Astro-nomical fun
By Paul Hunter
Welcome the new crowning jewel of PlayStation Studios: Team Asobi. Astro Bot looked fantastic in the pre-release trailers and I'm happy to report that 'you ain't seen nothing yet'. The final game is simply magical; a rare game where the graphics, gameplay, and soundtrack all coalesce into a brilliant experience that not only pushes the platforming genre forward but will surely make it rank among the best platformers of all time. Team Asobi may be the first studio in history that could legitimately challenge Nintendo's decades-long reign as the king of platformers.
Completing Astro Bot on PS5 took me about 15 hours and another five hours for the platinum trophy. That's 20 hours of non-stop smiling and giggling as I ventured through the most colourful and alive platforming stages I've ever seen. Somehow, Team Asobi took the irresistible charm of Astro's Playroom and doubled down in Astro Bot with stages even more alive and absorbing. No detail was spared, nearly every objective is interactable, whether that's hitting a bush and out pops playful bugs, pulling on a string to flip over a bounce pad, or getting your little Astro Bot army to stand on a cloth roof to rip it down with their weight to uncover the secrets inside. You can tell so much love and attention was put into this game to spread joy and smiles—mission accomplished.
The story of Astro Bot is simple, as you'd expect. A mischievous green alien has stolen the main chip of Astro's PS5 spaceship. During the altercation, four main components of the PS5, like the cooling fan, GPU and SSD, got scattered across multiple galaxies. Not only that but all 300 members of your Astro Bot crew got scattered across said galaxies. It's your job on dozens of planets to recover your lost crew and repair the PS5 spaceship so you can eventually take off into space to defeat the dastardly alien.
The stages themselves are incredibly creative, highly varied and packed with fun easter eggs fans will love. There are several stages completely branded after iconic PlayStation franchises including Uncharted, Horizon, Ape Escape, LocoRoco and more. Astro Bot games have also been a celebration of PlayStation's rich history, including first-party franchises and third-party ones like Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry and much, much more. But the PS5 Astro Bot really kicks up the honouring of PlayStation's franchises and legacy. There are over 150 cameo characters to find in the game, and each rescue will send your bot friend back to the main Crash Site that serves as the game's hub world.
At the centre of the Crash Site, you'll find the gigantic PS5 spaceship without its protective white covers (which you'll eventually recover!). All 300 Astro Bot characters that can be rescued will get transported here, and they all have their little zone to hang out in. What's neat is characters will group together by IP, with Nate, Sam and Sully all taking up space in the Uncharted zone, while three Helghast soldiers will congregate in a Killzone spot. You can run up to every character and punch them, which will initiate their powers or play out a mini-comedy scene. For example, hitting Crash Bandicoot will pop off his helmet, revealing that it's just an Astro Bot wearing a mask. I had a ton of fun pouncing on every cameo character to see what funny shenanigans would result.
Astro Bot's crisp, cartoon graphics are stunning to behold. There's virtually every traditional platforming biome represented in the game, including beach, water, lava, forest, desert, sky and space, and they all look immaculate visually. But there are just as many unexpected locations, like the huge casino stage, the "Dude Raider" Tomb Raider-inspired stage, or one that even takes place almost entirely inside a gigantic talking tree. Not only are the graphics polished, but levels are filled to the brim with life, whether that's smiling clouds, animal ecosystems, or fun easter eggs that'll surely get people talking.
Astro has a ton of power-ups to aid him in battle and they are incredibly fun to use, and sometimes very surprising. Astro can equip gator hands that can extend and punch, he can put a dog on his back to propel him forward, he can grab two cymbals and bash them together with funny results, and in one level he can become a sponge that grows to enormous size when soaked in water. The best part is just when you think you've seen all the powers Astro Bot can get, along comes another level that gives you an all-new power to have fun with.
Exploring is key to getting the most out of Astro Bot. For starters, stages will typically have 5-8 Astro Bots hidden for you to find. You have to look everywhere, sometimes the little guys will be hanging off ledges, or held by an enemy in the air, or in the numerous secret areas found within stages. You can also find puzzle pieces within levels, used to build structures back at the Crash Site like a Gatcha Lab, Changing Room and even a full Safari Park where all the little Astro animals can play. You also need to fly your ship around every inch of the galaxies because there are actually hidden levels, and a lot of them, too, which you only discover by flying near its orbit.
Astro Bot is a fairly simple game to beat, which makes sense given its appeal to children and families. Astro dies after one hit, which can lead to a bit of frustration for some of the sub-bosses, but overall I found the game to be a modest challenge.
That said, four of the galaxies have hidden challenge stages that are based on the iconic PlayStation symbols of square, triangle, circle and cross. For those wondering, yes the game calls "X" the cross button, again putting to rest the eternal debate of what that symbol is called. The challenges stages visually are a ton of fun as you'll hop on platforms shaped like the PlayStation symbols, while in the sky you'll see the respective symbol with comical googly eyes on them. There were two or three legitimately painfully hard challenge levels that took me 20 times or more to complete, and one in particular I felt was nearly unbeatable. With persistence though I was able to beat all challenge stages, which is required to collect all 300 of the missing Astro Bots.
Astro Bot, as you may expect, does a wondrous job integrating the PS5 DualSense. Different surfaces and textures will send specific vibrations through the controller, and in rainy levels you can feel the pitter-patter of droplets hitting Astro. There's also a neat mini-game where you have to brush your hand across multiple glowing panels feeling for a vibration, which indicates the one you can push to reveal a secret.
No discussion of an Astro Bot game would be complete without discussing the soundtrack, which once again is stellar and a massive highlight. There's a cute song that repeats "Astro Bot" in a computerized voice, the iconic SSD and GPU songs return, and there's a hilarious new song in the tree level that had me bursting out laughing. The soundtrack goes a long way to making each and every level even more enjoyable, to the point where it's impossible not to have a silly grin the whole time you're playing.
Final Score: 10/10 - Masterpiece
Developer: Team Asobi
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Genre: Platformer
Modes: Single-player
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10+)
A key was provided by the publisher.
By Paul Hunter
Welcome the new crowning jewel of PlayStation Studios: Team Asobi. Astro Bot looked fantastic in the pre-release trailers and I'm happy to report that 'you ain't seen nothing yet'. The final game is simply magical; a rare game where the graphics, gameplay, and soundtrack all coalesce into a brilliant experience that not only pushes the platforming genre forward but will surely make it rank among the best platformers of all time. Team Asobi may be the first studio in history that could legitimately challenge Nintendo's decades-long reign as the king of platformers.
Completing Astro Bot on PS5 took me about 15 hours and another five hours for the platinum trophy. That's 20 hours of non-stop smiling and giggling as I ventured through the most colourful and alive platforming stages I've ever seen. Somehow, Team Asobi took the irresistible charm of Astro's Playroom and doubled down in Astro Bot with stages even more alive and absorbing. No detail was spared, nearly every objective is interactable, whether that's hitting a bush and out pops playful bugs, pulling on a string to flip over a bounce pad, or getting your little Astro Bot army to stand on a cloth roof to rip it down with their weight to uncover the secrets inside. You can tell so much love and attention was put into this game to spread joy and smiles—mission accomplished.
The story of Astro Bot is simple, as you'd expect. A mischievous green alien has stolen the main chip of Astro's PS5 spaceship. During the altercation, four main components of the PS5, like the cooling fan, GPU and SSD, got scattered across multiple galaxies. Not only that but all 300 members of your Astro Bot crew got scattered across said galaxies. It's your job on dozens of planets to recover your lost crew and repair the PS5 spaceship so you can eventually take off into space to defeat the dastardly alien.
The stages themselves are incredibly creative, highly varied and packed with fun easter eggs fans will love. There are several stages completely branded after iconic PlayStation franchises including Uncharted, Horizon, Ape Escape, LocoRoco and more. Astro Bot games have also been a celebration of PlayStation's rich history, including first-party franchises and third-party ones like Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry and much, much more. But the PS5 Astro Bot really kicks up the honouring of PlayStation's franchises and legacy. There are over 150 cameo characters to find in the game, and each rescue will send your bot friend back to the main Crash Site that serves as the game's hub world.
At the centre of the Crash Site, you'll find the gigantic PS5 spaceship without its protective white covers (which you'll eventually recover!). All 300 Astro Bot characters that can be rescued will get transported here, and they all have their little zone to hang out in. What's neat is characters will group together by IP, with Nate, Sam and Sully all taking up space in the Uncharted zone, while three Helghast soldiers will congregate in a Killzone spot. You can run up to every character and punch them, which will initiate their powers or play out a mini-comedy scene. For example, hitting Crash Bandicoot will pop off his helmet, revealing that it's just an Astro Bot wearing a mask. I had a ton of fun pouncing on every cameo character to see what funny shenanigans would result.
Astro Bot's crisp, cartoon graphics are stunning to behold. There's virtually every traditional platforming biome represented in the game, including beach, water, lava, forest, desert, sky and space, and they all look immaculate visually. But there are just as many unexpected locations, like the huge casino stage, the "Dude Raider" Tomb Raider-inspired stage, or one that even takes place almost entirely inside a gigantic talking tree. Not only are the graphics polished, but levels are filled to the brim with life, whether that's smiling clouds, animal ecosystems, or fun easter eggs that'll surely get people talking.
Astro has a ton of power-ups to aid him in battle and they are incredibly fun to use, and sometimes very surprising. Astro can equip gator hands that can extend and punch, he can put a dog on his back to propel him forward, he can grab two cymbals and bash them together with funny results, and in one level he can become a sponge that grows to enormous size when soaked in water. The best part is just when you think you've seen all the powers Astro Bot can get, along comes another level that gives you an all-new power to have fun with.
Exploring is key to getting the most out of Astro Bot. For starters, stages will typically have 5-8 Astro Bots hidden for you to find. You have to look everywhere, sometimes the little guys will be hanging off ledges, or held by an enemy in the air, or in the numerous secret areas found within stages. You can also find puzzle pieces within levels, used to build structures back at the Crash Site like a Gatcha Lab, Changing Room and even a full Safari Park where all the little Astro animals can play. You also need to fly your ship around every inch of the galaxies because there are actually hidden levels, and a lot of them, too, which you only discover by flying near its orbit.
Astro Bot is a fairly simple game to beat, which makes sense given its appeal to children and families. Astro dies after one hit, which can lead to a bit of frustration for some of the sub-bosses, but overall I found the game to be a modest challenge.
That said, four of the galaxies have hidden challenge stages that are based on the iconic PlayStation symbols of square, triangle, circle and cross. For those wondering, yes the game calls "X" the cross button, again putting to rest the eternal debate of what that symbol is called. The challenges stages visually are a ton of fun as you'll hop on platforms shaped like the PlayStation symbols, while in the sky you'll see the respective symbol with comical googly eyes on them. There were two or three legitimately painfully hard challenge levels that took me 20 times or more to complete, and one in particular I felt was nearly unbeatable. With persistence though I was able to beat all challenge stages, which is required to collect all 300 of the missing Astro Bots.
Astro Bot, as you may expect, does a wondrous job integrating the PS5 DualSense. Different surfaces and textures will send specific vibrations through the controller, and in rainy levels you can feel the pitter-patter of droplets hitting Astro. There's also a neat mini-game where you have to brush your hand across multiple glowing panels feeling for a vibration, which indicates the one you can push to reveal a secret.
No discussion of an Astro Bot game would be complete without discussing the soundtrack, which once again is stellar and a massive highlight. There's a cute song that repeats "Astro Bot" in a computerized voice, the iconic SSD and GPU songs return, and there's a hilarious new song in the tree level that had me bursting out laughing. The soundtrack goes a long way to making each and every level even more enjoyable, to the point where it's impossible not to have a silly grin the whole time you're playing.
The Verdict
Astro Bot is the best platforming game on PlayStation this generation bar none. It's a pure joy to play and could just be the best PlayStation Studio first-party game on the PS5. I hope this game is extremely successful in sending Sony the message loud and clear: We need more games on PlayStation games like Astro Bot. Don't hesitate to pick it up, it's the pinnacle of platforming.Final Score: 10/10 - Masterpiece
Astro Bot details
Platform: PS5Developer: Team Asobi
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Genre: Platformer
Modes: Single-player
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10+)
A key was provided by the publisher.