Astro Bot is the best 3D platformer in a decade

There are a few moments during Astro Bot where the screen goes completely black as it transitions between areas. The first time this happened, we were greeted by our own reflection, with an expression of child-like amazement reserved for when you first sat down in front of your parent’s TV with your PS1.

That feeling of wonder, pure joy, and excitement at what was coming next carried us from the very first bot we rescued until we popped the Platinum trophy. Astro Bot is not only an astonishingly good platformer, it understands PlayStation‘s legacy better than PlayStation seemingly does itself. It manages to balance heaps of incredible nostalgia, with excellent, inventive levels that introduce new mechanics as quickly as it introduces references to the likes of PaRappa the Rapper.

In an era of transition for Sony and PlayStation, where many fans feel like the inherent magic that made PlayStation so unique in the PS1 and PS2 era is fading, Team Asobi has created a game that not only celebrates that but also bridges the gap between generations and fully establishes itself as one of PlayStation’s top tier studios. While Astro may start the game searching for PlayStation icons, by the time the credits roll, he’s firmly established as one himself.

Further reading

1

‘We fill a gap for PlayStation Studios’ – Behind the scenes at Astro Bot’s Team Asobi

The PlayStation studio opens its doors to VGC and reveals the secrets behind PS5's profound platformer

Astro Autumn

Let’s start with this: Astro Bot would still be an incredible platformer without any of the PlayStation cameos. The game, which is made up of over 90 levels, takes Astro on a journey to recover parts of the mothership, a PlayStation 5 console that only looks slightly more alien than the real thing. The mothership crash lands, and sends 300 bots across the galaxy. In order to repair the mothership, Astro has to rescue them, and defeat the boss associated with each zone.

Levels themselves are bright, colourful, and joyous. Characters dance to Kenny Young’s captivating soundtrack. There’s a sense of welcoming and imagination that is Marioesque. Most levels also bring with them a power-up for Astro to use. This can be a penguin that allows him to swim faster, a bulldog that’ll let him break through walls, or boxing gloves that give him extendable arms.

In most games, these powerups would form the basis of dozens of levels, but in Astro Bot, you’re lucky if you use them for more than a few minutes. It feels like Team Asobi has scientifically calculated the moment you might get bored with one powerup, and decided to end the level at exactly that moment.  Thanks to this, there is such an incredible pace to the main campaign, where you’re constantly wondering what the next level will throw at you.

Such is the variety of powerups, that there’s one that’s not even used until a post-finale level in the game, and it’s solid enough to the point where another game could have made it the central conceit of several levels.

Each of these powerups is complemented by Astro Bot taking full advantage of the DualSense controller. Once again, Team Asobi is virtually the only developer to actually use the huge potential of the DualSense in a way that doesn’t feel like a gimmick. It’s all incredibly measured, precise, and natural, which is what you’d expect from a developer situated right next to Sony’s Tokyo hardware team.

“Once again, Team Asobi is virtually the only developer to actually use the huge potential of the DualSense in a way that doesn’t feel like a gimmick. It’s all incredibly measured, precise, and natural”

When the haptic feedback of the DualSense was shown off in Astro’s Playroom at the launch of the PlayStation 5, many thought it would serve as a true differentiating factor between the PS5 and its competitors. That hasn’t quite panned out, as even Sony’s first-party studios rarely explore it fully, but not Team Asobi.

By the end of Astro Bot we wondered if there was a single other texture, or sound that could be produced from the DualSense that Team Asobi hadn’t found. Astro Bot also achieves the impossible, using motion control in a way that feels natural (though these can be turned off in the accessibility menu).

Alongside traditional platforming stages that vary in difficulty from a fun breeze to somewhat tricky, each zone has several challenge levels, which are themed after the four PlayStation controller symbols. These levels are devious, incredibly rewarding to complete, and also a liability to your DualSense controller.

These sequences serve as evidence of how high-quality the platforming in the game is. There’s a level of precision and responsiveness in Astro Bot that, were it not present, would render these levels unplayable and frustrating. When you fail, it’s down entirely to skill. We’d love for there to be more of them, and the game is currently missing the much-loved speedrun challenges from Astro’s Playroom, but Team Asobi has already confirmed those will be added for free as post-release content.

Some of Astro Bot’s best moments are reserved for an even more special level type, however. As revealed in pre-release trailers, Astro has the ability to use items from legendary PlayStation characters, which leads to some incredible, memorable levels, but we’d rather not say more, as they’re show-stopping moments that had us puzzled as to how only roughly 65 people work at Team Asobi.

Very Important Bots

Astro Bot features over 150 cameos from PlayStation characters, past and present. This list isn’t limited to PlayStation-owned characters either, as several third-party characters make an appearance, including some that we expected to be absent due to legal hurdles. Speaking of, there are a few glaring omissions from the list, that we can only assume were due to licensing issues rather than a desire to see them represented, but if you were making a list of 100 characters to include from PlayStation history, 95% have made it into Astro Bot.

“There’s a level of precision and responsiveness in Astro Bot that, were it not present, would render these levels unplayable and frustrating. When you fail, it’s down entirely to skill.”

These characters appear in levels alongside normal bots and are a great incentive to find them all. “Surely not,” was a common refrain as we reached the next totally unexpected cameo. Out of the 150+ bots included in the game, we’d hazard to guess that unless you write gaming encyclopedias for a living, at least a handful will require a quick Google.

Interestingly, some bots that are included are references to entire genres, or illusions to franchises without an actual licensed character attached to them, but the clever, and often hilarious description that comes along with each bot will leave you in no doubt what they are in tribute to.

PlayStation’s Japanese heritage is very well represented in the lineup, as you’d expect from a team based in Japan, including veterans from PlayStation’s very dearly departed Japan Studios. The gacha machine from Playroom is back, this time including an accessory for all 150+ characters, which gives each of them an animation, and in some cases, homages to the original game’s soundtrack.

Astro Bot’s soundtrack, composed by Kenny Young, is one of the game’s highlights. Astro’s Playroom favourites like the ultra-nerdy GPU song make welcome returns, alongside a whole new suite of music for the game’s varied and distinctive lands. Not only this, but on several occasions, Kenny gets the reigns of some iconic PlayStation themes and rearranges them with an Astro-flavoured tint that massively elevates the sequence in which they are used.

I am Astro Bot

Astro Bot makes us feel better about the future of PlayStation. It’s a game that proves that even while some of PlayStation’s efforts are focussed on a rocky live-service path, and the others are firmly in big-budget AAA titles that no other first-party can recreate for production value, there’s a group like Team Asobi creating utter magic at the heart of PlayStation.

In three months, PlayStation will celebrate its 30th birthday. There is no greater present it the brand could have received than this. A game that celebrates the highs (and a few lows) of the platform, while showing it a path forward. Astro is no longer a character that PlayStation should deploy when it wants to drum up excitement about its new hardware or celebrate its path; Astro as a character is reason enough to celebrate.

Buy Astro Bot

Astro Bot (PS5)

£43.99£59.99$59.99$59.99

Relentlessly joyous, with a world-beating soundtrack to match, Astro Bot is a truly wonderful game and the best platformer in a decade. While it never coasts on nostalgia alone, the effort Team Asobi has made to treat PlayStation characters (and a few old friends) with respect and love is wonderful. Leave it to Team Asobi to finally get Bloodborne characters in a native PS5 game.

While Astro’s Playroom came with every PlayStation 5, every PlayStation 5 needs Astro Bot.

Further reading

1

‘We fill a gap for PlayStation Studios’ – Behind the scenes at Astro Bot’s Team Asobi

The PlayStation studio opens its doors to VGC and reveals the secrets behind PS5's profound platformer