Astro Bot Review

Good vibrations‍

“I am Astro Bot,” sings a digitised voice from the title screen. Yes. Yes, you are. And it’s so damn good to have you back. Astro’s Playroom could have been considered a throwaway freebie bundled with the PS5 on its release four years ago. Instead it was a delightful platformer in its own right, designed to introduce players to the new DualSense controller while exploring an array of innovative mechanics. It remains one of the best games on the console, and Astro Bot does everything Playroom did, but bigger, and with even more colour and creativity.

There’s something timeless about this kind of platform game. Like the best Mario games, it’s essentially a series of themed vignettes, meticulously constructed and polished to a blinding sheen, and filled with secrets which reward exploration. Yet it’s also eminently accessible and forgiving. There’s no game over screen here; “dying” just sees you regenerate at the next checkpoint, which is usually no more than 15 seconds away. Every element of Astro Bot wants you to explore, and enjoy exploring. 

Even more than Playroom, nostalgia is front and centre here. Astro’s PS5-shaped spaceship crashes on a planet after an encounter with a mean alien, scattering his 300 friends across the galaxy along with key parts to your ship. Your task is to reassemble the craft and find your bot friends along the way. It’s as simple a plot as this kind of family-friendly game requires and acts as an excuse to transport our electronic hero to a multitude of different themed worlds. Each world you travel to uses different mechanics, which means you’re constantly surprised. There wasn’t a single moment I felt had been wasted or rehashed from previous levels. The inventiveness on show is incredible. Mechanics that are used for a single world could sustain an entire game on their own in another developer's hands. It’s almost unfair how much skill Team ASOBI are showcasing here. It's very much a demonstration of what platforming expertise and innovation can achieve. 

The game plays almost identically to Playroom. Astro uses a spin to bump off enemies — most requiring only one hit — and can use his foot thrusters as both a weapon and a way to boost him to otherwise inaccessible ledges. The controller responsiveness is immediate, the camera on point. Any mistake you make will almost certainly be your fault, such is the accuracy of navigating Astro around increasingly wacky realms. Regardless of the planet you’re roaming around, the intuitiveness of the controls and the subtle signposting each level provides mean that you can embrace each new challenge with confidence. New mechanics are introduced with a short controller explanation which beds in immediately, whether that’s blowing on the controller to activate a fan or locating a pressable panel in a wall to open up a new area. Gyroscopic activities include flying your PS5 controller shuttle using the DualSense as a steering wheel and swinging between banana handholds in Ape Escape-themed levels. 

Over half the bots you rescue are dressed as mascots and characters from Sony’s rich catalogue of games. With three decades to plunder, you’ll see recognisable faces such as Crash, Dante, Aloy and Nathan Drake, but more obscure ones too which I won’t spoil here. PlayStation megafans will be in heaven. The theming often extends beyond mere cameos: God of War gets its own world, for instance, complete with Kratos’ returning axe, which is almost as much fun to use as the game it borrows from. Whether you're following the destructive path of an enormous ape through a construction-themed planet which is constantly rebuilding itself to fix the primate's path, or swinging through an Aztec forest whilst simultaneously bashing enemies with two boxing gloves on springs, there's very little here that feels extraneous or indulgent. 

The visuals are never less than stunning, either. The physics engine works in overdrive to ensure flowing liquid, smashed glass and huge scattered piles of apples, candy strands or gold nuggets all move realistically in a near 4K resolution, with no effect on the frame rate which hangs around at a superb 60 FPS. Team ASOBI’s mastery of the console is unparalleled, no doubt in part due to their many years working on tech demos to push Sony’s consoles to their limit. 

At one point I was working my way up the inside of a singing tree which I grew to monumental size from a sapling. In another encounter I was swallowed by a huge worm and had to escape from a rising tide of stomach acid. One boss fight was against a huge snorkel-wearing octopus. The scope of some of the levels and bosses (and even mini-bosses) is staggering, while even the smaller ones pack in more fun and interest in five minutes than entire games can manage in five hours. Minecraft-style levels are a simply gorgeous flurry of exploding blocks that you could spend time just smashing up to appreciate in their own right. During another level you gain the ability to shrink to the size of a mouse at will, allowing you to explore miniature houses and explore nooks and crannies filled with coins and secrets. Aside from bots, collectibles include jigsaw pieces which can be assembled to unlock new customisation options for you, your craft and more, while swirling portals transport you to a secret galaxy filled with more new worlds.  

Couple this with a truly wonderful soundtrack which, in keeping with the rest of the game, varies between levels and offers up funk, hip-hop, Latin vibes and a dozen more earworms which will keep you humming along as you explore. At least two levels contain entire songs — one vocoded — which could have been tacky, but simply work in the context of your surroundings. The incidental effects are equally excellent; at times it feels like you’re playing a cartoon replete with boings, crashes and squelches.

You will often finish a level without discovering everything in it but the game handily tells you which bots, jigsaw pieces and portals you’re missing. I found myself finishing a level and then immediately jumping back into it to hit the 100% completion flag, such is the game’s allure. Coins can be spent on gacha pods for more collectible fun, but also used to buy a helpful robot bird at the start of a level. It will let you know when you’re near anything you haven’t discovered yet, which means platinuming the game becomes that little bit easier.

Not that you’ll ever feel overly challenged. The difficulty is definitely pitched towards the more lenient side, and while there are certainly some levels that took me a few attempts, I never felt frustrated. There is so much joy weaved through every pixel, the game is impossible not to love. Each level is carefully and lovingly crafted, each element of the DualSense controller perfectly integrated, each haptic rumble enhancing your experience. The only sadness I felt came as I realised I was approaching the end. Such is the pull of Astro Bot. As a platformer, only the likes of Galaxy or Odyssey from the Super Mario world can compare, and I’d argue that Team Asobi’s creation might even have outstripped Nintendo’s finest. Even if it doesn’t win multiple game of the year awards (which, frankly, it should), Astro Bot is hands down one of the best platform games of the last decade.