Released on September 6th, 2024, Astro Bot is quite a departure from what Sony has been putting out for the past decade. Sometime during the PS4 life span, around the release of The Last of Us, all of Sony's games started moving towards over-the-shoulder open-world shooters with crafting elements and dark and foreboding stories. That doesn't make the games bad, but it makes the play experience feel repetitive, even if the settings are different.

Which isn't to say Sony didn't release games that fell outside those parameters. Both Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Sackboy: A Big Adventure are games that came out after the PS5 was released. But it's pretty clear the focus isn't on these types of games for the publisher.

Enter Astro! It all started in 2013 with The Playroom, a tech demo for the PlayStation Camera and Dualshock 4 that consisted of augmented reality mini-games. Then, in 2018, came Astro Bot Rescue Mission for the original PlayStation VR, a 3D Platformer in Virtual Reality which trully set the stage for most of Astro's recurring characters and motifs, which will be apparent in the game we're reviewing today. (Sony, for the love of Bot, port this to PSVR2!)


Timeline of Astro games

When the PS5 launched, it came with Astro's Playroom pre-installed, which served as both a tech demo for what the PS5 had to offer and a history lesson for PlayStation hardware, along with a few subtle cameos from various franchises that made an impact on the PlayStation brand. Many people ignored it, not expecting anything from it, but it's actually a really good title that's worth your time (and it's not very long).

Then, this year, we got Astro Bot. The first mainstream game in the series that doesn't require any additional accessories to play. Will Astro Bot soar to new heights now that it has so many eyes on it, or is the little guy's first major release a stumble? Let's find out!

A Trip Down Memory Meadow


Behold! My stuff!

Before we get into Astro Bot, let's discuss Astro's Playroom. Do you need to play it before the main game? In short, not really, but kinda. There's no story connection between the two, and Bot is by far the more complex game of the two.

Should you play it for its own sake? Yes, absolutely. The main reason for that is the huge number of artifacts hidden in the game that give you a history lesson on PlayStation hardware of all kinds, from mainline consoles to obscure accessories that never made it out of Japan. The models in the game are extremely detailed, and you can rotate them with your controller in a dedicated gallery to get a better look at them.

However, there is a gameplay reason to complete Playroom that will help with the main game. Between Astro Bot's announcement and its release, about once a week, the dev team added a secret dedicated bot in each level of the game that you had to find. There was also a big countdown to when Astro Bot launched within Playroom itself, really fun stuff, wish more games did that.


The 4 bots, getting ready for the big adventure

The bots are very well hidden, so you'll likely need a guide to find them. They will be added to Astro Bot automatically, increasing the total number you can find by 4. We'll go into more details when we talk about the Collect-a-Thon aspect of the game, but this will give you a bit of a head start when it comes to various activities in the game. 

All in all, Playroom is absolutely worth your time before you get Astro Bot itself. If anything, it acts as a great extended demo to the main game, though that's not really an incentive if you don't already have a PS5. But enough chit-chat, let's see what adventure awaits the little mechanical fellow!


Guys, you're spoiling the new game!

A Galaxy of Fun and Fan-Favourites


Me and my pals ready for an amazing adventure

The game begins with Astro and his armada- I mean, friends traveling the galaxy on board their spaceship. Which is a PS5. Things go awry when Nebulax the Space Bully crosses their path, a character that's not original to Astro Bot. His species first appears in The Playroom on PS4, and he was the main antagonist in Astro Bot Rescue Mission. If Astro is Mario, Nebulax is Bowser.

The big mean alien recognizes the gang, so he rips the ship apart, steals its CPU, and leaves. This whole debacle scatters the bots across the galaxy, with Astro and the PS5 landing on a nearby planet. Aaaaand that's pretty much the story. Yeah, aside from a few cutscenes with Nebulax and, spoiler, a final battle where you save the CPU, there's not much to tell. You just run around collecting bots and beating enemies.


I've got a bad feeling about this.

So I'm gonna use this section to talk about the game structure instead. The game is level-based, with five galaxies that each contain several worlds to explore, a boss fight where you save a specific bot inspired by a PlayStation franchise, followed by a final level modelled after that franchise, complete with unique abilities. We'll talk about the level structure in a bit.

Each galaxy also has a set of challenge levels that award one bot each. They're not initially present on the map, and you'll need to find them by smashing asteroids or entering hidden wormholes. The levels are short, but can be fairly challenging, with difficulties ranging from "Oh, that was actually kinda easy" to "Don't snap the controller in half, you don't have a replacement". You don't need to beat them to finish the game, but they are necessary to 100%.


The world map (Not pictured: The Gorilla Galaxy)

Two worlds in each galaxy also have a rift, leading to the "Lost Galaxy", which is basically another set of levels. Those don't feel any harder than the main levels, and are actually a bit shorter. The one issue with this is that entering a rift will act as a finish line and end the current level. This isn't a problem if the rift is near the regular finish line or even after, but a lot of the time it's right in the middle of the level, so going back can be pretty annoying.

My one gripe with this whole structure is that the galaxies don't have a cohesive theming. Aside from each galaxy representing the final boss, all the planets from each are very different from each other. There are several sand-themed levels, and they're all in different galaxies. The bosses don't even show up outside their own levels, except for the first one appearing in a previous level in its galaxy. It doesn't detract from the experience overall, and I guess this keeps the world from feeling repetitive, but it's kinda weird.


A galaxy map, about halfway done. Blue Astro flag means the level is finished, while Gold Crown flag means it's complete.

For a Little Bot, He Packs a Big Punch


You spin me right 'round, bot-y, right 'round

In terms of controls, Astro is fairly simple, but effective. You have a basic punch, a spin attack, and a hover that you activate by holding the jump button that can also damage enemies below you via lasers. If you've played Playroom, this will feel familiar. Astro's move set is nowhere near as complex as what Mario can do with his base movement, but it gets the job done and works for the little guy.

Little and fragile, as Astro dies in a single hit. This is where the difficulty of the game will come from, since as much as a graze with another enemy will send you back to your latest checkpoint. Which isn't to say the game is hard, quite the contrary. Levels have plenty of checkpoints, and most enemies also die in one or two hits.


My face when I'm about to play Arms

Some levels will have specific gadgets that help you traverse the level, and some of them are used multiple times. They're all really fun to play with and the devs use them very creatively when they're present. The only one to make a return from Playroom is the Frog Suit, now a backpack, and it's the only one to use the controller's gyroscope. 

Enemy variety is great, with a wide assortment and methods of taking them out. Some you can just punch, some need to be killed with the hover laser, some with the spin attack, and some require level-specific power-up to take down. They're all introduced at a gradual pace and never overwhelm you, though you'll probably find one or two that you end up disliking quite a lot.


Two regular mooks about to attack Astro, and a power-up specific one in the center

The main bosses of each galaxy are the only time Astro gets two extra hit points. They're all pretty typical platformer bosses, where you recognize and avoid attack then hit them 3 times. There are 5 total encounters, and you get to use one of Astro's gadgets that were conveniently introduced in one of the previous levels. All those bosses are animal-themed, and 3 of the 5 are characters that were bosses in Astro Bot Rescue Mission, though the fights themselves are quite different.


If Wako Tako had a coin for every time he got beat up by a little bot, he's have two coins. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

The final boss is Nebulax, and his boss fight uses all the power-ups from the previous bosses... kinda. He has a carnival spinning wheel that you have to stop, and that will result in you getting a power-up and him going on the offensive with a specific attack before being able to hit him. Unfortunately, you only get to do this 3 times before the fight is over. As a final boss, he could be justified in needing 5 hits instead of the usual 3, with Astro eventually getting 2 extra hit points.

Bots, Puzzles, and Gacha, Oh My!


You feeling lucky, bot?

At its heart, Astro-Bot is a Collect-a-Thon, meaning there's stuff in each level you'll need to find. The main levels have 7 bots and 3 puzzle pieces, the rift levels go down to 5 bots and 2 pieces, the boss levels have 1 or 2 bots you get after beating the bots, and the character levels have 3 puzzle pieces and a varying number of bots.

There's also the hub world, which has a bunch of bots and puzzle pieces for you to find as well. The pieces unlock various facilities along the PS5, namely the Gacha Machine (for unlocking items for your bots and cosmetic items), the bot change room (to change Astro's appearance), the PS5 garage (to change the in-game's controller look), the safari zone (to interact with various critters from the game and unlock a couple more bots), and... Well, let's not spoil the last one.

The main mode of transportation is an upgraded Dualsense with thrusters and eyes where the trackpad should be. The beginning of each level has a short section where you fly on the controller and move Astro from side to side with the gyro (you can disable this in the settings), and some of these will also have a puzzle piece you need to grab. There are also a few times in the game where you go into, uhm... first person? and two mechanical arms come out from the controller to do short mini-games.


WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

When you come back to a level after finishing it, you'll find a bird at the start that you can pay 200 Coins to unlock. The bird will tell you when you're close to a bot or a puzzle piece, but will not tell you how to get to them if they're hidden. It's a great system that makes completing everything a lot easier, but I wish there was a bit more nuance to it. Maybe make it so that the bird costs 100 Coins per undiscovered secret and you can decide how much to invest when unlocking it. This would add an incentive to explore the level rather than finishing it and just getting back in with the bird.

Overall, Astro Bot is a great introduction to the Collect-a-Thon genre. In total, there are over 300 Bots to find (the exact number depends on how many you found in Playroom) and [TBD] puzzle pieces, which sounds like a lot, but it's actually a fairly low number by Collect-a-Thon standards. Compare this to something like the Psychonauts games, which are a joy to play and an absolute pain to complete.


Birdie says there's something in that direction

The Monumental Power of the PS5, Used to Render Lots of Apples

Astro Bot is a gorgeous game, with the environments of each level looking absolutely lovely, and offering a large variety of biomes to explore. That said, it's not a "realistic" game in the same way something like Red Dead Redemption, God of War, or Horizon are. This means the game can use the processing power it saves by not rendering the pores on the protagonist's forehead and allocate them to other areas. Like...

Small objects. Good Lord, there are so many small objects scattered all over the game. Leaves, fruit, ice cream sprinkles, voxel blocks, you name it. The PS5 can render a lot of small objects at once, and Sony will remind you of it, dammit! 


That's a lot of nu-uhm, acorns

Moving on to more impressive stuff, this game has the best free-form cutting physics I've seen since... Metal Gear Rising, maybe? There are 3 wooden logs in the first level that you can cut with your laser feet, and they will be cut down in the shape you want. It can't do curves, but it's still very impressive. One of the Lost Galaxy levels sees you cut bamboo with shuriken fired from your controller, and the bamboo will be cut down to the length you aimed for. Raiden would be proud.

My absolute favourite level in the game is Downsize Surprize. The main gadget of the level is a pair of mouse ears that let you become very small. The swap between big and small is instantaneous and seamless, and they get very creative with what you can do with it, like going under logs and growing huge to break them, or going up on streams of water as a small guy when you can't as a big one. I want a full game that utilizes this mechanic! I don't care if it needs to be an Ant-Man title to justify the development, give it to me, Sony!


Honey, I shrunk the bot!

Astro Bot is what happens when you don't focus entirely on graphics and let the console's power be used for more physics stuff. Game graphics got good enough around the PS4 era, going even further is overkill and barely noticeable (hi, PS5 Pro presentation). I hope the industry takes notice and changes priorities in this far more interesting direction. The only ones doing that now are Nintendo, and they're doing it while being very limited by the Switch's raw power.

Hear the Beat, Feel the Rumble

When it launched, Astro's Playroom served as a way to show what can be done with the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers of the Dualsense. To this day, it's still the fullest use of the controller, and Astro Bot only falls short of it because it never utilizes the touchpad (though there were a few spots where they had the chance, so it was probably a conscious decision). 

The haptic feedback in the controller is phenomenal. It will vibrate differently if you walk on different surfaces, so wood, glass, and sand would all actually feel different in your hand. The adaptive triggers will change how you need to press them depending on what power-up is in use. It's really hard to put into text, it's something that needs to be felt first-hand. Surprisingly, other aspects of the controller are minimized, like the gyro which is only used with the aforementioned monkey backpack and controller piloting, or completely ignored, like the touchpad.


Some of these designs would actually make for awesome controllers

Another aspect where the team excels is the sound design. There are a couple of levels where you roll over spikes, and the sound and controller feedback really makes it feel like they're small metal pieces. But what trully impressed me is the sections where you can roll some snowballs, and you can hear the crunch that's typical of fresh snow. If Astro Bot doesn't win Sound Design at the Game Award, I'll riot!

Speaking of GOTY contenders, the soundtrack. Absolutely phenomenal. Extremely varied, each track is very energetic and distinct, and it never gets old. My only gripe with it is the boss themes. They're still amazing and capture the frenzy of a boss battle, but they're all based on the same melody and, despite being distinct tracks that you can tell apart when listening to them, they tend to kinda blend together and sound same-y during gameplay.

This is another aspect inherited from Rescue Mission, where the same melody was used. Oddly, after listening to that a bit, I feel like it was handled a little better there. The melody is distorted a bit more between each version, and the tempo also differs between them. Again, not a bad tune at all, it's actually really good, but I would've liked a bit more variety with that one. 


That big tree in the background? Sickest beats in the whole game!

Hey, Little Guy, Let's Pick Some Nits

I have some criticisms of the game. I already mentioned the boss music and world structure, but another big one is the selection for the character levels. I'm not gonna mention all of them, but each one is supposed to represent an era in PlayStation history and a game from that time period. I'll spoil the second character level in this section, but not any of the others.

The PS2 representative is God of War, but it's all Ragnarok. Everything to do with that (still really good) level is from the latest entry in the series, which rubs me the wrong way. I get that it's probably harder to code the Blades of Chaos over the Leviathan Axe, but at that point pick another game from that era, like Ratchet and Clank, Jack and Daxter, or Sly Cooper.


BOT!

Speaking of these character levels, the PS5 gets no representation. That felt a little weird, since it's the console the game is currently on. Granted, the only franchise to come out this generation is Returnal (which has more to do with the industry's fear of taking risks with new IPs), but that game would've fit like a glove with Astro Bot's other mechanics. Instead, we get an (admittedly very unique) PSP dedicated level.

Another thing I need to criticize is the alternate costume selection. Over 150 bots wearing costumes from various franchises, and you only give me 20 alternate skins, including the base one and the pre-orders? I get that Astro is a little different from the other bots (he has a few blue and silver accents), but you couldn't give me more skins? Especially since he gets four extra costumes in the main campaign! Why can't I change into those? Frankly, the biggest issue with the game, hope it gets addressed in some free updates.


He's really excited for new pajamas

The only things left for me to rag on are the kinda slow camera movement (tip: go into Options -> Accessibility -> Camera Assist, and turn it on so that it always snaps behind Astro when pressing Circle), the somewhat slow movement speed (or, rather, the lack of a sprint), and the very barebones settings menu. The former two you get used to it, but the latter barely has any setting to change, including the aforementioned camera movement. It's quite embarrassing, even for a console game.


Moo

That's about it. Frankly, while this paragraph might look kinda long, the issues don't get in your way of enjoying the game by any stretch. 

Pros:

  • Tight controls.
  • Fun and varied levels.
  • Phenomenal soundtrack and sound design.
  • Great package overall.
  • Excellent use of the Dualsense.
  • Great entry point in the Collect-a-Thon genre while also giving a bit of a challenge to veteran players.

Cons:

  • Odd world structure that doesn't have much cohesion.
  • Boss music can get a little repetitive, even if it's still really good.
  • Number of alternate costumes is shockingly low.
  • Barebones settings menu.
  • Some odd choices in one of the levels.

Out of Games wholly recommends Astro Bot! You can find it on the PlayStation Store or physically at select retailers for 59.99 USD or regional equivalents.

What do you think of Astro Bot? Are you gonna give it look? What's your favourite 3D platformer out there? Let us know in the comments below!