I’ve followed Astro Bot’s career with interest over the years, from humble tech demo beginnings to a full-fledged mascot platformer.
This little bot has a ton of potential, and now with the full game under their belt, the developers at Team Asobi have managed to make it as good as it gets – and even better.
Astrobot may go down the conventional path of a “level select” platformer, but there’s a lot under the hood as you continue through the roughly 10-hour main adventure. I won’t spoil it basically everything from this adventure, including all the cameos, Sona tribute levels, and challenge-style bonus stages, so don’t worry about that. You don’t have to worry: Astrobot is more than just cameos and easter eggs. It is a standalone, lithe, and sometimes tough platformer.
The overall flow and wordless setup will be very familiar to those of you who are familiar with the genre (especially Marioand specifically Mario Galaxyfrom which it takes a few cues). Astro Bot is minding his own business when the huge bad suddenly appears and crashes their ship. It’s up to them to assemble a crew of robots (the game’s main collectible) to repair the crashed ship, and then head out for the final confrontation. Along the way, all of the bots you collect (from regular aged NPCs to deeply cut cameos) will hang out in a hub, which also serves as a way for players to change costumes, find secrets, and generally hang out.
The hub is just lovely. You can freely interact with the unique bots you’ve saved, and they all isolate themselves with people from the same series. Every half hour or so I’d go back to the hub to see what they were up to and buy them more goodies with the game’s main currency, gold.
You can return to the hub at any time via the game’s world map screen, which contains a few secrets of its own, amidst a slew of optional and required levels, culminating in a boss fight in each zone. It’s a lovely way of adding a bit more agency to the routine concept of level selection, and the secrets aren’t so esoteric that you’ll be searching for pixels. Again, Astrobot Ease of play is embedded in its DNA.
As the titular hero, Astro Bot has all his aged tricks at his disposal, consisting of two basic moves: a punch/spin and a double jump/float, which also shoots lasers from his shoes to damage enemies. The game does Very is based only on these two concepts and no prior knowledge of the series is required to start and play it.
Where Astrobot really brings out the huge guns in the individual levels themselves. Most (but not all) have a fleeting power-up gadget, like a robotic chicken that doubles as a vertical jetpack or a pair of frog-shaped boxing gloves that connect to L2 and R2 for left- and right-handed punches, respectively. It also features one of the best “shrink mechanic” levels I’ve ever played.
Because Astrobot rarely focuses on one mechanic, I found myself missing to constantly immerse yourself in optional levels. The game offers a constant sense of discovery, in the levels themselves and as a central principle of its design. Of course, the levels look lovelyand expand the offer available in the PS5 launch bundle.
While I wouldn’t say the DualSense’s functionality is a selling point, the controls for Astro Bot itself are still incredibly responsive, and the little sounds and haptic feedback are re-tethered to the terrain you’re moving through, creating a cacophony of sounds, especially when I had the game’s catchy soundtrack playing.
Astrobot is also completely reasonable when it comes to revealing your secrets. If you lack one botpuzzle piece or teleporting from a scene, you can go back, get the missing link, and exit immediately: you’ll keep that collectible without having to finish the level. You can even dive back into a level you’ve already completed and buy a power-up for 200 coins that will lend a hand you sniff out the last remnants you need to complete the world 100%. It’s very, very, laid-back, which fits the overall tone perfectly Astrobot.
If you’re a platformer, you’ll probably 100% the game anyway, and it’ll take about 15 hours to get everything done (again, the story takes about 10 hours; less if you want to rush through). At no point did I feel like the game was too long, and in the case of this review in particular, I managed to get 260/300 collectible bots (FYI, you need 200 to fight the final boss and finish the game properly). I’m aiming for platinum this week, and free DLC aimed at “speedrunners” is due out later this year.
Astrobot on PS5 feels like the culmination of every Team Asobi project before it. Considering how many mascots Sony has lost over the years (the constant cameo appearances in this game certainly reminded me of that!), I’m all for them adopting the little bot as their up-to-date face. They deserve it.
