Game Review: Astro Bot

Astro Bot while surging into popularity as of recent years, didn’t make his initial debut in the PlayStation 5 demo game Astro’s Playroom. In fact, Astro in his original design made his debut all the way back in 2013 when the PlayStation 4 released.  Titled simply as The Playroom, this experience was developed for the sole purpose of showing the capabilities of the PlayStation Camera; an accessory you could purchase alongside the console.  This was back during the dying days of the motion control phase the industry was going through.  Ever since the Wii’s success, Sony and Microsoft have made countless attempts to capture the same lightning in the bottle with less than stellar results (Look at the Kinect and Playstation Move for additional reference). The Playroom contained a collection of augmented reality minigames which would be projected into the real-life environment captured on the camera.  One such minigame was AR Bots, a game in which 40 little robots would be placed inside your PlayStation 4 DualShock controller to mimic motion and gravity as you waved it about.  There was an inherent charm to the design of these robots and it’s clear Team Asobi caught notice of that too as they began to develop game experiences solely around the little fellows going forward. Fast forward to 2020 and Team Asobi was there again, with a full-fledged tech demo of the of the PlayStation 5’s capabilities in the form of a cute little platformer titled Astro’s Playroom.  The initial reception to this tech demo was incredible, people loved the experience not only for it’s strong display and quality, but it’s endearing love and representation of all things PlayStation across it’s then 26 years history. It makes sense then, that Team Asobi would hone in on that appeal and make a full-fledged video game simply titled Astro Bot. 

Developed by Team Asobi and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Astro Bot is a third-person platforming experience released for the PlayStation 5 on September 6th 2024. Development on Astro Bot started pretty much straight away after they completed Astro’s Playroom.  Team Asobi knew they had a lot more room to flex with Astro Bot as an IP and played around with the idea of making it an open world experience.  The decision was instead made to refocus on what made Astro’s Playroom so well received by focusing on level-by-level gameplay with a focus on quality over quantity.  Upon it’s release, the world received Astro Bot once again with open arms.  On OpenCritic the game stands at an astronomical 95 critical average across the board and in terms of sales the game has been noted to have sold a total of 1.5 million units as of November 3rd 2024. Even right now as I write this review, Astro Bot is soaring into success during the award season with a plethora of nominations and even a game of the year win at the 2024 Game Awards.  With all of the success and acclaim however, it does beg the question whether the game actually deserves all this praise, so let’s dive in and find out shall we? 

The storyline of Astro Bot follows Astro Bot and pals aboard the PlayStation 5 mothership as they enter a strange new cosmos.  As soon as they enter the galaxy however, they come into contact with a rather rude and obnoxious alien called Space Bully Nebulax.  The bullish alien takes an instant dislike to the mothership and its occupants and rips open the PlayStation 5 to steal the ships core CPU.  As a result of this, the mothership sadly explodes and sends many of the ships occupants and components scattering across the cosmos.  As one of the sole survivors left with the remains of the mothership, Astro Bot takes up the duty of rebuilding the mothership by scouring the many galaxies for his crew and the ships core components. Nebulax will be out to stop Astro Bot at every turn however, using his many minions to occupy the levels Astro Bot will venture to and attempt to thwart him in his tracks.  Will Astro Bot be able to overcome the odds and save his crew and rebuild their home before the dastardly alien devises an even more nefarious scheme for the CPU, you’ll have to play to find out!

As discussed in other platforming game reviews, narrative is not expected to be a core component of these games.  Often at times the gameplay is the main driving force behind such experiences and the narrative is simply there as setup.  Despite not uttering a single line of dialogue across the whole game however, the games story is remarkably set up across the course of its many stages.  The opening segment alone serves wonderfully to set the stakes and introduce an easy to grasp concept for the player to follow.  This mothership and the crew aboard it, you knew them from your time in Astro’s Playroom, seeing the crew you recruited and the ship you built get destroyed and discarded is a solid emotional move all things considered. The game is easily able to establish a sense of progression with the narrative too as you play through the game and save more of the crew.  You’ll get a visual sense of the ship being rebuilt slowly but surely and the planet which serves as your central HUB will become more lively and populated the more bots you save.  Again, it’s not anything groundbreaking or thought provoking, but it doesn’t need to be.  Team Asobi knew what the game required in terms of a narrative and they embedded it into the game with sheer perfection.

What really defines Astro Bot is it’s gameplay however.  If you played Astro’s Playroom you will be very familiar with the typical gameplay behind this title. Astro will be placed into segmented level biomes, and be given the freedom to explore and navigate its terrain to their own extent.  What Astro Bot does better than Playroom is giving these levels a whole lot more depth and detail to appreciate.  You’ll have a number of basic abilities tied to your controls like jumping and hitting. Throughout your time exploring these many levels though, you’ll gain access to a selection of abilities Astro Bot will require to use to navigate certain obstacles in the level.  The number of these abilities is grand and their utility is varied to say the least.  I won’t waste time listing out all of them, what I will do however is list a few of my favourites.  There’s a monkey ability which straps a cute robotic monkey to your back.  Using the left and right triggers, you can control the monkey’s arms to do slam attacks or pick up and throw objects.  There’s a dog ability which straps a very eager robotic dog to your back, with him attached you can thrust forward at great speed and power to smash through enemies and barriers. There’s an octopus pack which will allow you to inflate Astro Bot like a balloon, giving him the ability to levitate to higher platforms and hard to reach areas.  The variety behind each ability and their implementation within the levels alongside the way Astro simply feels to move and play around with deserves all the praise I can give.  Team Asobi really wanted to utilize the PlayStation and its controller with every creative facet at it’s disposal and it clearly shows. 

Not only is Astro Bot fun to control and play around with, but the levels he’s placed in also serve up the great sense of quality within the game to appreciate.  There are over 90 levels within this game across 60 planets and 6 galaxies, and within that large range there isn’t a single component that feels repetitive or redundant.  Team Asobi was able to fill each level in this game with so much visual intrigue and functionality that it made exploring every aspect of a level a memorable and rewarding experience.  The way the team was able to construct such a plethora of levels and imbue them with so much individual quality is a feat not seen since the best days of Super Mario Galaxy.  That’s right, I’m going there! In fact, to be a contrarian and use a comparative element, there’s a lot of similarity behind the wonderous and whimsical aura Astro Bot produces vs that of Super Mario Galaxy.  Both games recognize the key value in making each level a memorable experience, something that challenges the player to overcome its obstacles but appreciate every layer of it.  At risk of repeating myself, I really want to reinforce how incredible the level design is in this game, everything about the level structure tells a small little story that you follow through to it’s end and it invites you to overcome it while enjoying every single moment.

It's not just the incredibly tight gameplay either, this game is a visual treat to behold on every level. While not a graphically intense game by any means, Team Asobi knew how to push the technical capabilities of the PlayStation 5 at every opportunity with Astro Bot. There’s just so much visual charm baked into the world of Astro Bot.  Every level is wonderfully constructed to project the core theme and style with utmost ease.  The enemies which you fight all feel distinctly realized and they each have different variations and colours based on the level you’ll encounter them on.  Special recognition also goes to the boss level design too.  I genuinely love the animation work that went into realizing those boss fight sequences and making them feel as big and bombastic as they were. The main love from a visual perspective can be found with the bots themselves.  All throughout the game you will come to save a load of bots who are designed to reflect an IP from PlayStation’s 30-year past.  The way these bots are able to reflect the style and charm of the IP’s they’re paying homage to while also reflecting the Astro Bot charm goes a long way to cement the appeal behind this game.  I especially love when you get them back at the HUB level and they begin to populate the area and perform unique animations.  It helps distinguish them and give a lot of life to the HUB over time. Special shout out to Kenneth Young as the composer for Astro Bot too, he is able to imbue this game’s soundtrack with so much rhythmic charm that it gives the game a really unique feel to go along with everything else it touts so confidently.

When I look at Astro Bot I see a game brimming with so much quality that it’s impossible to find any significant flaw within it. Everything from the level design, story and gameplay congregate together to deliver a platformer that is putting Nintendo on notice.  At its heart this game is about celebrating the rich history of PlayStation while delivering a packed preview of an illustrious future that lies ahead.  The future for platformers is bright if we have Team Asobi at the helm, here’s to many more Astro Bot adventures to come!