Get ready for some helium-filled hijinks as you take off, ride upward gusts of wind, and race to the goal to rescue your captured crewmates. Astro Bot[a] is a 2024 platform game developed by Team Asobi and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5 in celebration of PlayStation’s 30th anniversary. A follow-up to Astro’s Playroom (2020), it is the fifth game in the Astro Bot series and Team Asobi’s first game since its separation from Japan Studio. Innovation in audio and physics make for an all-around good gaming experience.
As players take control of Astro, they’ll work to repair the ship and rescue their crewmates. Each galaxy you arrive in houses several secrets to uncover in the overworld, and even levels themselves have hidden bonus stages. This game’s secrets have secrets, with more hidden levels being revealed at a steady clip whenever you inch closer to polishing off each galaxy’s to-do list. There are 300 in total, though you only need 200 to face the final boss, and over half of them are dressed up as iconic characters from video game history. The new game, simply called Astro Bot and developed (like the others) by Team Asobi, kicks off when a group of robots’ PS5 mothership is attacked, scattering the robots throughout the galaxy.
The level sees Astro jumping and dashing through a live construction site atop a bunch of cranes and skyscrapers. Then suddenly the camera rotates and stills, transforming the level into a 2D side-scroller with Mighty Chewy chasing Astro with an open hand, ready to crush. I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between this and the original Donkey Kong arcade game. This comparison is further drawn when you actually clash with the behemoth who starts throwing items in the player’s path, to prevent Astro from reaching him. It’s in this moment that if you realized where the inspiration for this fight came from, you will find yourself breathtakingly admiring just how far video games have come.
Mario gets various power-ups throughout the game and often they only feature a couple of times — it’s like that. And it’s the same in terms of level design as well, just a huge level of variety that means certain motifs and mechanics are explored only once or twice. In my opinion, the variety and constant new ideas is a big part of what makes this game great, but it sounds as though that might not align with your taste. If you liked Playroom overall, though, you’ll definitely like this. I read the review, not worried about spoilers in a platformer, and I’m wondering how many of the different one off play mechanics felt gimmicky? I really like platforming but going back to Playroom I really hate that climbing gyro mechanic, doesn’t feel fluid or natural at all.
Astro Bot is a glimpse of what Sony wants you to understand that it believes that it is. It has the boundless cheer of a group of people coming together and trying to be their best selves. All in all, Astro Bot is definitely one of 2024’s best games, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were considered to be the year’s best. If there were anything to criticize about the game, it may just be the game’s difficulty and its exclusivity. While the former may be alleviated with its already announced free DLC challenge levels and speedrun mode, the latter may be something that might not be addressed.
Astro Bot is a platformer that genuinely thinks like the best platformers out there. It anticipates the things that you will anticipate, and then goes one better. An entire level set on a dream of 1930’s skyscraper construction sites!
Key Features
The levels are well designed and mostly linear, with small open range areas here and there. The controls are extremely simple, with Astro having a double jump and the ability to glide short distances, similarly to Yoshi’s flutter jump, with his little jet boots. The latter can be used to damage enemies from above or Astro has a basic punch attack – all of which is exactly as it’s been in previous games. Astro bot Rescue Mission (VR ONE) is still the MOST transformative game I’ve played in my adult life. If you’ve become jaded or gaming bores you, it’ll legit make you feel like a kid playing games for the first time again. That feeling that desentized adults have to take drugs to feel, I kid you not.
Many platformers have done a lot over the years in abilities/level design/marketing not reaching people, more dialogue/combat/other crap & level design/movesets taking a hit. @Bluetrain7 Nearly every level has at least one Bot to rescue, including the challenge levels and secret levels. In order to get the Platinum, you need to rescue every Bot and get every Puzzle Piece. @rjejr I personally wouldn’t describe any of it as gimmicky; if I could compare it to anything, think of Super Mario Galaxy.
Japan Studio was sadly dissolved in 2021, with many of its staff folded into Team Asobi to make Astro Bot. Its wild characters and artful, innovative games are particularly favored in Astro Bot’s directory of PlayStation history. It takes you through deserts, across volcanos, inside dojos, to outer space, up mountains, down rivers, and both visually and mechanically, offers something new every time that always hits the mark. Bosses appear at the end of each cluster of levels and randomly in the middle, always with a new way of attacking that forces you to use powers in new ways, think differently, and experience the level in a fresh light. Platformers used to be this bold and seemed to shed that personality in favour of retreading safe old ground.
Nostagia Is A Double-edged Sword In Astro Bot
The tiny vibrations when he runs, the way different objects cause the controller to rumble is immaculate and feels genuinely different to each obstacle. Tilting the controller to navigate your ship or hammer in nails, to the adaptive triggers and their use for a variety of his abilities is second to none. Where this becomes frustrating is that it shows how many teams, Sony’s included, are flat-out ignoring this tech, making Astro Bot yet again feel like a tech demo for controller features that have been out for four years now.
Here Astrobot has the talent & the polish but are the mechanics/moveset actually as good as the forgotten platformers nope. Splatoon 2 was good to me early this year, grapple/other details were simple but great QOL over 1 & the guns as grapples, etc. were fair & the level design was great. 789win can call me crazy, I don’t care, Astro’s Playroom is still one of my top 5 favorite games on PS5 and I had very high expectations for this. Have to play it to find out for sure but I’m very encouraged by these reviews as it’s grading ahead of even some of Nintendo’s best. Would not be surprised of this gets the highest overall rating for a game this year.