My only regret is that it’s a PS5 exclusive, and will probably always remain so. Astro Bot deserves a wider audience, but I’m not sure if that’s in the cards. I can’t imagine a game with such deep roots in PlayStation history would ever make it to other platforms. If nothing else, I hope that the creative joy that permeates Astro Bot’s every pixel inspires a new generation of game developers to make the kinds of games they want, without fear, limits, or compromise. But then Astro Bot blew all expectations out of the water when it came out earlier this year. Reviewers marveled at its creative platforming, its level of challenge, and its relentless nostalgia for 30 years of PlayStation hits.
The controller features a white and blue trim that perfectly matches the Dual Speeder in-game, as well as a smiling set of eyes on the touchpad. The game also crashed on me twice, both times erasing more progress than I’d have expected since I assumed it auto-saves after each level, but I’d lost about three or four levels of progress in both instances. However, I admit these crashes came at the end of my long 11-hour session with the game on my first day with it, so maybe it was an issue Team Asobi will address. Still, the hard crash backpedaling on my saved data was strange and somewhat soured what was a marathon of smiles for about 10 hours of that day.
If these things are what you look for then fair enough but to suggest YOUR metrics for liking a game should apply to everyone else show a lack of empathy and frankly symptoms of being a sociopath. Maybe because im my late 50s is the reason this doesn’t grab me at all. I don’t have any children to let play it, and I’m pretty sure my wife would be none too happy if spending £60-£70 for gameplay that lasts less than most days I work and then would say why am I playing a kids game. @nicc83 I would say around the hour mark if you just do the main levels and that’s it, but if you want to see and do everything, likely 20 hours or more. Obviously it depends on how much exploring you do and how much you’re bothered about collecting everything — it’s a very meaty 3D platformer in my opinion and a really nice length. Would not be surprised of this gets the highest overall rating for a game this year.
Team Asobi really mined Sony’s vaults, far beyond simple Crash Bandicoot callbacks, and into weird and wonderful games like LocoRoco and Vib-Ribbon. Platformers have so long followed in the footsteps of Mario, with so many titles trying to emulate what the mustachioed plumber has achieved. Astro Bot’s utterly overflowing creativity and ingenuity make it one of the first platformers that feels like it can stand outside the long shadow cast by Mario. It’s a grand celebration of PlayStation’s legacy and a sign of what its future can become. What’s amazing is despite how wide-reaching the references are in Astro Bot, this isn’t just a celebration of PlayStation’s first-party stuff but so much of what’s defined gaming for decades.
Vibrant colors make me feel like I’m in a cartoon, but Team Asobi doesn’t flatten its environments or skimp on detail. In one level, I start by walking across swaths of bright green foliage. I feel the crunch of the grass between my metal feet and hear the sound from my DualSense’s speakers. Then kuwin com move on to a metallic checkerboard floor, where I hear my legs lightly click-clacking on the tiles.
On the flipside, speedrunners should enjoy Astro Bot as well, since it offers planets of platforming challenges with incredibly responsive controls. Astro Bot is such a wonderful experience, it makes me question if I’ve ever felt this much pure joy playing other games I’m fond of. From its tight design to its incredible visuals to mechanics that feel carefully tested to generate as much pleasure as possible, Sony has its new standard bearer for platformers. Astro Bot is a franchise of platform video games created and developed by Team Asobi, and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation brand of consoles beginning with the PlayStation 4.
What Else Would You Like To See Added To Astro Bot?
This isn’t something that directly influences the core gameplay but it makes it feel better. Astro Bot has six worlds and dozens of levels to complete with Bots, Puzzle Pieces, and Costumes to collect, secret portals to find, and trophies to earn. IGN’s 100% Astro Bot walkthrough will guide you to every collectible and secret. Foamstars has 2 done to death modes yet I can think of a surfboard mode, a foam clean up mode, chemicals to mess with the foam, traps and more.
Astro Bot Review – Sony’s Greatest Hits Collection Is Its Best Game In Years
Astro Bot’s not the largest game in the world — you’ll perhaps see the credits roll in hours or so. Those aiming to rescue every robot, complete every challenge, find every jigsaw piece and unlock every trophy, however, will probably end up playing for around 20 hours or more. It’s the type of game that you’re likely to return to as well, simply because of its feel-good nature. It’s a heartwarming and flawless experience, and a 3D platforming masterpiece. While there’s plenty to like about the hub, which we’ll get into later, the main attraction is the game’s range of levels, which are as varied, playful, and fun as you’d hope.
Astro Bot Guides
Even blowing into the controller to create bubbles or sound a horn, though obviously a bit of a gimmick, fits perfectly into the level each time Astro Bot uses them. You’ll pick up an awful lot of coins exploring all the planets in Astro Bot. At first, that huge trove of gold may seem useless, but once you’ve beaten the first boss in the Gorilla Nebula, you’ll unlock the Gacha Lab at the Crash Site. Here, you can spend coins to win up to 169 PlayStation-themed collectibles, including skins for the Dual Speeder. Later on, you’ll also unlock the Dual Speeder Garage, where you can personnalise Astro’s controller plane, and the Changing Room to switch up Astro’s look to outfits collected in the Gacha Lab.
Astro Bot is one of the year’s biggest and best titles and it’s easy to see why. There’s a lot to do, it’s visually stunning and it’s a welcoming platformer. You can jump onto the title even if you haven’t played Astro’s Playroom or a PlayStation game in general. Team Asobi studio head Nicolas Doucet thanked his development team and PlayStation for believing in Astro, and also paid tribute to Nintendo, recalling how he played Super Mario Bros as a child.
I even use the microphone to blow into a giant horn, a kind of delightful gameplay interaction that even Nintendo has moved away from in recent years. This is one of the only PS5 games that really feels like it was built around the DualSense, and it shows. That’s why Astro Bot feels as consequential as it does even if it just looks like your average 3D platformer full of collectibles and clever power-ups at a glance. The expertly designed PS5 exclusive plays like an intervention with its own publisher. It brings the PlayStation platform on an intergalactic journey through its history to rediscover its long lost sense of wonder.
But in actuality Astro Bot isn’t a very good celebration of PlayStation’s history. It is, however, one of the best 3D platformers ever made and an absolute joy from beginning to end. Oddly, Astro can only ever survive one hit, which can be annoying as 90% of the time the only thing that ever kills you is enemies firing projectiles, but the game is so heavily checkpointed it’s never really a problem. Others are less straightforward, such as boxing gloves that concertina out but can also be used to attach to objects (that appear to be covered in jam) to pull them or use them to swing onto other platforms. One power-up can suck up various liquids from the ground to create platforms of different consistencies, while another slows down time and is used in a variety of clever ways. The enemies being copycats are a slight shame, but the visual design is very good, with everything also clearly being mechanical, rather than just organic, which looks great when it’s subtly cybernetic trees and animals.
Astro Bot has proven to be not only one of Sony’s most successful games but one of the most successful games of all time, at least critically speaking. That’s not to say that Astro Bot — a lavishly produced, classic platform game starring Asobi’s robot mascot — shirks its promotional duties, or cuts the ties between its irrepressible lead character and the hardware he lives on. The game is soaked through with PlayStation branding and fan service, almost to a fault.
