Astro Bot Review

From a PSVR standout title to a pre-loaded PS5 game, Astro has quickly won the hearts of many. Our little bot has been ready and raring to soar to new heights, and now, with a full-sized adventure behind his back, Astro is poised to conquer the galaxy in Astro Bot, the latest creation from the innovative minds at Team Asobi.

Astro Bot sees our beloved hero embark on a mission to repair the mothership, literally a flying PS5, following an attack by his dreaded nemesis. With crucial components like the memory, SSD, and others scattered across space, Astro is determined to rescue the entire crew and restore the mothership as they journey through the galaxy.

Astro Bot’s first adventure is nothing short of extraordinary—endearing, heartfelt, and sure to delight from beginning to end. It stands out as a refreshing addition to the current gaming landscape and is the much-needed hero PlayStation badly needs considering current events (yes, you know what I’m talking about).

Astro Bot is brilliant and reminiscent of the quality one would expect from a flagship Nintendo title. I think it is safe to say that Sony has finally found its own Mario contender.

Crash Landing

After a crash landing on a deserted island, Astro finds himself separated from his crew of 300 bots. With a wrecked mothership in town and only his trusty DualSpeeder to rely on, he takes on the herculean mission to scour the galaxy for the missing parts of the mothership and rescue his crew across more than 50 planets, ranging from lush jungles to sandy beaches, each teeming with adorable and quirky wildlife.

Visually, the game is stunning, with each planet and its inhabitants meticulously crafted with fluid animations and vibrant colors. The interaction between Astro and the various level elements is particularly impressive. Acorns and leaves rustle as Astro moves, and snow piles create pathways, making each level feel alive with whimsical details.

The crash site serves as the repair ground for the mothership and acts as the central hub for many of Astro Bot’s activities. Similar to Astro’s Playroom, the game features numerous collectibles, including bots and puzzle pieces, essential for progression.

Rescuing your bot crew is crucial for advancing through the game, as unlocking new planets and boss battles requires a certain number of rescued bots to unlock. Additionally, rescued bots are necessary for unlocking various activities throughout the crash site. Some activities require only a handful of bots, rewarding players with coins and puzzle pieces, while others demand upwards of 50 and even 100 bots, offering opportunities to rescue more bots and aid with game completion.

Puzzle pieces are scattered throughout levels and are key to unlocking more completion-based rewards, such as the Gacha Machine similar to Astro’s Playroom, a place to customize their DualSpeeder—a DualSense-turned spaceship used to travel between planets—and access even more activities.

As the crash site serves as your headquarters, rescuing more bots will gradually populate the area, creating a base-building experience. It’s immensely satisfying to watch the crash site grow in population with each completed planet. By the end of the game, the once-barren desert is bustling with bots and notable characters from other IPs.

The Gacha eggs you unlock will reward you with set pieces that can be displayed across the site, transforming it into a vibrant gallery of PlayStation icons, characters, and historically significant items, celebrating the company’s rich gaming heritage. You’ll see several familiar characters that each have adorable custom animations, and just when you thought the game couldn’t get any cuter, wait until you find all of them!

Galaxy of Stars

It is easy to see how simple yet addictive the gameplay loop of Astro Bot is. Platforming is the main thrust of the game, and it is simple yet highly intuitive that even without a single UI element on-screen, knowing what to do and where to go at all times is never lost on the player.

Team Asobi has crafted the game to emphasize platforming over combat. Enemies are generally easy to defeat, requiring just a hit or two from Astro’s robotic fists. They serve more as brief interludes from platforming rather than significant challenges. While some foes do pose a threat, they are secondary to the game’s excellent platforming and exploration elements.

Astro Bot excels in level design, showcasing Astro’s abilities with the help of various gadgets. Astro can jump, hover, and punch his way through levels, but some stages require gadgets that grant new abilities, such as a doggy backpack for boosted jumps or boxing gloves for breaking through obstacles.

The levels are thoughtfully designed to incorporate these gadgets, offering creative ways to explore and find hidden bots and puzzle pieces. Venturing off the beaten path is always rewarding, encouraging players to experiment with using these gadgets to reach normally out-of-reach platforms.

However, these gadgets are restricted to specific levels, meaning that in other stages, players must rely on Astro’s basic moveset. It would have been interesting if these gadgets were part of Astro’s permanent arsenal or at least grant players access to more than one gadget in a level, allowing for more creative gameplay through mixing and matching abilities. Nevertheless, the levels in Astro Bot are so meticulously crafted that even the time to finish each one is carefully considered to make the whole game an offering that’s hard to put down and never overstays its welcome.

Levels in Astro Bot are typically straightforward, featuring a set number of bots and puzzle pieces to collect. The core gameplay revolves around collecting, and throughout his journey, Astro will encounter secret levels that offer additional rewards and bots to rescue. While some of these secret level types are simple, others, particularly the challenge levels, will test the player’s platforming skills immensely. These challenges are optional, ensuring newcomers are not overwhelmed.

The obstacles in these levels should be familiar to platforming enthusiasts, including falling surfaces, slippery slopes, and rotating ledges. Each level offers a good mix, encouraging repeat playthroughs to find all the missing bots. The developers have crafted each level to maximize player engagement, from the length of each level to the strategic placement of collectibles, making Astro Bot a delightful experience, albeit a bit too easy for some.

The last sequence alone leading to the final boss encounter is utterly fantastic and can pretty much encapsulate how good the game is in just that sequence.

Astro Bot also excels in delivering cameos, featuring numerous characters from PlayStation’s history and notable third-party characters. With over 150 named characters, players will encounter the likes of Rivet, Ratchet, Dax and Jak, Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield from Resident Evil, Solid Snake from Metal Gear, PaRappa from PaRappa the Rapper, and Kratos and his allies from God of War.

Collecting these characters is half the fun while finding and rescuing them makes up the other. Some can be found in plain sight, while some are just out of reach, prompting some platforming skills to recover. Others are cleverly hidden, with the cherry on the top being a fully themed level based on certain iconic characters.

For instance, one sequence in the latest trailer shows Astro wielding an axe, reminiscent of God of War. Not content with just a small section, players will be treated to a world filled with references, familiar sights, and, most importantly, a fun and nostalgia-filled affair.

Of course, we won’t spoil the fun because discovering these levels is a treat on its own, but the care into breathing life into these themed levels is remarkable and certainly worth the trip.

DualSense DualFun

Astro Bot builds on the foundation set by Astro’s Playroom, showcasing the PS5 and DualSense’s capabilities with rock-solid performance and non-existent load times. The game is impeccably polished, with zero bugs encountered throughout our playthrough, which is a rarity in this day and age.

The DualSense features are utilized perfectly, with haptic feedback providing a tactile feel of Astro’s steps across various surfaces, and adaptive triggers offering resistance for certain actions without feeling forced or tedious. Astro’s lines and other sound effects emanate from the controller speaker, and you can even hear the difference in Astro’s footsteps across different surfaces, making headphones almost unnecessary and enhancing the immersive experience.

While the graphics are not photorealistic, they are vibrant and full of personality, complemented by an infectious and feel-good soundtrack that even has some newly-arranged tracks from iconic PlayStation titles.

Astro Bot offers about 10-12 hours of gameplay for those focusing on the story, extending to 12-15 hours for full completion and the platinum trophy, depending on your playstyle. With 300 bots to rescue and various collectibles to discover, every hour is enjoyable. The game respects your time, even providing a collectible detector in the form of a 200 gold bird to help you find missing bots and puzzle pieces on repeat playthroughs.

Sadly, Astro Bot isn’t launching with a speed run feature, something that made Astro’s Playroom such a joy to play over and over again. Without this, replayability certainly takes a dip, but the developers have already expressed that it is coming and is a very minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things because the whole experience is utterly delightful.

Verdict: Buy it!

PlayStation has once again worked its magic, delivering a confident GOTY contender and one of the best experiences this year. Despite its simplicity, the game is supremely fun, and perhaps the highest compliment I can give is that you’ll play through the entire game with a smile on your face. Astro Bot proves that games do not need extremely bloated budgets and development times to succeed when you are laser-focused on fun and quality.

Many games forget what it means to be fun and creative, yet Astro Bot succeeds effortlessly. In a time when companies are obsessed with photorealistic visuals, hyper-detailed gameplay, and punishing difficulty, this game is here to take us back to the good old days when everything was all about a feel-good and memorable experience that lingered well past the credits.

With its imaginative levels, delightful cameos, and celebration of PlayStation’s rich history, Astro Bot is a powerful reminder of how games can bring joy to all ages. It is another feather in the cap for PlayStation’s first-party studios, and I am fully expecting to see more Astro games in the years to come.

Astro Bot was reviewed on a PS5 with a review code provided by the publisher.