprised by their demanding nature. The first layer of complexity is pure platforming—very little (or no) solid ground to land on or fight on once you’ve barely made it through the air. The second layer of pain is circumscribed access to the “time manipulation cans,” a pretty nefarious double-edged sword.
On the one hand, hooking one of them to create a tiny window of molasses-like free time is a plus. It can make it easier to get past electrified conga lines of enemies that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to jump over. What’s more, you might still have enough energy left to snail-paced down those spinning PlayStation-symbol platforms lying just beyond them. It’s more likely that all that Zemeckis-ing has given you enough rope to hang yourself over time.
The timing of this mechanic is often *just* long enough to get to the last few meters of a platforming section you want to avoid, and as a result you may have to perform a clutch kill or clutch jump on a group of enemies/spinning platform that is now being rapidly accelerated. Worse still, trying to employ these canisters at slightly different times can wreak havoc on building a recognizable platforming “flow” for yourself to better progress through the trials step by step.
It’s still early days, but I hope Team Asobi continues to push the envelope with these kinds of challenging concepts. And hey, we’re definitely in for a long wait for that escalation—Astro Bot has a whopping 80 levels across 6 galaxies. From the sample I’ve seen, that’s a pretty decent amount of hours, even without the extra time it takes to sniff out every secret bot and puzzle piece.
Summary: I’ve always intended to find time to play the sequel to the truly delightful Astro’s Playroom/Playroom VR. But now that my Astro has been crushed, I’m carving out a much larger chunk of time on my calendar for a more stern assault on my thumbs than I expected. May September 6th come.
Adam Mathew has tackled every major 3D platformer. He’s excited that the genre is getting another AAA entry that isn’t from the masters at Nintendo.
